Invitational Living

Do you remember bull sessions? At least that’s what we used to call them when I was in college. We were around 18 to 22 years old. We used to sit and talk late into the night, figuring out what we believed about the meaning of life. We were laying the foundation for the rest of our lives, whether we knew it or not.

“Well, my friend, we’re older, but no wiser.” We don’t talk much about the meaning of reality; we’re too busy surviving – working, preparing for retirement, or retired and crossing off items on our bucket list. We don’t have much time for deep discussions about life, but of course our questions remain. We still wonder what it all means, and as we get older, we wonder even more.

One Option

There is a dominant answer in our society – that is, life is meaningless. Many people assume that there is no real meaning to life, so they live for the moment and enjoy what we can do today.

Some of you may have read a delightful and funny exposition of this point of view: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams wrote the first part of this multi-volume series in 1978, and now it has expanded to six books, retelling the same story in various contradictory versions. The first book of this fantasy series presents the idea that a supreme race of philosophers built a gigantic super-computer (named “Deep Thought”) to answer the question of “life, the universe, and everything”. After several million years, the computer spits out the answer: 42. The philosophers are upset, but the computer reminds them, “You only asked for the answer. You didn’t ask for the question.”

Deep Thought then builds them an even greater organic supercomputer (“whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate” – sound familiar?), which turns out to be the earth. Finally, we find out the question: “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?” Of course, the answer is not 42. Life does not add up. Reality has no meaning.

A side note: A quick exploration of Wikipedia gives a variety of other explanations for this juxtaposition of question and answer. What I have said here is my own view, which is consistent, I believe, with the larger work of The Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Douglas Adams is often extremely funny (depending on your sense of humour), and his books are fun to read, but the basic message – life is meaningless – can paralyze us.

Another Option

Jesus tells his parables to describe the kingdom of God. When Jesus describes “God’s Reign”, he is letting us know what the fabric of the universe we live in looks like. In our parable this morning, and in the parables surrounding it, Jesus describes the way that God relates to humankind, whom God made, and indeed to the whole of creation.

This parable appears in a section of Luke sometimes called, “The Road to Jerusalem”.  From Luke 9:51 (As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem) until the “triumphal entry” described in Luke 19, Jesus is walking to Jerusalem with his disciples. As they walk together, Jesus teaches them the central message of the gospel.

The parables, with their description of God’s Reign, contain the central message of the gospel. The good news is that Jesus has come as God’s Chosen Messiah, and that all who repent (turn away from their own path to walk in God’s path) become part of God’s Reign.

What does God’s Reign look like? Or, to put it another way, what does the God who reigns look like? From our parable, and from the parables surrounding this passage, I note three basic characteristics of God, and of God’s Reign.

1. God is Joyful God

This image of a banquet or feast at the end of time comes from Isaiah 25: 6 to 8 and is repeated in various places, including Revelation 19: 6 to 9. The image of a banquet or feast conveys joy, and indeed joy is a fundamental quality both of God as God and of our life in God.

The old hymns say it well:

It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, Full of glory, full of glory;

It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, Oh, the half has never yet been told.

Or, if you prefer Keith Green: “I’ve got a river life flowing out of me …” Pure joy!

Paul says it clearly, writing from prison in Philippians 4: “⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

It follows that God’s people live lives of joy. We live often in difficult circumstances full of loss and hardship. But the underlying current of our lives is “joy unspeakable, and full of glory.” Too many people think that Christians are sober, with no laughter or fun. You remember the old children’s game: “Quaker Meeting has begun, no more talking, no more fun. No more chewing chewing gum. Starting now...” Then everyone keeps completely quiet; the first person to smile or laugh or talk loses the game.

That jingle makes a neat children’s game, but it does not describe life in Christ. We are people of joy. You know how joy works. When a loved one dies, if the relationship was good and the deceased person deeply loved, laughter rises as the family gathers and grieves. Joy bubbles along beneath the surface of tears. Joy does not remove our grief, but rather joy allows us to grieve more fully; joy heals us.

An implication of living with joy is that we work against anything in this world that strips people of joy. The exercise of power against marginalized people robs them of their joy; therefore, such abuse works against God’s Reign. As people of joy, we walk with the marginalized and dispossessed because they are also part of God’s banquet. That thought is clearly echoed in the parable as the master sends his servants out to gather the marginalized from the highways around his house.

A Side Note: I add that when we identify with the marginalized, we often find that they know the joy of the Lord better than we do. They teach us to know the God of Joy!

2. God is a Seeking God

Jesus pictures God as one who seeks the lost. That note comes through more clearly in the parables that follow in Luke 15, but it is present here also in our parable. The servants go out into the roads around the master’s house seeking guests for the banquet.

If we examine ourselves carefully, we could tell stories of how God sought us and brought us into God’s family. My grandfather used to remember how he gave his life to Christ as the congregation sang the parable found in Luke 15: “There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold, but one was out on the hills away, far off in the distant cold.” He knew that he was that lost sheep, and he knew that Jesus had sought him and found him.

God wants us also to be a seeking people. We keep our eyes and hearts open to the needs of people around us. As God sought for us, we seek also for others who are in need. Our parable reminds us to live with open hearts and open hands, ready to help whoever needs our help.

3. God is an Invitational God

We come to the third characteristic I note this morning. This is the one you see in our title. I suggest that this quality builds on and expresses more fully the first two we have seen. God invites us to life. God invites us to eternity with God. God invites all people to the Great Wedding Feast of the Lamb and to build our lives on God’s constant presence active within.

