Be Reconciled to God

Lent IV; March 18, 2007

II Corinthians 5:16-21

At a recent Weight Watchers meeting the subject of our discussion was eating our emotions. That is, we talked about times we eat for reasons other than hunger. Some of them talked about how when they are frustrated, they head for the chocolate. Others said that when they are bored they get out the potato chips. Me: when I’m feeling sad or lonely, I grab a spoon and the jar of peanut butter. One of the habits those of us who struggle with our weight have is the tendency to use food as a pain reliever: eating makes us feel better, but doesn’t deal with the underlying problem. A problem people have in our society is the tendency to use spiritual and emotional pain relievers in order to avoid dealing with our underlying problem. We misuse food, music, religion, drugs and alcohol, constant activity and work, as well as other things, to avoid dealing with our problem.

The underlying problem of human life, human relationships and human well-being is sin. First I had best define the problem – what do I mean by “sin”? – then remind you of how God deals with it and, finally, let you in on what that means for us as regular folks trying to get through life.

Although “sin” can be described in a variety of ways, for today’s sermon, by “sin” I mean living without reference to God. That is, going through our days without living in relationship to God. Religion is one of the tools you and I can use to distract us from the problem, so I’m not talking primarily about whether or not you attend worship on the Lord’s Day. Let me describe two aspects of life without relationship to God.

One aspect of living without relationship to God is the failure to realize God’s presence in everything around us. You see the sun in the sky; the Bible teaches us to realize when we see the sun that God is the source of our life, the light on our way, the energy of our being. You experience the change of seasons – spring is only a few days away! – but do you think the way the hymn-writer did: “All beautiful the march of days as seasons come and go; the hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow”? God is the source of snowfall and rain, of sunshine and wind; do you remember that when you feel the breeze or the bitter winter wind from the prairie? Both the Bible and biological science show us the interrelatedness of all living things; knowing that all that lives has evolved from a common source and is related to each other ought to remind us that all that lives is the creation of God, but does it? And do we remember, especially when dealing with people we can’t stand, that every person we meet is created in the image of God? If we live in relationship to God, we are constantly, without interruption, aware of the presence of God in everything around us. That we frequently go blithely along without that realization is an aspect of our sin.

Another aspect of our sin – that we do not live in relationship with God – is the failure to examine ourselves. That is, you and I can easily go through our days without testing what we think, say and do in the light of what God thinks about it.

When you are considering taking a job, or whether to continue in your present job, do you ask yourself, “What does God want me to do?” When you are talking with your friends about someone else, do you ask yourself whether God is happy about what you are saying? When you participate in worship, do you examine your own performance and ask how God would feel about what you did and did not do? When you pay your bills, do you ask if this is how God wants you to spend your money? Those are four questions out of several thousand of the sort. And notice: I am not concerned with how you would answer each question of yourself, but whether you ask it of yourself. The problem of sin is not in answering “No, God is not pleased with me,” but the problem of sin is in never asking the question at all. Before going to bed at night, do you look back over the day and ask yourself if you did all that God wanted you to do and if everything you did was pleasing to God? The problem of sin is not in answering that question, “No,” but in not asking it at all, not being concerned with God’s opinion about how you lived the day. Our underlying problem is sin, and the problem of sin is that we are not in relationship with God; we go through our lives without reference to God.

The way God deals with that underlying problem is the Cross of Jesus Christ. Warning: the meaning of the Cross is much too big to be boiled down into a simple analysis of “what happens” in the death of Jesus Christ. There are several so-called “theories of atonement” that try to explain what happens, mechanically and spiritually, in the Crucifixion that reconciles us to God. Since the meaning of the Cross is too big for any theory, I am not going to delve into any theory, either to advance it or refute it. The theories are all wrong inasmuch as they try to explain the whole thing, to compact the entire wonder and mystery of the Cross of Jesus Christ into a simple transaction.

