Made Holy: Romans 6

Romans 6:1-11

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Dear Ones, grace and peace to you from God our parent and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am a middle-aged white man, and I don’t have all the answers. In fact, I have fewer of them than ever. Lately, with the backdrop of the COVID pandemic framing the righteous unrest, demonstrations, and protests emerging after the death of George Floyd and countless other brown-skinned siblings of ours, I find that I have far more questions than I do answers. Though this may sound surprising, I believe those questions are a gift of God’s limitless grace and its power to change. That’s what I’ve been wrestling with over the last few weeks – and for a long time before that…

Paul’s words to the early Roman church, and to us, are a warning and invitation not to view grace as a soothing balm for complacency. As we’ve heard from some incredible preachers over the last weeks, grace is not cheap but costly, and along with his softer side, Jesus wields a sword that cuts through all of our baloney to reveal the truth. Paul’s understanding of the grace that saves us involves each one of us dying to sin through the grace-filled gift of baptism, being buried with Christ in that death, then being transformed through resurrection into a new life. Yup, that’s God’s gift of grace to you. Death. Your death to sin… Followed by resurrection and transformation!

One of the commentaries I turned to encouraged me to think about this passage in terms of a move – the author suggested from one country to another, a totally new start in a new place. I like that metaphor, and I can identify with it on a much more local level. Last week, we moved out of our house and into a rental home 15 minutes away in preparation for a remodeling project. We’re settling into a house and a neighborhood new to us. We’re figuring out what to unpack and what to keep boxed up until we move back to our own home. We don’t yet know how we’ll be changed by this experience, but we’re getting little hints each day, and we know we’ll grow from this experience.

Another commentary picked up on the notion of being united with Christ both in a death like his and in a resurrection like his. They dug into the word translated as united – sumphutoi – and suggest that the word can be translated as “planted together, growing together or grafted.” That’s something that excites me; the image is simply gorgeous. As part of our house project, I’ve got a lot of plants to dig up and move. When I find the right place for each one, I’ll amend the soil, set the roots into their new locations, fertilize them, water them, add mulch and small boulders around them, and work to incorporate them completely into the existing landscape.

That’s the understanding of baptism Paul shares with us today. In baptism, we die to the poison soil of sin, we are uprooted, and then we are transplanted with Christ, grafted to his very body. This sounds like the Jesus of John’s gospel: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Paul asks: “Are we to abide in sin so that grace may increase?” When we’re grafted to the vine of Christ, we can’t abide in sin! We’re dead to sin. We’re called to a resurrected life, planted with Christ to emerge, grafted to him, to abide in him and to walk together in the newness of life he embodies. 

So what does this mean in our time and place? I can’t answer that question for you, but I can tell you what grace and baptism are doing to me right now. As Juneteenth came and went this year, I recognized that it was not even a part of my consciousness until sometime in my adult life. Like Juneteenth, I didn’t learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre in my youth. I missed entire portions of painful human history, because my understanding of history was taught from the perspective of white privilege. My consciousness of this white privilege, and systemic and institutional racism, has developed in my adult life. My understanding of the depth of poverty, bigotry, hatred, and all of the unjust, destructive systems and forces I participate in on a daily basis, often totally unwittingly, continues to grow. My own growth and change has happened too slowly, too gradually, but, by grace, it is happening.

I still have a lot to learn about the experiences of my siblings with skin colors different from my own. About my siblings who identify as L, G, B, T, Q, I, or A, or who just can’t identify with our false binary gender system. There are books to be read. There are conversations to be had. There is forgiveness to seek. There are relationships to be tended.

I find both comfort and challenge in the reminder Martin Luther offers in his explanation of baptism – that we die to sin each and every day, seeking forgiveness and changing our ways. So, too, we are resurrected each and every day. This being changed by grace is an ongoing process. It’s not something we can do all in a day. It’s not something we can do in a lifetime. But, by grace, we can be drawn more deeply into the resurrected life God desires for all of creation.

Right now, grace is asking me, are you willing to die to the familiar and the comfortable? Are you ready to die to your white privilege? Are you ready to die to the systems that oppress others while benefiting you? My answer… “yes…”

Paul’s words push harder. “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” Should we continue in systemic and institutional racism, unjust oppression and poverty, bigotry and hatred? By no means! Grace won’t abide it. The body of Christ won’t abide it.

Friends, pushed and pulled, invited and challenged by the words of Paul, and by the very grace of God, now is the time. Now is the time to dwell with the difficult, uncomfortable questions grace poses. Now is the time to listen to the wisdom of those siblings we’ve silenced for too long. Now is the time to discern together how we might die to sin and be resurrected to “walk in newness of life.” Now is the time to be grafted to the brown-skinned body of Christ, walking around this great big world, seeking justice, that there might be peace, always trusting in the resurrection promise of newness of life.

Amen.