Sunday, August 13, 2023 Pentecost 11
St. Andrew’s East Presbyterian Church, St-André d’Argenteuil
Gordon McPhee
Scripture:
Romans 10:5-17 (MSG)
The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?
The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest. (Deuteronomy 30:14)
It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
Scripture reassures us, “No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it.” (Isaiah 28:16) It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help.” (Joel 2:32)
But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That’s why Scripture exclaims,
A sight to take your breath away!
Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God!
But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. Isaiah asked what we all ask at one time or another: “Does anyone care, God? Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” The point is: Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to.
Introduction:
The sermon title in the bulletin, “Are you being served?” comes from a British television comedy that ran from 1972 until 1985 and even had a feature-length movie in 1977. Now be honest, how many have watched “Are You Being Served?” and enjoyed it, or maybe you’re still watching it in reruns?
The bad news is that the series has nothing to do with the sermon this morning; I just couldn’t resist using the title. So we won’t be discussing the preponderance of humorous sexual innuendo the comedy drew upon. However, in our Epistle reading this morning from Paul’s letter to the Romans, he speaks frankly to his audience about what the Gospel is that he is preaching and why he is preaching it. The argument he sets forth is simplistic, clear, and unmistakable. And most notably, what we’re going to dwell on today, is that it is all done for us, served up on a silver platter with nothing of our own or ourselves to be added. Like standing in the tailor shop and having a custom suite perfectly measured and fitted, Jesus serves up salvation completely and perfectly. So the question we are asking this morning is, “Are you being served?”
“Are You Being Served?”
If you’ve read Plato or Aristotle, you probably realized that the Apostle Paul was a fan of Greek logic and poetry. In this short passage from his letter to the church in Rome, he makes a classically simplistic argument for why he and the other apostles are preaching the Gospel. Beginning in verse 13, he quotes the prophet Joel 2:32, “Everyone who calls, ‘Help, God!’ gets help,” and then he continues …
And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?
It’s simple and straightforward, so much so you might ask me why we need a preacher; you can just read it yourself. And Paul might agree with you today, however; in the first century AD, before the printing press and internet and widespread literacy, verbal proclamation, preaching, was the way the good news of Jesus Christ got around. But more than why he needed to preach the Gospel, Paul wants his audience to know what that Gospel is that he is preaching.
And as he often does, Paul begins at Moses and the law saying, “The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah. … Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy. … So what exactly was Moses saying” Paul asks.
Paul rhetorically answers his question by quoting Moses from Deuteronomy 30:14:
“The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.”
and adding the explanation, “It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us,” and then he adds emphatically, “This is the core of our preaching.” Which is precisely what I want us to focus on this morning.
So, no one will seek help if they don’t know there is someone who can help, someone they can trust. So someone must spread this good news, which Paul goes on to tell us is to “Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. [Paul says,] That’s salvation.”
Let me go over that again because it's so simple that you may have missed it. Step one: “Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead.” There is no step two or three. That is the entire Christian faith. Not the seed of it nor the beginning of it, nor the germ of what you will eventually come to believe and have faith in and confess that will save you. That’s it, the whole enchilada, everything the Gospel writers wanted to tell you about Jesus, everything Paul packed into his missionary journeys and voluminous letters, everything Jesus revealed about himself in the law and the prophets.
Paul reiterates it for emphasis because he knows his Roman audience won’t grasp it any more than we do, “With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
All of this, our vast church history from Augustine, Aquinas, and Jerome; Luther, Calvin, and Knox; the Creeds and confessions; the institutions, sacraments, and movements in history are nothing. Just so much noise and flotsam and jetsam to distract us from the good news of Jesus Christ that Paul states here clearly and simply is to accept the reality that you don’t do anything, and you can’t do anything. As he says, “God has set everything right between Him and me!” “That’s it!”
Jesus has atoned, past tense, for the sin of the whole world. You, me, your neighbour, the atheist you work with, everyone. Your sins are forgiven, and their sins are forgiven. You have been and are being served. This is something you not only don’t know how to do for yourself, but it is also something you can’t do for yourself. And that’s precisely what makes salvation so difficult, so problematic, even for us. We find it impossible to accept that this has been done for us.
We need to somehow justify ourselves to God. To put things back under our control. We establish rules to govern our Christian faith. The free gift of God is eternal life, BUT, you have to be baptized, you have to come to church regularly, you’ve got to live and dress a certain way, and definitely you’ve got to get involved. And I think Paul would be very unhappy with the Gospel we preach to our neighbours.
You see, what we so often portray to the people around us as the gospel is “what you must do to be saved.” Get down on your knees and say the salvation prayer; come to our Alpha program or our weekend retreat, and we’ll save you. But Paul preached that you are already forgiven, already saved. To say there is something you need to do more than what God has already done to be saved is to degrade and cheapen the immeasurable sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. It was sufficient. That’s the good news your neighbours need to hear. Not that they can be saved, IF, but that God, in His Son Jesus, has already saved them.
And there, my friends lies the tragedy. Most who hear the good news will ask, “Saved from what?” And unfortunately, that’s the most common answer you’ll hear in a church community. “We’re good people. We attend church faithfully and give! What do we need to be saved from?” And we forget that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. As Paul says earlier in this very letter, “Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us.” (Romans 3:22-23).
Or someone may agree that things need improvement, but they cannot accept the humbling and, in their proud eyes, the degrading status of being served that it is done for them already. A self-help book or a religious discipline, Christian or otherwise, would be acceptable. Even a free gift of eternal life is palatable if associated with various commitments, but a simple ‘faits accomplis’ with no strings attached is incredulous. And so, we add to Paul’s gospel the extras of church doctrine and work to try and make our faith more resonant with the people around us and, perhaps, even with ourselves.
It is this exact problem Jesus was addressing in Matthew 18 when he turned to his disciples and told them, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.”
We simply cannot conceive of salvation as Paul sets it out here. That we are not doing something to be saved, but that we just need to acknowledge, and believe, that Jesus has already done this for us. That we have been served.
What we set up as roadblocks to our salvation, and so often to the salvation of others, our zeal for the Lord, our desire to gather together and worship Him, our love of reading scripture, singing hymns, doing good, and being kind is simply the unstoppable response of unbounded thanks to God for what He has done through Christ Jesus for us.
Realizing how much Jesus has done for me, in just giving up his place in heaven to become a helpless baby, is enough to drive me to worship, adore, and obey Him. Adding the stories of Jesus recorded in the Gospels and especially the Passion, I would certainly be driven to abhor my own life and put Jesus preeminent in everything. And knowing He has defeated even death for me so I can join him in new life with God the Father filled with the Holy Spirit impels me to devotion and a desire to tell others this gospel. But what is that good news?
It’s not religion or good living or paths and means of salvation. The gospel we have for all our friends and relatives and neighbours and, yes, for the whole world is that it’s all been done for us. We’ve been served; we don’t need to do anything. “Say the welcoming word to God—‘Jesus is my Master’—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not ‘doing’ anything.” Don’t misconstrue it in the hopes of making it more acceptable. Don’t complicate it with requirements like attending church, reading the Bible, or changing your life. That comes when someone welcomes Jesus with the words, “Jesus is my Master.” Keep the gospel you preach very simple; it will be challenging enough for people to accept being served. But like Paul, do preach the gospel. Otherwise, “How can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it?” If you have heard the gospel and believed, you are also sent to proclaim it.
Amen