God’s invitation goes with God’s seeking. God seeks the lost sheep in Luke 15 and carries it home. The invitation of Luke 14 reminds us that the lost sheep can in fact refuse the invitation. The first guests in the parable say “No” to the master’s invitation. In Matthew 22, Jesus tells another parable about the Messianic Feast at the end of time. Here also the master sends the servants in the streets to bring in the marginalized people of the world; this time one of these people comes, but he does not prepare for the feast. He is in turn thrown out of the banquet.

This act of judgment reminds us that the invited person can refuse the invitation. It doesn’t matter if the refusal gives plausible excuses or bad excuses; any refusal on our part excludes us. However the guest says no, refusing the invitation excludes the invited guest. This is a sobering and difficult truth, but it is true.

A side note: The excuses of Luke 14 are a mixture of plausible and implausible. The first excuse (I bought a field) may suggest the world of business – but it would be a bad buyer who had not checked the field before buying it! The new team of oxen suggests farming, but again, what kind of farmer would buy a piece of equipment before checking it out? The third excuse – I just got married – has the weight of Scripture behind it. Deuteronomy 24: 5 states: “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.” But if his marriage was so close, why was he accepting an invitation to someone else’s wedding banquet? In any case, the way that the excuses are set aside makes it clear: Neither the claims of business, nor of farming, nor of family are acceptable when used to refuse God’s invitation to join God’s reign. God’s Reign comes first, before anything else in life.

All of this stands against interpreting the last command – “compel them to come in” – to mean that we have no choice when God invites us. We have a choice: The most important choice in our lives.

When we combine God’s invitation with God’s seeking, we realize that God holds out the invitation relentlessly. I think of a close friend who refused God’s invitation in her life until she lay dying of kidney failure. She told her daughter, “I’ve wrestled with the devil, and I’ve lost.” Her daughter told me then of my friend’s last words before dying: “I’m going to Jehovah’s Land.” I believe that when she admitted her failure, God renewed the invitation to life, and she is now at God’s eternal Wedding feast. God’s invitation remains open until we leave this life.

God is an invitational God, and God wants us also to live invitationally. God wants us to invite people into our lives and to invite them to join us at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

This kind of living is hard. Living this way means that we keep ourselves open to others – even to other people who can hurt us. I remember a close friend who thought that I had betrayed him. Lois and I used to get together often with him and his wife, but, feeling that I had betrayed them, they closed the door to further contact. Living invitationally with my friends means remaining open to the hurt they can bring to us. Our natural response is to close the door against them as well. I believe that God wants us to keep the door open to a return, even if that return opens old wounds.

Jesus of course is the example, remaining open to his enemies even on the cross. His example is expressed well in a prayer from the Anglican Prayer Book:

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honour of your Name. Amen

Some people don’t like this prayer because of its “transactional nature”. I see in it rather God’s eternal openness to us, accepting our rebellion into his arms of love and welcoming us to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb – if we will say yes to his invitation.

Some Closing Thoughts

God, then, is God who celebrates, God who seeks, and God who invites. God wants us also to be a people of joy, who seek those separated from God and invite them to join the party.

The parable makes it clear that this invitation is for everyone. The religious professionals in his audience recognized themselves among the first guests. The “people of the land”, the marginalized people of Israel, recognized themselves among the guests brought in at the end. The truth is that everyone is invited.

Two basic points emerge from what we have said. One is that we can accept or refuse the invitation. Refusal appears unthinkable, but many people do refuse God. We then continue to seek them, trusting that God’s relentless love will reach them. Two is that God wants us to imitate God and remain open to everyone, even those who can hurt us most. Such openness requires God’s Spirit in us. None of us can live this way if God’s Spirit does not energize us. But if God’s Spirit is flowing within us, we will live this way naturally. When you get into the best party for eternity, you want everyone else to join you!

Steinbach Mennonite Church

5 August 2018

Text

Luke 14: 15-24

The parable of the great banquet

¹⁵ When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

¹⁶ Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷ At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ ¹⁹ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ ²⁰ Still another said, ‘I have just got married, so I can’t come.’

²¹ “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ ^22 ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ ²³ Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. ²⁴ I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

Reflections of a White African: 5 (What’s so special about Africa?)

I have been asked to talk about Africa. I was born in Zambia and lived in Zambia and Zimbabwe for over 20 years. I lived in the USA for 25 years, and now also in Canada for 20 years. I have layers of identity (as most of us do), with Africa at the centre, so that Africa lives in my heart.

I grew up in a country run by a small White minority. When colonial Rhodesia became free Zimbabwe, many of my fellow White Africans “took the gap” – they left the country never to return. I am in contact with some of them. They are good people, but they miss the privilege that we had when half of the country’s resources were spent for a minority of five percent.

Some of them miss Zimbabwe for other reasons. Some have stayed in Zimbabwe, because Africa is home and they don’t want to live anywhere else. My question this evening is: What’s so special about Africa? What has caused White Africans to remain when they are no longer in control of the country? Why do some return after living elsewhere.

The answer varies from person to person, so I am speaking only from my own experience. I think that what I have to say applies more broadly, but you will have to talk with people from other countries in Africa to find out if what I say about Zimbabwe is true in their homes as well.

What’s so special about Africa?

1. Some people point to the scenery and the animals out in the bush. Having an elephant stalk past your little rondavel, brushing against the window as it passes, is an incredible experience. I have driven through a herd of water buffalo – slowly, not wanting a stampede – with the sound of a Wild West movie playing inside my head. And the scenery! I was born near Victoria Falls – twice as wide as Niagara Falls and one and a half times as high. Immense and powerful, with spray that drenches the surrounding grassland and turns it into a rainforest.

