Romans 14:1-12

Living in Christ’s Eternal Rule

Proper 19A

September 14, 2014

This morning, we conclude our series of sermons and focus upon St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.  As we do so, we hear St. Paul’s words that sound a little strange to us. Strange, in that he joins two very different things together. In just a few short verses, Paul moves from talking about food and holy days to talking about the return of Christ. From the small and the temporal to the large and the eternal. This raises a question: What does eating have to do with the judgment of Christ? How are these things joined together?

For Paul, the return of Christ is not something distant from God’s people. This reign of the kingdom of heaven in Christ is experienced in our daily lives. As Paul writes, “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we died to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14:7-8). In baptism, God has claimed you as His own. He has joined you to Christ. This Christ has risen and ascended and promises to come again. Until that day when He returns, His loving reign is expressed in the details of your daily life.

In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus gives us an example of this. In His parable, Jesus contrasts two kingdoms: the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world. In the kingdom of heaven, all debts are forgiven. In the kingdom of this world, all debts must be paid by the one who owes them. A servant is brought before his master with fear and trembling. He comes with fear and trembling because he lives in the kingdom of this world. He comes before his master in fear because he lives in a kingdom where debts must be paid and there is no way he could ever pay this debt. His wife and his children could be sold into slavery, his property dissolved, his life ruined and it still wouldn’t be enough.

The master, however, lives in a different kingdom. A kingdom where debts are forgiven, solely out of mercy.  That moment of forgiveness is not just a transaction. It is an invitation. An invitation by the master to live in a new kingdom where debts are forgiven. When the servant leaves, however, he forgets that he lives in this new kingdom. Coming across someone who owes him a little, he demands it all. And without knowing it, this servant has walked into prison himself, choosing to live in a kingdom where everyone pays his or her debt and he too, now, must suffer in prison until his debt is paid. Forgiven by God and invited to live in a kingdom where debts are forgiven, this man chooses to live in a world of judgment where everyone has to pay their own debt.

With this parable, Jesus is inviting you to live in God’s kingdom, a kingdom where your debts are forgiven, your sins are paid for not by their own hard work and effort but by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus is not your bookie.  Jesus is not your loan shark who repays your debt to the Father only to turn around and make you pay it off to Him instead. In Jesus, your sins are forgiven, your debts are paid, and God has opened the door for you to live in His kingdom. Yet, like the foolish servant, we sometimes choose to live in a kingdom where people have to pay their own debts. We try to make up for past failures, for past mistakes, for past sins.  The problem is that no matter what we say or do, we can’t pay off our debts.  

That’s the issue for St. Paul. God’s people in Rome have all been forgiven in Christ. God has brought them to new life and they live in Christ’s eternal kingdom. But, for them, Christ’s kingdom doesn’t change how they live with one another. They no longer see it, nor live it, but despise and judge one another, not according to God’s Word, but according to their bellies.  

Unfortunately, such in-fighting didn’t end with the first century. It continues even today. We have martyrs in the church as well as without, martyred in their own congregations. People who were once quite active in the church but now mysteriously have stopped coming, and even more mysteriously no one asks why. Were you to ask them, I am sure they could tell you. They have stories of battles they fought within specific congregations, battles over the appropriate hymnal, additions to the building, the color of paint in the sanctuary, even something as small as a church recipe that never made it into the congregational cookbook. Yes, the things over which we fight can be small, almost inconsequential, like eating vegetables or meat, but the damage that is done, the division of Christ’s body when God’s Law and Gospel are not properly distinguished and applied, is huge and can lead into people turning away from God and being lost for eternity.

Repent. Repent of trying to live peaceably by your own ability and without Christ. Repent of making others pay off their debts and sins and not forgiving them freely as you have been forgiven.  Repent of not following up with those whom you have sinned against and failed to be reconciled. Repent of your lack of humility and living only to yourself and not to the Lord.

Repent and believe in the Christ came in humility and gathers about Himself those who had accumulated great debts. Tax gatherers who were stealing from God’s people, women who had taken their bodies and sold them. Those who had wandered far from God’s ways and were living in a distant country, in debt, and unable to set themselves free. These are the ones that Jesus gathered around Himself and these are the ones for whom Jesus died. Although he had no debt of His own, Jesus used his priceless life as payment for sin. Not His sin, but ours. Our lack of love for one another. Our willingness to judge and despise those for whom Christ died rather than forgive and forbear. These sins... all sins were laid upon Jesus and He died in payment of your costly debt.  Jesus Christ died and lives again for you that you might be His own and live under him in His kingdom. As the apostle Paul writes, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:9).

Until that day of His return, live by faith in the One who was crucified and has paid your debt.  He gathers you to hear His word and live by His proclamation. He offers you Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of sins and He sends you forth to share His love in your daily lives with others. Whether you live or whether you die, you are the Lord’s. And one day, Jesus will come and bring about a new creation, for you and for all who trust in him. Until that day, in life and in death, we say “To this God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen.”