Homily from Wednesday Matins at Higher Things

(Romans 1:18-25)

He remains a giver of gifts even when His giving is not acknowledged.  St. Paul is in the demolition section of Romans.  He’s working the Gentiles over now - shutting every mouth and exposing the lies we like to tell ourselves.  He’s not got to the Jews yet – that’s chapter two.  Nor to the Gospel yet – that’s mostly in three and four. He’s focusing in our reading on the Gentiles and their folly – which certainly we can still see around us every day.  Folks trying to squeeze life out of the creation, when it is only found in the Creator; elevating the gifts given to gods themselves.  Foolish, but there it is.  And if we’re willing to be a bit honest, maybe all that is not just around us but even inside us.

You too know something about looking for life in all the wrong places.   You know something about ignoring your Creator and fixating on the goodies of this world and the good times you can have here as though that were what life is all about.  You may not be so foolish as to bow down to some carved rock or piece of wood and call it your god, but is your trust always in the Blessed Trinity?

You can run the diagnostic by asking yourself and answering honestly what we learn from the Large Catechism:  “A god is that from which we are to expect all good and in which we are to take refuge in all distress.  So, to have a God is nothing other than trusting and believing in him with the heart.  I have often said, it is the faith of the heart that makes both God and an idol.” (I:2) 

So, where do you look for every good?  Where do you turn first when you’re in trouble?  Answer yourself honestly and you’ll discover who or what your God is.

And if at all like me, you will have to admit:  I have often been a Gentile fool too.  I have worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, and to make matters worse, the creature I have worshipped and served mostly is simply myself!

And Paul writes the terrifying judgment:  “God gave them up.”  Doesn’t get worse than that – Him washing His hands of you!  “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever!”

We’d be in one sad fix if the story stopped there and we had only to hear the Law that exposes our inner idolatries, the false worship that shows up in snatching the good gifts of the creation without so much of a thought as thanking the One who stands there giving to us; abusing our bodies as though they were our own to do with as we please and not gifts, undeserved gifts from the hand of the Creator,  intended for holiness, for being filled with the Spirit and raised from the dead in incorruption.  Hearts filled instead with anxiety instead of peace because we’ve ended up only trusting ourselves. If the story stopped here, we’d walk away today in despair. 

Romans, of course, doesn’t stop there.  Paul goes on to pound on the Jews as well as the Gentiles and thus to shut up every mouth - the heathen and the religious - to silence every human excuse, all our "but, but, but"s and and to drag our sorry butts, every last one of us – no matter how great our sin, no matter how foolishly we’ve lived our lives, no matter how massive our idolatries – to drag us one and all to the foot of the cross, there to behold the mystery of God.  To see the One who never forgot that He walked this life in the presence of His Father, who never forgot one time to thank Him for His every good gift, who never one time used His body for anything other than the doing of His Father’s will (“A body you have prepared for me, Lo, I have come to do Your will!”).  To behold in awe that One do that will by yielding up His body on the cross, as the propitiation God sets forth through His blood, for you to receive by faith.  For indeed, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God - you, me, everyone - and indeed all are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus - you, me, everyone.

A whole new way of life, then, offered to us in Him.  Not the old way of blindly snatching, abusing our bodies and worshipping and serving ourselves.  A new way in Him, with Him, under His bloody forgiveness, beginning to see and learning to receive all as gift, and to enjoy the creation itself as it was meant to be:  as communion with the Creator who is blessed forever.  A new way of yielding up our bodies for what they were made for: doing God’s will; not scratching our sinful itches.  And since until He raises these bodies from the grave, we will do all this only in much weakness and with lots of stumbling and falls along the way, He sets over our entire lives the greatest gift of all:  the rock-certain forgiveness won by His blood so that we may not fear or be discouraged till He finally makes our lives like His:  one unbroken praise to the Creator and Giver of all good., one complete sacrifice to the will of the Father. 

Did you notice in today’s Psalm that it is the mark of the dead that they do not praise the Lord?  Whether they are breathing or not is irrelevant!  Similarly, “but we will praise the Lord now and forevermore.”  Our praise goes on – even when the body stops breathing.  As we just sang:  “Though my flesh awaits its raising, still my soul continues praising.”  And for that all glory to the Giver of all good, now and ever, and to the age of ages!  Amen.