The truth is, of course, that Africa is incredibly beautiful, but so is the rest of the world around us. From China’s Great Wall to the Canadian Rockies, from the Rift Valley in East Africa to the Ruwenzori Mountains of the Congo, from Iguassu Falls in Brazil to the Taj Mahal, we have beauty all around us. Africa is beautiful, but that is not the primary reason that anyone would choose to go back home to live there.

2. Some people remember their youth, and they think that what they had when they were young was clearly better than anything since. This would be true for those with whom I grew up. Often they are right, but they forget the human cost of what we had. I remember Rhodesia of old. There were 300,000 White people at the most, and about seven million Black people. The White schools were excellent, but there were only a handful of places for Black scholars.

I remember the situation when I was a teacher there in the early 1970s. Consider, after grade seven Black Zimbabweans took an exam to see who could go on for further studies. The top 12 percent went on to high school. Then after grade 12 (as we would call it), they took another exam, and this time the top eight percent went on to university or teacher training college. Roughly one out of 100 Black children were able to pursue higher education. No wonder we had high standards! The whole process was built on systemic injustice. Those who think that colonial Africa was better forget the human cost of the colonial system. Remembering the old days is no reason to call Africa special.

3. I know what I miss. I love Zimbabwean music and the sound of the people singing and speaking, laughing and being. There are certain foods that I miss. I miss biltong and Marie biscuits, lemon cremes and gooseberry jam. I miss the crumbly Cadbury’s chocolate I used to get in Bulawayo and the licorice that was actually more green than black. I miss buying shelled peas from the vendor on the way home, not to mention roasted peanuts poured into a funnel made out of newspaper. I miss mealies (corn on the cob) roasted over a charcoal fire.

I miss the African night, so dark that you can really see the stars. I miss idonsakusa and icela inkobi – the names of the morning and evening stars. I miss the Southern Cross, which you can’t see in the northern hemisphere. I miss the sounds of the birds, the grey lourie crying “G’way!” I miss the brightly coloured lizards that scamper about the rocks. And I miss the rocks themselves, big boulders that make themselves into mountains in the Matopo Hills, where I grew up. But none of these things are what I miss the most. None of these things are really what makes Africa special.

What makes Africa special?

Our son once said that he wanted to go back to Zimbabwe to live. He was about 10 at the time and had been five years old when we left Zimbabwe. I asked him what was different about Zimbabwe from North America. He thought for a bit, and then replied, “In Africa, they treat people like people.” Bingo! That’s what’s special about Africa!

We have a saying in Zimbabwe. “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.” Literally: A person is a person with people. More fully: You become a real person (fully human) in community, in relationship with other people. Desmond Tutu used to describe this quality of life in Africa as “Ubuntu” – humanness. When one person hurts, the whole community gathers around that person. When someone dies, we gather with the bereaved family and make sure they do not have to face death alone. When someone is in need, someone else will leave what they need at their door. No questions, no fuss, just care.

Canada is a great place, but we prioritize tasks over people. We care for each other, but we value getting things done even more. In Africa, we prioritize people over tasks. We want to get things done, but “in Africa, they treat people like people!” That’s what makes Africa special.

The Reign of God

Introduction
You heard the Scripture Reading a moment ago. Paul is making a point to the church in Philippi. He has just pleaded with them to go deeper in their relationship with God, resulting in a closer relationship also with each other. One can see this passage as a development of the Great Commandment: Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbour as yourself.

He illustrates that closer relationship within the fellowship of believers by appealing to Christ’s example. Jesus did not use his identity as the divine Son of God to insist on his honour and glory, but rather assumed the identity of a servant.

In this section, Paul is quoting an early Christian hymn, which then turns to give glory to Jesus for his self-sacrifice:

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

This closing statement gives the earliest Christian confession: “Jesus Christ is Lord.” We can see the revolutionary nature of this confession in the way that early Christians died as martyrs in the arena. The Roman authorities would make a sacrifice on an altar and then command the Christian to make a public confession, “Caesar is Lord.” When Christians refused and said instead, “Jesus is Lord”, they were killed.

This confession, “Jesus is Lord”, is the centre of my faith as a follower of Jesus, and this is what I want to reflect on in terms of our semester theme: “On earth as it is in Heaven.”

My Church Background

I come from the Brethren in Christ Church. We are a branch of Anabaptists who formed their own church in Pennsylvania in 1778. We were one of those groups who tried to follow Jesus’ sayings as closely as possible. For example, we refused to swear an oath in court because Jesus said, “Let your Yes be yes, and let your No be no.” That is, keep your word!

I was reading a history of the BIC in Canada. Some of our people from Pennsylvania moved to the Niagara Peninsula about 1800, which is also when and where my family joined the BIC. The history noted how careful our people were to tell the truth. A part of that care was the way we celebrated a “Love Feast” (Feetwashing and Communion) twice a year. So that we would all be in right relationship with God before taking communion, the deacons would go around the church and ask each family, “How is it between you and the Lord?” We were called “the plain people”, and the history quoted the customs officers at the Peace Bridge between the US and Canada. They said, “We don’t worry about the plain people. We know that if anyone has brought something from New York State without paying the customs toll on it, twice a year they will come and confess to us and pay the dues!” So we took being faithful to God’s teaching seriously! A basic part of that understanding was the affirmation, “Jesus is Lord!”

