Grace Lutheran Church

Sermon Proper 19A September 14, 2008 “Freedom in the Gospel”

+ In Nomine Jesu +
The Rev. Evan Gaertner
September 14, 2008
Proper 19A
Romans 14:1-12
Freedom in the Gospel
 

Today’s Epistle reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans allows us to imagine some of the situations that faced that first century congregation in Rome.

One of the things that we learn should not be too surprising. Problems are not new to churches but were present in even the first congregations. In fact every letter of Paul in the New Testament shows to us that the intersection between the promises of God’s mercy and our lives is an intersection filled with a lot of accidents.

The question or struggle in Rome was what to do with a fellow Christian who is still weak in regard to the faith. So consider that you are a member of the congregation in Rome and a brother in Christ has moved to the big city of Rome and presents himself for membership in the church. What will be necessary for this brother to be welcomed into your fellowship of believers? And if you do receive him into your fellowship with what attitude will you treat him?

The encouragement for the church in Rome was to keep taking into their fellowship people who may not have the same viewpoint as they do about disputable notions.

The descriptions of strong and weak are not meant to describe their prowess at the weight bench. Apparently the strong ate whatever food they wanted, considered no day inherently more sacred than any other and felt free to drink wine. The weak in faith apparently abstained from certain foods, observed one day as more sacred than the others and did not drink wine. These weak in faith did not necessarily make their decision because they wanted to make their life more boring. The pagan environment of Rome created for people questions about what was appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

So these two groups show a difference in lifestyle but the worry for Paul was not so much the questions of lifestyle but more the attitudes present. How should the strong view and treat the weak? How should the weak view the strong who have not made the same lifestyle choices?

I think Paul is helping us start a conversation about what is essential or necessary for us to be in fellowship with one another and on the other hand consider this about our life as a congregation: Do we have to agree on every matter or are their some issues that don’t necessarily have simple right and wrong or true and false answers?

How do we handle Christians that hold onto Jesus as savior but have different practices than we do? What must divide us?

The questions raised by today’s epistle lesson is interesting considering the words from Jesus that we heard last week about going to a brother who has sinned against you and showing him his fault so that you might bring about his repentance and offer him forgiveness.

Jesus was talking about sin, sin is that which separates us from fellowship with the body of Christ and from the kingdom of God. Paul is not talking about tolerating sin. Indeed if the problem in Rome was about right and wrong issues then they should be handled differently. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians he advised them saying, “I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard or swindler not event to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you.” (1 Cor. 5:11-13)

Paul’s words to the Corinthians were clear that unrepentant and persistent sin is a different issue than the open questions that the people of Rome were struggling with.

I gather that it is our nature to add to what is necessary for our salvation so that we can claim some role of control and Lordship over the salvation of others.

The Christian Gospel truth is simply that we are saved from our sin not by our good works but by Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This gospel truth is the core of who we are. We do not want to add our works to what Jesus Christ has done. We do not want to add issues to gospel and make our salvation dependant on anything other than Jesus Christ.

Conflict in churches happens when salvation and its reception through the Word and the Sacraments becomes clouded with other matters. A challenge for us is how many issues do we attach to our identity as a Christian. Is an organ, pews, stained glass, a hymnal, these pastor robes and all their fancy names necessary for us to be a fellowship of believers?

What is at the essence of the church is justification through the Word and Sacraments. It is in the Word of God and it is physical reality found in the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper that we find our salvation.

Our church has a received heritage of music and worship styles but this heritage, no matter how much we revel in our German heritage is not our identity as Christians, even as Lutherans. Our identity is Jesus Christ.

So we when we receive someone into our fellowship our goal is not to make them into German Lutherans, but rather together we seek to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

As we take a brother or sister into our fellowship we do not do so for the purpose of arguing our opinions. In Rome the strong in faith were possibly welcoming the weak so they could eagerly remove the weakness of the new member. They were receiving new members to make them into Roman Christians. But Paul encourages them to discover how each person is honoring the Lord through their actions. We do not grudgingly extend the hand of peace and only barely tolerate our differences. We are called to welcome one another as members of the body of Christ. We should not allow differences over disputable matters to interfere with fellowship in the body of Christ. And on the other end of things the weak in faith should not look with contempt upon the others ideas either.

God is my Lord and master and I must not present myself as Lord over another but instead as brother or sister. We are servants together of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are freed from our sins by Jesus death on the cross, this freedom is true for me in these robes, it is true for the faithful in the pews that have been here for years, this freedom from sin is ours through Jesus Christ and his righteousness.

Thank God almighty that he has come to set us free from sin, hopefully we do not become a stumbling block to anyone as they discover the great joy that is found in trusting Jesus Christ as their savior from sin.

Soli Deo Gloria