Sermon on Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (7/5/26)
Primary Text | Romans 7:15-25a
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         When I was in second or third grace I remember one of my Sunday School lessons was “Love your neighbor.” We were taught that to love your neighbor is to love everyone. Being the earnest kid that I was I took it very seriously. One day I walked through the halls of my Elementary School and said “I love you” to all the other boys and girls. That earned me some strange looks and giggles. No one seemed to appreciate my love for them. That was the first hurdle. The second hurdle was the frustration I felt at the end of the day. I learned how steep the hill is for “loving my neighbor.” I was blockaded my own selfishness, pride, and self-interest. It was also hard to love the mean kids. And it was hard to love the bullied kids. Though I had a warm-fuzzy feeling when I aspired to love others I couldn’t maintain that fuzzy feeling for long. Even at that young age I was aware of my own failure to love my neighbor. I learned to love others meant much much more than simply to say “I love you.” And so I went to bed frustrated, frustrated with both myself and with God. What I needed to hear at that point, which no one did ever manage to say to me, was not to expect perfection from myself. This life isn’t about gradually becoming a better and better person. Even more, what I needed to hear was God’s love laid out for me in Jesus Christ. That he forgives my lack of love for my neighbor. And that if I am to accomplish anything for the good of neighbor I need the power of Another to do it. What’s more, in this life we Christians actually never know the good we do, it is hidden away from us…only to be revealed on the Last Day when God separates the goats from the sheep. I needed to hear that as a little kid, and so today as we look at Romans, I hope this word of good news is what you hear
         In Romans chapter 7, Saint Paul lays out the struggle of being a Christian. He acknowledges how utterly sinful he is and really all people are, including us. He says on behalf of us all, “I know the good we must do, but we never do it. Instead, we do the evil we do not want to do.” Sin dwells within us, it is deeper than our bones. Now we think we’re doing some good things when we look with our eyes. Now we might think, “That’s not right. I know I did this really good thing yesterday.” Even so, the good we see that we do is most likely deadly sin—so we cannot escape sin even if we tried! Everything we do has sin in it, nothing is pure. And the moment we do something good and start reflecting on how good we are and patting ourselves on the back for being a good person--we're sinning again. Paul rightfully cries out, “Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death!” (pause) One might be mad at Paul and say, “Well, Paul, how can you say that? How can you say that our bodies are bodies of death? How can you say everything we do is sinful? Most people are just good people doing their best.” Here we must not trust our own reason; we must trust the witness of the Scriptures. The Scriptures know us better than we know ourselves. God has imprisoned all things under sin, in order that he may show mercy on whom he shows mercy.
One mistake many Christians make is to make the Christian life about becoming. We all get drawn into this way of thinking. I am a prime example. As I was a kid in elementary school, I naively was trying to be better and love harder. Becoming a better and better person supposedly is the point of being a Christian—so that by the time we reach old age we are super good people, without any faults. But if you pay attention to the word of God, and how much God requires of us in the law to do good, you’ll find that the Christian life isn’t one about getting better and better. But the more righteous and good we think we are the more unrighteous and unholy we really become. What you will learn by experience in this life the more you try to be a good person the more you realize how much you fail. Now, this doesn’t mean that we aren’t supposed to do the good. We agree we ought to love God and our neighbor. But we are not to trust in our own goodness, we are not to trust our own deeds. Doing good things does not a good person make. Instead, whatever good we end up doing we do out of great weakness, and only because Christ has made us alive again to do the good. Otherwise, we are dead in our sins.
Because we are so weak, and we cannot rise by ourselves, God has put together a toolkit to keep us going. One of those tools in your toolkit is the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is not meant to fall into disuse and rust. The prayer to Our Father who art in heaven ought not only cross our lips on Sunday mornings. It is a tool we need to use daily and often. God wants you to use Lord’s Prayer both morning and night, and at all other times when you can, especially in your time of need, to call on God and to ask his help. One petition that is in the Lord’s Prayer is a confession of our sins. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This line alone is proof enough Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. Forgiveness is a virtue that is alien to the world we live in. One, the scandal that we even need to be forgiven. The other, the scandal that we need to forgive others. The Prayer assumes we are always sinners. This prayer teaches us there is never a time we can go without our redeeming Christ. We depend on God to show us mercy, otherwise we are dead in sin. That’s one scandal. The other scandal, is that Christians are to be people of forgiveness. Just as God forgave us, we are to forgive others. And if we don’t forgive others, don’t expect that God forgives you. Instead we are to do good gladly to those who have sinned against us, pray for them, bless them. Scandalous! No human power on earth can accomplish this. That is a power that only comes by faith—which is itself a gift of God and not of our own creation. Insofar as we have not been born anew in Christ…we like our grudges. We cannot help but count the trespasses others have committed against us. We have no other choice. Even our own bodies keep the score. Each of us, like St. Paul, live in a body of death. We do not do the good we want, and we do the evil we hate. Who will rescue us from this body of death? And here Paul utters the good news for our bad situation: Who will rescue us from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Knowing our struggles, Jesus said so graciously said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Jesus promises us rest from this weary burden of trying and failing to follow the law and be better people, when we are captive to sin and cannot do the good we want to do. Christ does that good for us.
         In this life we always remain sinners. It’s not just a tiny bit of us that needs God’s redemption….we are in need of entire redemption. So the Lord’s Prayer is always appropriately prayed. At all times. Without exception. But though the law and sin condemn us as sinners worthy of eternal death….yet God is a God who loves sinners. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. In Christ, you have a God who delights in forgiving you, redeeming you, and saving you from all sin and death. The chalkboard of your sins has been erased. Insofar as you are in Christ, nothing will be counted against you. We Lutherans say “Christ alone is our righteousness.” We have no good to claim as coming from ourselves. Christ is the one, and only good thing, we have going for us. And he has begun giving you that goodness of himself in your baptism. Which is why we believe baptism is necessary. Beyond just obedience to God’s command to be baptized, baptism is gift of God. In baptism you are given a new you, one that did not exist before.
         Now what would I say to my 3rd grade self who tried to live up to the perfection the law demand when it says which says to love my neighbor? These words, dear little Levi, you are forgiven. And I say this not only for little Levi but also to all of you. You are forgiven. By God’s purpose and grace alone, you are forgiven. God’s forgiveness doesn’t wait to see how sincere you are or how religious you might be. Little Levi, little church, do not expect yourself or anyone else to be perfect. And don’t be discouraged from trying to love your neighbor. Because you belong to Christ you will in fact love your neighbor, even when you fail, even though you do it out of great weakness. God is using you to love your neighbor even as you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything at all—even when you’re terrible at loving others. But do not trust in yourself and what you do. Your trust belongs in the scarred hands of Christ—who will not fail you. Place all your burdens on him, for he will carry them. And you will have rest.  And you will have rest. Amen.
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