Case One

When I turned 18, I was living in Pennsylvania, during the Vietnam War. I was drafted to serve in Vietnam. Because I enrolled in college, I received a four-year deferment from the draft, so that my draft call took effect in 1972. I registered with my local draft board as Conscientious Objector (CO), which the draft board granted. As a result, I went to Zimbabwe and served three years of alternative service with my church, instead of going to war with any classmates who served in Vietnam.

I didn’t understand my pacifism at that time very well, but in the years since then I have concluded that the biggest problem in the military is not the violence, but its requirement of absolute obedience. I cannot say, “My country is Lord”, because Jesus is Lord. This belief has not been costly for me, since my country also gives me the freedom to hold my stance as a CO. My father-in-law was also a CO, and it cost him more than it did me.

Case Two

Dad Heise was drafted during World War Two. He turned 18 in 1943 (I think), and was drafted to fight in the Allied Forces. Because he was a CO, he also refused the draft. At that time he was farming with his father (Grandfather Heise), so his family appealed to the draft board to exclude him from the draft, since farming was held to be a necessary occupation, even during war. The draft board refused, saying that the family exclusion could go only to his father. Grandfather Heise was in poor health, so when Dad went into Civilian Public Service, his parents were not able to keep the farm. (CPS was used throughout the war for pacifists to serve the government in a non-combatant role.)

The loss of the farm changed my father-in-law’s life. He and my mother-in-law were already engaged. They planned to get married and take over the family farm, but when Dad came home from CPS there was no farm. So Dad went to medical school and became a family physician. Being a doctor carries some prestige in our society, but for Dad it was always second best to being a farmer. It was also the result of saying, “Jesus is Lord”, no matter what the government said. Dad also did not suffer greatly, but he knew the cost of saying “Jesus is Lord.”

Case Three

Grandfather Heise is our third case study for saying, “Jesus is Lord.” During the First World War, grandfather was drafted to fight for the US military in Europe. He also refused to put on the uniform. The American government at that time made less provision for COs, and grandfather was put in prison. His prison accommodation was not good. The cell was damp, and he was held for an extended period. The damp accommodations affected his health, which was the source of lifelong weakness.

So grandfather’s stance in World War One cost him the farm in World War Two. His basic objection to putting on the uniform was the same one I gave for myself: He could not say that his government was the ruler of his life, because he knew that Jesus is Lord.

A Problem

There is, of course, a problem with these stories I have told you. They suggest that a really faithful Christian, one who takes the Lordship of Christ seriously, will be in constant conflict with society. There is some truth to this idea. Our world wants to control our lives. Paul tells us to not allow our world to press us into its mould, but to be transformed by the mind of Christ (Romans 12). Jesus tells us that no one can serve two masters. We must choose: is Jesus Lord in our life, or is “money, sex, and power” Lord in our lives? (Matthew 6:24)

But here’s the problem. Paul quotes this great Christian hymn about Jesus the Servant, who is also the Lord of the Universe. When he quotes this hymn, he is not making the point that we are in conflict with the larger society, but rather he is emphasizing the unity that he wants to see in the church. His point is not that we are conflictual, but that we are a people of peace with each other as well as with the military.

Hear Paul’s words again:

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

The Point

We followers of Jesus are a people of peace who care for each other quite radically. In point of fact, this commitment brings us into conflict with our society at even deeper level than the military. The USA has moved away from the draft to a volunteer army, so my sons have not had to decide in the way that I did during the Vietnam War. Yet they and I alike are influenced by the larger culture as much as anyone.

The larger culture does not understand the kind of thing Paul says here. Our culture insists that we must take care of ourselves first. There is good sense in this. We cannot love others as we love ourselves, if we don’t love ourselves. There is also bad sense in this. To love ourselves – and to love others – is not primarily a feeling; it does not mean, “Feel good about yourself and others.” It means what Paul says in Philippians: “Look out for each other’s interest.”

Our culture is based on the freedom of the individual to be unique, each of us primarily responsible for ourselves. God’s reign is based on our service to God, expressed in service to each other and therefore responsible for each other.

Can You Do It?
C.S. Lewis has described this as the Christian virtue of humility. Here is what he says: “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.” You don’t put yourself down; rather you lift others up. Lewis continues: 

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. …. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.

(Mere Christianity, from the chapter on “The Great Sin” [Pride].)

“Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” God reigns in our hearts, and as a result we really care about each other. We are truly interested in each other.

·         This means dying to our own sense of self-importance.

·         This means that we “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep”.

·         This means that actually notice each other.

Have you ever felt invisible? It is a most uncomfortable feeling. When Heaven comes close to earth, we realize that we really matter – and that all the people around us really matter.

I’m not calling you to follow the path I took towards military service. I do call you to follow Jesus as Lord, and to work out the rule of Christ in the way that you treat people around you.

This really does mean breaking with the rule of our culture. For example, we will reject the political hostility of our culture, which seeks to attack the enemy at every point. Further, we will welcome those who follow Christ. Even when they have transgressed the laws of the country (as some of my friends have), we will welcome them as brothers and sisters, calling on them to repent, and caring for them throughout their lives.

“Love each other as I have loved you”, Jesus said. When we do this, we come closer to God’s reign, and we can hear the music of Heaven singing, “At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Providence Community Chapel

11 October 2017

Philippians 2: 1-11

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. ⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Law of Reciprocity

Introduction

Thanksgiving Sunday. Each year at Thanksgiving we remember the good gifts we have received and say, “Thank you.” We thank God for the gift of life, physical and spiritual. We thank our parents for home and family. We thank those in our lives who have helped us and made our lives possible. We express our gratitude in word and in deed, thanking those who have blessed us, and seeking in turn to bless others around us in their lives.