Paul writes that God “made him to be sin who knew no sin.” Saying that Jesus Christ did not know sin does not mean that he never did anything wrong; remember that he mouthed off his mother and he could sometimes treat people callously and he certainly got cranky. To say that Christ did not know sin does mean, however, that he constantly and consistently lived in the presence of God. He would ask himself the sorts of questions I described; he was aware of God all around him. Jesus knew himself in relationship to God, not apart from God, as you and I tend to do. When Paul says that the one who knew no sin was made to be sin, he means that Christ is the wisdom of God, the goodness of God, the creative Word of God executed by the State with the urging of the religious authorities. God makes an offering to us, coming to us in grace and truth, and the two most powerful institutions of the day – religion and politics – conspire to put him to death. In Christ, God reaches out to those who spend most of our time more aware of the state of our stomachs than we are of the presence of God. Christ took on the curse of sin: he died as a criminal, he died as a heretic, and he died with a sense of abandonment by God. God “made him to be sin who knew no sin.”

God did so, writes Paul, “so that we might become the righteousness of God.” God offers Christ to us as a peace-offering so that we can live in awareness of God, so we will live as God’s friends, rather than apart from God. For some, this means a whole new way of life. You may have heard the stories of those who tell how turning to Christ freed them from addiction to drugs, or a life without purpose, or an abusive relationship. Conversion to Christ truly changes the lives of those who come to him to have a new life in relationship to God. Yet for others, for those who were raised in the Church and learned their Bible well in Sunday School and learned their Gospel stories in Vacation Bible School, becoming the righteousness of God might be like the prodigal son’s “coming to himself” (Luke 15:17; this story was the Gospel reading of the day), remembering what we were taught and starting anew to live in the presence of God.

In any case, through the Cross of Jesus Christ God is making us into something different. Paul says that we are “a new creation,” that essentially we are not what we used to be or what we would have been otherwise. The life without God and the life in the presence of God are not simply a matter of whether you darken a church door every once in a while; they are completely different ways of being. And this is what God is doing: making us into something new. As one of the Church Fathers (Theodoret) put it, Christ became what we are in order for us to become what he is. God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

Did you notice what I left out of that sentence? It is the part that comes down to what you and I can do about it. I left out “in him”: “God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Simply put, being part of the Christian Church is not just membership in one more socially useful institution; it is the decision to be “in Christ.”

Here are some suggestions on being “in Christ.” From these you can use your imagination to come up with others:

… Remind yourself from time to time that you are baptized. You might teach yourself to say, “I am baptized” every time you see free-running water, for example. From time to time, remind yourself that you are baptized.

… When you are in the presence of someone you can’t stand, think silently to that person, “Christ died for you too.” It probably will not make you like the person any better, but you will help bring yourself back into the presence of God!

… Get together with a couple of friends and read the Bible and talk about it. Don’t worry about coming up with esoteric theological abstractions. Don’t even worry about whether you believe everything you read. Try to learn something about God’s point of view of things and about the mission and message of Jesus.

… Take communion as often as possible. “You are what you eat.” Christians live not by our own power but by the grace of God. Receiving the Body and Blood of the Savior in our holy meal is something you cannot do for yourself, so receive it as often as possible. If your church is not offering it to you often enough, ask the Session to do something about that.

… Call the Pastor and ask questions about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit, and about your life in the presence of God. Start wondering about what things mean, what God wants of you, what God offers to you, and pester the Pastor about it. Pester the elders of the Church about it too. Heck, get a few of your friends together and pester each other with these questions. Stop taking things for granted and start asking questions about God in your life.

These are some suggestions of how you can work on living “in Christ.” Not all of them are appropriate to all of you, but something will help you live in the presence of God, to become the new creation, to become “the righteousness of God.”

To use Paul’s phrase: be reconciled to God. Be aware of God, sensitive to God’s presence and examining your life by God’s Word, living “in Christ.” For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Thank you, God, for offering yourself to us in Jesus Christ. Make us the new creation; remake us in him so that we may become your righteousness. Amen.

Robert A. Keefer

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Clarinda, Iowa