THE OTHER READING – 12 July 2020

THE OTHER READING
and
A PRETTY GOOD WORD STUDY
for
THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (2020)

The difficulty with the readings that are assigned to the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost in Year A (the Year of Matthew in the Three-Year Common Lectionary) is that the Gospel (the Parable of the Sower, Matthew 13) always takes over.

“A sower went out to sow” overshadows the birth of twins Jacob and Esau (begat by Issac and Rebekah) and their subsequent struggle up to and including the sale of Esau’s “I was born first and so will inherit everything Birthright” to for a bowl of lentil stew and a piece of bread. It’s a great story, but is usually relegated to Vacation Bible School telling complete with picture books for little children (or at least it was, until these days of the Pandemic).

“Some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up” always seems more important than the little snippet of Psalm 119, that has become a Church Camp Song, “Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light upon my path” as catchy as that phrase and its sing-song melody stuck in one’s head without end.

And, “Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” will always ring out in the minds of the listener louder than the efforts of Paul to remind the church in Rome (and the rest of us now as we bring that letter to life by reading it aloud in worship) that it is the Spirit of God that makes everything possible! (Letter to the Romans, Chapter 8.)

I know. I’ve preached lots of Sermons on the Parable of the Sower, one quite memorable –

at least to me – as I demonstrated to the congregation just how the sowing would have taken place. How did I know? Because I used to follow my Grandfather into certain parts of the field unreachable by the tractor and seeder whereat he would “scarify” the seed with a hand reaching rhythmically into the sack hung over one shoulder, and with just the right amount of force and swing of the arm and opening of the hand ever so carefully back and forth the seed would land onto the ground. Yes, some on the path, some among rocks, some in the weeds, and some in the deep dark soil of the best field I can remember from my youth.

It was a great Sermon.

However.

I always wanted to preach on the Second Reading: Romans 8.1-11. But, I never took the chance. I never reached out into the mind of Paul of Tarsus through all those Centuries, to see if I could maybe sit with him there in Greece (in Corinth, at the home of Gaius) as he penned or dictated his thoughts to his scribe and composed what many have called Paul’s Gospel – vital to Augustine’s conversion, the basis for Luther’s “Reforming” of the Church, central to John Wesley’s thought and ministry, and in 1919 to Karl Barth as he wrote his famous Commentary that caused such a major shift in theological thinking.

I wanted to be with Paul there in that room, or under that tree, or maybe even walking in peripatetic thought (the Greek word for that actually appears in verse 4) as he mused on the matters of grace, justification and faith. I wanted to sit next to Deacon Phoebe into whose hands the letter would be entrusted as she carried it to the Roman community.

And I never did. In forty years of Ordained Life, I never dared to venture beyond the seed, the sower, and the soil. Why not? No doubt because of anticipation of “feed-back” from the congregation. I could always hear something like, “Well, that was an ‘okay’ sermon Pastor, but I just remember when Pastor Magnum Opus who confirmed me preached on the Parable of the Sower. It changed my life.”

As any preacher knows, you can never compete with Pastor Opus.

But, I’m retired! And I have not only the ability (virtually so these days) of seeing/hearing a multitude of wonderful Sermons (including those on this Gospel for this Sunday), but the time to ponder some new ones spoken or not.

+

First, the text (New Revised Standard Version). I ask you to read it through and picture in your mind: Paul writing this to the Church, to you.

¹There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, ⁸and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. ⁹But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Now, please read through the text a second time (I’ve printed it below) and pay attention to the use of the word/term “Spirit.”

¹There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, ⁸and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. ⁹But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

As Yoda would say, “Hmmm.”

Now a bit of Word-Study.

Here are the phrases using Spirit that I found. If you can read Greek (Koiné) I’ve also put that below the English:

8.2 law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ

8.4 who walk – – – according to the Spirit
περιπατοῦσιν ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα.

See, there in the Greek is that word περιπατοῦσιν (pronounced peri-pah-TOU-sin) I mentioned earlier; it means “walk” or “walk around”.

8.5 those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
οἱ δὲ κατὰ πνεῦμα τὰ τοῦ πνεύματος

The Greek uses less words, and is a bit idiomatic. The phrase picks up the first part of the verse: those who live according to the flesh and then wraps that and the second part around the verb to “set ones mind on” (a great Greek word, φρονοῦσιν. It’s a particular and peculiar Pauline way of writing, sort of a compare and contrast, or a doublet, in any case this is this way and that is that way. You get the point.

8.9a [but] you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you
ἀλλὰ ἐν πνεύματι, εἴπερ πνεῦμα θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν

8.9b Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
εἰ δέ τις πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ οὐκ ἔχει, οὗτος οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῦ

Another idiomatic piece of writing. The Greek reads literally word-by-word “if but whoever spirit of Christ not has, that one not lives in that one.” There are many ways to translate that literal reading into readable/say-able English; the NRSV does well here.

OK, two more:

8.10 the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζωὴ διὰ δικαιοσύνην.

This only makes sense if you read the whole verse, which says that even if your body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. I have to admit I’ve read that, read it aloud, probably even nodded my head toward it in agreement – but really? What is Paul trying to say? We have to go onto the next verse. Therein lies the answer. Paul is like that.

8.11a Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead
τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ ἐγείραντος τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ νεκρῶν οἰκεῖ

and

8.11b through his Spirit that dwells in you
διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ πνεύματος ἐν ὑμῖν.

Again, the Greek reads literally word-by-word “through the living-in of his spirit in you (plural).” Two things come to mind: (1) Paul is writing to the plural, not the individual. Sadly, when Paul’s letters are interpreted and preached, the preacher insists upon the individual not the plural. And that misses the point. This is not personal piety, it is community faith and life. (2) the word “living-in” ἐνοικοῦντος is often translated “indwelling” and is used again individually by many as in “the indwelling of the Holy Spirit” a personal piety. But that is not what Paul is writing. He (again) is writing to the plural, to the community indicating that the Spirit (Living Presence let us say) of God is alive and moving about within the community. Luther might use the phrase (as he did in his Sacramental theology) “in, with and under.”

Now, put this second part with the first and what do we have, but Paul saying: If you have Christ in you, the Spirit in you, even though death is a reality, so is life because of the Spirit (Living Presence); just so the one who raised Jesus from the dead is the same one who will raise you and give life to your “mortal bodies” because the Spirit (Living Presence) of that One, is living inside you (plural).

Beyond that, it’s a mystery – to be unraveled only when you read on in the Letter to the Romans and read it over and over and over and over – – – again.

+

So, as my Professor of Homiletics used to say in Seminary, “And now? Can you write one paragraph that would be a Sermon of all that study? Just one paragraph that in case you fall ill on Sunday morning someone else would read the text and then your paragraph to the congregation and there it would be?”

Harder than one imagines.

I’ll try.

SITTING next to Paul of Tarsus (in my vivid imagine) as he writes these words (or dictates them) to be hand-delivered to the congregation in the Roman Capitol, I hear him saying something like, “Let’s get serious here. You-all not only “have” Jesus (in some sort of mystical sense), you-all also have the Spirit (Living Presence) of Jesus (or God, same thing). And because of that you possess the “law” (let us say “ruling”) of that Spirit, you are walking in that Spirit, and that Spirit is living inside you, within your community, among you, in all that you say and do. So, never forget that even death can’t take that away from you. The present and final gift of that Spirit (Living Presence) of Jesus (or God, same thing) is life.

Amen.