In Canada, Thanksgiving Day celebrates what the English might call a harvest festival. The primary focus of our thanks, then, is the bounty we receive from the earth through the annual harvest. We thank God for God’s good gifts, and we receive those gifts primarily through the annual harvest of crops. Most of us do not live closely connected to the land, in the way that our forebears did when Thanksgiving Day in Canada began, but on this day at least we remember our connection to God’s good gift of the land.

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

The passage in Deuteronomy reflects this connection. Moses is speaking to the people. He says, “The Lord has given you a good land, full of all that you need. When you are prosperous, you will be inclined to think that you have earned your good fortune. Don’t believe it! God has given this to you, and you must remember God and serve God.”

One of the themes running through our passage is found in verses 14 to 16, which recognize God’s providing power in the desert. The Children of Israel knew God as God of the desert, God of the sandy dry waterless places, able to keep them in the space between Egypt and the Promised Land. But Canaan has its own gods, especially Baal, the god of the storm. Some of them may have wondered if their God, Yahweh, could take care of them once they entered the Promised Land. There was the real possibility that the people would turn to Baal rather than to God once they were established in the land. This possibility lies behind the temptation to take credit themselves for their future prosperity. God says to them, “Don’t do it!” God is God of the whole earth, and God has given them the land. They are to thank God and give their allegiance to God, not to take credit for themselves or to worship any other god.

God’s warning is serious business. Hear the verses immediately after the passage we read: “If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.”

I think of our own lives today. We worship the god of pleasure and power – you can call this god (in the title of a book by Richard Foster) “money, sex, and power”. We take credit ourselves for the wealth we have accumulated and the material blessings of our lives. God warns us: “Don’t do it!” All that we have comes from God. As the words of the old hymn put it, “Naught have I gotten but what I received.”

We turn to Luke 17:11-19

This is an interesting scene, and a bit puzzling. It begins with the ten lepers acting together—Jews and a Samartian, bonded together in their shared need. Aware of their need, they seek Jesus’ help. Jesus responds with the simple command to act as though they have already been healed.

The basic procedure was that the priests diagnosed leprosy, and that those so labelled had to avoid contact with those not affected. They were “unclean” and therefore separated from the larger society of those who were “clean”. We do not think in these categories today, but they are common in shame and honour cultures. To be right within society and right with God is to be clean, and any impurity is unclean. Leprosy, a disease that disfigured the skin, made one unclean, cut off from the rest of society. If one was healed and therefore cleansed, the priests again were the gatekeepers who had to ratify the change in status. The action of the priests reflects the category of clean and unclean, a religious rather than simply health-related category.

All ten responded in faith—seen in their obedience to Jesus when they went to see the priests. They presented themselves and were pronounced clean and thus restored to society, socially and religiously. Only one, the outsider Samaritan, returned to Jesus to say thank you. Jesus said that his healing came through his faith, expressed in his gratitude. The other nine were also saved by their faith, but they did not receive commendation from the Messiah. They were restored, but did not follow through in faith to relate more closely with the anointed one of God.

For us the message is simple: We receive health and life from God’s hands. All of us receive these blessings, whether we say thank you or not, but only those who turn in gratitude to God receive the further gift of spiritual life. All are restored to health, but only this one is saved.

[The word “heal” and the word “save” are the same in Greek. I am not sure that the text itself intends the difference I have suggested between “healed” and “saved”—Luke uses two different words: in verse 15 it uses iamoai (to be healed physically or spiritually), and in verse 19 he uses sozo (to heal or to save). Both words carry the double meaning of physical healing and of spiritual salvation, and I think my reading is in tune with the spirit of the passage.]

Finally, 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

We turn to Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians.

Some background: Paul was a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, committed to the primacy of the Law of Moses. Through his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road outside of Damascus, his primary focus changed from the Law to the gospel of God’s grace revealed in Jesus Christ. One of his most important insights was that God has opened the door to all people to enter into the realm of God, Jew and Gentile alike. That theme is basic to his letters to the Romans and to the Galatians. We are saved not by keeping the Law of Moses, but by God’s grace active in our lives through faith.

Some early Christians thought all of this meant that Paul had rejected his Jewish identity, but that was not the case. He valued his heritage, and he looked up to the Jerusalem church as the mother church. So it was that, when the Roman Province of Judea experienced famine, and the mother church was suffering from the effects of the famine, Paul undertook to collect money from the Gentile churches he had planted to take to Jerusalem to help them in their plight.

Acts 21 tells how Paul took the gift to the Jerusalem church, and then, in order to allay people’s fears that he opposed the Law of Moses, he entered the Temple to worship in full accordance with the Law. While he was there, some Jews from Asia accused him of breaking the Law, setting in motion the events that led to Paul being taken to Rome to appear before Caesar.

Our passage this morning refers to this collection for the church in Jerusalem. Paul was collecting from the Gentile churches in general, and here he appealed to the Corinthians. In summary, Paul says that there is a fundamental law of life that we receive what we give. You [Corinthians] have given generously, and so you will receive from God all that you need. God gives us grace, and we extend grace to each other. This is what I am calling the law of reciprocity (or the law of interdependence).

This passage takes us further than the first two. Not only do we express gratitude to God for God’s good gifts, we show our gratitude by being generous to others. So verse 11 (for example) states: “You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” (Compare also verse 6.) You are blessed, so that you can bless others. This is the law of reciprocity at work in the Corinthians. This law of reciprocity is at work in our lives also.

Our Context Today

I grew up with the hymn, “Make me a blessing.”

Out in the highways and byways of life,/ Many are weary and sad; Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife, Making the sorrowing glad.

Make me a blessing, make me a blessing,/ Out of my life may Jesus shine;/ Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray,/   Make me a blessing to someone today.

The intent of the song was to state this truth: God has blessed us, and we in turn bless others. Today this sentiment appears antiquated and out-of-date. The stronger sentiment in our culture is captured in the phrase, “Look out for number one.” We hear this whenever we fly. The flight attendant tells us what to do in event of an emergency and then says something like this:

Oxygen and the air pressure are always being monitored. In the event of a decompression, an oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you. To start the flow of oxygen, pull the mask towards you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally. Although the bag does not inflate, oxygen is flowing to the mask. If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask first, and then assist the other person.

This instruction is good when you are flying: Take care of yourself first, but in our society it has turned into a kind of individualism that cares only about the self, and not about the other at all.

The fact is that the hyper-individualism of our culture has led us into chaos and threatens the breakdown of our society. Consider the mass shooting this past weekend in Las Vegas. We do not yet know why the shooter took the actions he did. We do know that he was almost cut off from the surrounding society. He was an individual, living almost in his own little bubble. He may have had a few friends somewhere; authorities refer to something almost like a double life, which we do not yet understand. But for the most part he was isolated from community.

Someone who is genuinely in community would have found it much harder to take such an action. You may have heard the African proverb, popularized by Bishop Desmond Tutu, “A person is a person in and through community.” This means that we become fully human through relationships with other people in our community. The isolated unrelated individual becomes less human and more susceptible to the evil that lies within each of us.

Healing our modern condition comes through relationships, through community, through having other people mediate God’s presence to us, and then mediating God’s presence to others in our turn. Reciprocity is a law of life. We give and we receive. We receive as we give.

At the beginning of the school year at Providence, our President, David Johnson, played a TED talk to us. The talk was by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the United Kingdom, entitled, “Facing the future without fear, together,” dated April 25, 2017. His basic theme was that we need to stand together, rather than fight with each other, in order to face the future without fear.

In making his basic point, he closed with an exhortation to go through the software of our minds and do a search and replace. Wherever we find the word “self”, he said, replace with “other”. It’s a good idea! Consider the following:

·         “Take care of yourself” becomes “Take care of each other.”

·         “Look out for number one” becomes “Look out for your neighbour.”

·         “Self-help” becomes “other-help”, and “Self-esteem” becomes “other-esteem”.

Rabbi Sacks is an Orthodox Jew. He is not trying to present Christian teaching, but he echoes the teaching of Jesus and of Paul quite precisely in Philippians 2: 1 to 4.

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

“Not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of the others.” Wow! This cuts against our larger society as directly as possible. The old hymn, “Make me a blessing to someone today”, is not out-of-date. It is as contemporary as possible. It is exactly what God wants us to do here and now.

Conclusion

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. We celebrate Thanksgiving by practicing the law of reciprocity. We bless as we are blessed. But what does it mean to bless each other as God has blessed us? What is a blessing? Let me give you a closing word study on “bless”, using a little bit of the Ndebele language from Zimbabwe. In Ndebele (or Zulu), the verb is a simple word like hamba. If I say ngiyahamba”, it means “I am going”. “Hamba” means  “go” or “walk”. (Those who have sung “Siyahamba ekukhanyeni kwenkosi” have used this word before.) When you add the suffix –isa to a verb, you change it to what we call a causative. So “hamba” means “go, and “hambisa” means “cause to go”, that is, “send”.

This rule works with the word for bless also. Consider the root of the word “bless” in Ndebele. The root word is “busa”. Once again many of us here have heard this word. Remember “The Lion King”? In the closing song the animals all sing, “Busa Simba!” That means, “Rule, Simba!” Simba is now the king, so Simba will rule: iyabusa. Now take “busa” and add the suffix –isa: Busisa. “Busisa” means “bless”, so I can say to you, “Nkosi likubusise” (“May the Lord bless you”).

Do you see what has happened? In Ndebele, to bless means “to cause to rule”. When we say that God blesses us, that means that God has caused us to rule in our lives, that is, God has given us self-control, the internal safety of self-control even in the storm. There is profound truth here: Being out of control is one of our society’s greatest fears. We are lost, adrift in a chaotic and dangerous world. When Jesus rules in our lives, he makes us part of the realm of God. We become ‘slaves of righteousness”, in Paul’s language. When Jesus rules in our lives, he gives us the gift of ruling ourselves. Remember that “self-control” is the final element listed in the fruit of the Spirit (Ephesians 5).

Similarly, to bless others is to help them take control of their own lives. Being blessed does not mean being wealthy, or strong, or more fortunate than others. It means simply, being in control: As Paul puts it, “I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.” Blessing others then means that we do not try to control them. We may provide various kinds of physical and mental help, but more importantly we walk with them as they also discover the resources to be in control of their lives. The gift of self-control comes only through the presence of God’s Spirit, so we introduce them to Jesus and seek God’s presence together. When Jesus reigns in us and in them, we are blessed indeed.

Grace Bible Church

8 Oct 2017, Thanksgiving Sunday

Texts (the links are to biblegateway.com, using the NIV-UK version)

          Deuteronomy8: 7 to 18

          Luke17: 11 to 19

          2 Corinthians9: 6 to 15

The Problem with Us

Introduction

I feel some unease preaching from Romans. One of the regular preaching pastors is David Johnson, who teaches the Letter to the Romans at Providence: He has studied this book in depth and with more understanding than I have. But it is the set text for the morning, and I have done my best to hear God speak in the reading of Scripture today.

Some beginning comments on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul wrote this letter about 55 to 57 A.D. He was staying for an extended period in Corinth, before taking the financial gift he had been collecting from the church of Asia to the mother church in Jerusalem (see Acts 18). Letters are, by definition, what we call “occasional documents”. That is, they are written for a specific occasion or in response to some particular issue. For example, the letters to the Corinthians address the issues of spiritual enthusiasm and church conflicts the church there was experiencing. So also the letter to the Galatians deals with the issue of adding law-keeping to faith in Christ as necessary for salvation. Each letter has its own particular purpose.

What then is the purpose for Paul’s Letter to the Romans? The church at Rome was one of the oldest in the world, possibly formed by people who heard Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2) and were among those who repented and joined the church there. When they returned home to Rome, they may have immediately formed the church in Rome. In any case Paul says that he had nothing to do with their formation, and he does not write in response to problems or questions that they have sent to him.

We can see this letter as a kind of introduction, anticipating a visit at some point in the near future. Paul knows that some people think he is controversial, and he knows that he wants to visit Rome, so he sends a letter that states clearly what he preaches, and what his life is about. As a result, Romans is one of the clearest statements in his letters about the centre of his understanding of the gospel.

James Dunn notes that one can see a missionary purpose (“I am not ashamed of the gospel …”), an apologetic purpose (explaining and defending the gospel), and a pastoral purpose (holding Jew and Gentile together in one church, and speaking on behalf of those in the Roman Church whom he knew). These three weave together in a coherent whole, and they make a document that works well to introduce Paul to the church at Rome.

Many of the Roman Christians came from a Gentile background, partly because a few years before Nero had expelled Jews (including Jewish Christians) from Rome. They soon returned, but the Jewish Christians in the church may have also needed some measure of reinstatement within the Roman Church. This need helps explain the central chapters (9 to 11), which deal with the place of the Jews within the new reality of God’s People, the church.

The basic message of Romans, then, is clear: Paul is a servant of the gospel of God. In various ways throughout the letter he repeats the message that human efforts to reach God fail, and he emphasizes the truth that only God’s grace, working through God’s Spirit, can reconcile us with God for all eternity. Our passages this week and next week serve as a microcosm of this message. So today we begin with the failure of human efforts to reach God, and next week we consider the reality of God’s power available through God’s Spirit.

Text: Romans 7

In the verses we read this morning, Paul indicates the absolute failure of human efforts to live well in this world. He has made the case that all people fall short of God’s glory and that only God’s grace can save anyone. “Save” in this case means to make us good enough to live forever with God. The Law of Moses might seem to do this. As Paul says in the verses just before our passage, the Law is “holy, just, and good” (verse 12). But we are not; we are, as he says in verse 14, “sold as slaves to sin”.

Our first point, then, is that “we are slaves to sin.” In chapter 6 Paul observes that everyone is a slave to something—either to sin or to righteousness. Some people claim to be non-religious. They are, they say, in charge of their own lives. But the truth is that we all follow some compelling idea or power that rules our lives.

Some live for self and their own pleasure; and this search for pleasure and self-fulfillment rules their lives. My mentor, Darrell Whiteman, taught anthropology at Asbury Seminary. I remember his description of one of his early classes as a teacher of anthropology at Southern Illinois University. He described “cultural compulsives”, those aspects of our culture that we absorb so deeply that we do them without thinking. He described the way that the demands of being an individual work in our society so that everyone insists on being unique. Finally one young man in the back of the class stood up and said, “I can’t accept this. Nobody tells me what to do, and certainly not my culture!” Whiteman thanked him for illustrating his point.

Some live for country and for honour, and their desire to serve their country rules their lives. I think of George Bush, Sr. Whether or not one agreed with his policies and actions as president, most people recognized him as one who had a strong commitment to his country and placed a high value on honour. Paul’s point, however, is that even something as good as love of country becomes part of being a slave to sin when it is our master.

Paul himself lived in his early life for the Law of Moses. He gave himself without holding anything back to serve God through lifting up the Law. Now, in his Letter to the Romans, Paul holds up a different path—to serve God through the Spirit of God.

Verses 15 to 20 then lay out the problem that we find ourselves in. Paul says, “I want to do what is good, but my actions are bad. I will the good, and I do the bad. I am a slave to sin.” Commentators raise various difficulties here.

1) Is Paul describing his own experience or a generic experience?

2) Is he talking about his own life before he became a follower of Jesus?

3) Is he talking about his experience after following Jesus, but before being filled with God’s Spirit?

4) Or is he describing the experience of anyone who tries to live outside of God’s control?

I think that the answer is the last option. Paul is impersonating the one who lives according to the flesh [that is, doing one’s best humanly speaking], and he describes the result. He uses his own experience as part of the picture, and he emphasizes the total inability of human efforts to break the power of sin.

Some interpreters go further and think that Paul is struggling with an overwhelming sense of guilt. They see him struggling with a terrible angst, just as we imagine we would have been. Krister Stendahl critiqued this reading 44 years ago with an article titled, “Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” He observed that Paul actually had a robust conscience and did not agonize over his sinful past. Consider the way he describes himself in Philippians 3:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

So much for feeling guilty! Paul looks at the demands of the Law, rigorous and difficult, and says, “I kept the Law! As regarding the Law, I am faultless!” No, Paul was not struggling with a bad conscience about what kind of a person he had been. He had sought to serve God faithfully, but he knew that all of his efforts were worthless. A few verses later in Philippians 3 he refers to his efforts to be good as “garbage”. What then is going on Romans 7?

Verses 21 to 24 restate the experience Paul describes as a natural law: The person who lives outside of the Spirit of Christ seeks to break free from the power of Sin, but finds their efforts constantly frustrated. Our human efforts to do what is right end in frustration and despair. Then into our helpless struggles God breaks in with the power of the resurrection and gives us victory over sin, breaking the power of Sin in our lives.

A Treatise on Sin

One way we can read this passage is as a treatise on the power of Sin in human life. First, Sin is an addictive power that we are helpless to break. Second, Sin reveals our human limitations. Third and most importantly, Sin is a power that works against anything good in our lives, taking even our best efforts and twisting them to failure and distress.

1) The Addictive Power of Sin:

Although Paul did not experience sin as an addiction (consider his robust conscience concerning keeping the Law), his description rings true with human experience. Think of some personal habit that you wish you could get rid of. Perhaps you know that you would be so much better in your work place if you arrived at work and at meetings five minutes earlier. Maybe you have been warned that you are in danger of losing your job for constant tardiness.

So you decide to implement a new routine. You set your watch 10 minutes fast. You determine that procrastination is a thing of the past in your life. You start living a new life, but after a few weeks of being really good old habits reassert themselves, and you find yourself swearing at the traffic that threatens to make you late and undo all your good resolutions.

Think of a more serious problem. You have a temper, so that your family is afraid to say anything around you that might set you off. You’re also afraid of what might happen, because CFS has started to ask questions about how you treat your children. You determine to remain level-headed and to avoid outbreaks of temper. For several months all goes well, and then the pressures of a bad day overwhelm you and you lash out at your young son. In a moment, all of your good intention is undone by one destructive explosion.

I could multiply examples (such as drug or alcohol addiction), but we know too well what Paul is describing. We want to do what’s right, but sin is an addiction too strong for us to break. We long to experience Paul’s shout of victory at the end of the passage: “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

2) Sin as Human Limitations: Sin as addiction reminds us that we are limited human beings. With enough effort, and with strong support from family and friends, we can make great strides in improving ourselves—that is one of the truths that various 12-step programs teach us. When we turn to friends who hold us accountable and who encourage us, we are able to improve ourselves remarkably. Even so, we realize our limitations. We rejoice in our triumphs, and we grieve together in our failures. The harder we try, the more we realise that we are limited human beings, and again we long to experience Paul’s shout of victory. This reading hears him more clearly than thinking only of the addictive power of sin. We can be good, but we can never be good enough. This takes us into the third and most important point.

3) Sin as a Power: We often think of sin as simple actions that break God’s rules. Sin is much deeper than that. Sin is a Power that works against God and seeks to destroy us. That’s why we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Deliver us from Evil.” Sin is that force or power in our world that seeks to undo what God wants and to bring about chaos and destruction all around us.

Consider the current political climate in which people routinely describe those who disagree with them as bigoted, or primitive, or evil in some way or other. People who are otherwise good people, and who are making choices that are generally good, speak and write in ways about their political opponents so as to destroy community and civil society. (Maybe this sounds like an American disease, but I see it in Canada too. Think, for example, of letters to the editor of the Winnipeg Free press about the current debate concerning the right to choose the manner and time of one’s own death.) What is going on in such destructive patterns of conversation? How is it that otherwise good people act in ways that are so destructive? I believe it is the power of evil (Satan, if you will) at work through sin.

Paul was fully aware of this dynamic. I think it is at the heart of what he is saying. He had started his life eager to do what was right and good. He became a Pharisee—one set apart to keep and protect the Law of Moses. At the beginning of his career he heard about these followers of Jesus who said that the Messiah had come. He heard that they identified this Messiah, Jesus, as the Son of God, and that Jesus had said that he was one with God. Saul the Pharisee was outraged. In his desire to protect God’s Law from those who would defile it, he received permission to travel north to Damascus to root out and destroy these Jesus-followers.

You know the story (Acts 8). Just before he entered Damascus, Saul was struck down by the Shekinah Glory of God. He recognized it immediately. As he lay on the ground, now blind with his physical sight, he looked with the eyes of his soul into the presence of God, Adonai Elohenu, the God of Israel, and he asked, “Lord (Adonai), who are you?” God replied, “I am Jesus, who you are persecuting.” Do you wonder that Paul considered his own righteousness as garbage? Doing what the law required led him to attack the God whom he loved. This is the way of Sin. The power of Sin works through us so that even our good efforts turn to evil.

This level of sin leads us to consider our words and actions carefully. A simple example: Churches often spend time restructuring their lives to remain more in tune with the world as it is now. My own congregation is in this process. We analyse our situation carefully. We look at our theological distinctives and the way that God has worked in our congregational life in the past. We pray. We plan. Finally we decide what to do. But if God’s Spirit is not at work in our planning, we rediscover the power of sin at work. We will to do something good, but we actually accomplish what we don’t want. Paul tells us that this happens all the time.

No wonder that Paul cries out, “Who can deliver me from this body, subject to the power of sin?” His question is also our question, and his cry of triumph is also our cry: “Thanks be to God who delivers me from Sin.” God makes it possible to defeat the power of sin through the Spirit of Christ working in us. God makes it possible for us to live victorious lives as individuals and as the church.

Conclusion

But that is to anticipate next Sunday’s sermon. Jesus sets us free. The Spirit of Jesus lives in us and we become slaves to the good and the true. Next week we’ll talk about that wonderful victory. For today, it is enough to say that Jesus saves—that is, the Spirit of Jesus living in us makes us good. God makes us all that God wants us to be, and that is good news indeed.

Grace Bible Church

9 July 2017

Text

Romans 7:14-25a

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!