Justified by Faith
Tony
E Dillon Hansen
A
Sermon based upon Romans 5:1-5, Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31, and Psalm 8.
Let
us begin with prayer. May the words of my mouth and meditations of all of our
hearts be accepted in Your sight, Our Rock and Our Redeemer!
Happy
Trinity Sunday and Happy Fathers Day to all in attendance.
First, a note about our summer worship plans. The plan is to walk through the epistles and
I invite you to join us this summer for lemonade and the apostles. We can look forward to engaging ideas about
faith, love, compassion, discipline, our Church and our relationship to our
creator.
Today we are going to talk about a deep theological topic of
justification. You are going to learn a bit about me and my
theology. (To be honest, this was difficult to write as I dived deep.) As it is
Father's Day, I believe I can share a lesson that I learned through my
father.
Maybe this person sounds like someone you know because many people
share these qualities.
About my father.
He was a veteran of Vietnam serving in the USAF. Served state
the state as a corrections officer.
He grew up in Missouri Synod Lutheran household and converted to
Catholic in order to marry my mother. Mass on Sunday was not an option.
We did not have a lot of money to say the least. (In fact, some times
were just outright tough). Yet what dad did
have was love of God and service to community and family. I think a part of my
sense of service likely derives from him.
As I grew up, we challenged each other as I developed my own
view points. He lived a life of work,
family and church (not always in that order). Yet, I hold onto some of his
wisdom with reverence (like get your work done before you go play, say what you
mean, got to church and pay your bills.) Eventually, he was diagnosed with
cancer which eventually took his life. We will come back to this. (the Readers’
Digest version).
Evolving Theology
From my youth, I have known the Catholic ideas of free-will and
justification. Lately, I have been in intense study of the theologies of
Calvin and Luther along with that Catholic upbringing. Together, they are parts
of my evolving theology. Today’s scripture from Romans speaks directly to the reformers’
concept of being justified by faith.
Frame the conversation :
In order to talk about justification, we also have to include sin
and atonement – everyone’s favorite subjects. Get on your galoshes we are going
in, and this can get messy.
One way to describe sin is as separation from God or more deliberate
disobedience. From my youth, sin is an ever present temptation, and even
with the gift of free will from God, there always seemed to be work to do –
with thoughts like these:
I wasn’t up to the task.
I want what I don’t have.
I want to do what I should not…(who defined this barrier?)
And even deeper why do I feel like this
Atonement then is to align oneself with God by overcoming temptations.
That could be:
- Prayer and hopeful insight
- Denial or self-prohibition –
abstaining
- hopeful preoccupation – get the mind on something else.
- Shame, guilt and self-loathing
Thing is that shame is powerful and can be quite destructive. That
instead of simply making a mistake quickly turns into I am the mistake.
For people like me as LGBTQ queer, I grew up hearing ideas who was
acceptable before God where free-will did not exactly feel free -
Because someone was defining that for me (or so I let them.)
While I did my best and tried to live by the tenets of the
Gospels (e.g. Matthew’s Sermon on the mount in Matthew or Luke’s sermon on the plain), I was different and I
did not know why.
When I realized that I was different, I hid and hid until I
could no more.
I hid in shame and self-loathing to the point of not feeling
worthy of anything – denying my very being.
The shame intensified and walls were built to defend my
vulnerability.
That shame tore at my confidence and ability because I wasn’t
worthy.
Others would chime in, compounding the shame with their
disappointment, their shaming and hurt me and my family – never-mind the log in
their eye, as Jesus would say.
Then my reading and study of the Bible found places like this piece
that our faith justifies us, and Ephesians 6 where grace is a gift freely given
to us. I poured over the scripture looking but seeing that Not once did Jesus
shame someone for being queer.
Our daily living can be quite challenging because (if we read
further into Romans) we fail and we are broken.
When we talk about shame, I have to invoke Brene Brown and her
TED talks about shame and the power of vulnerability. I would think about my
own vulnerability and my shame and why God would put this in my life.
Whether divine plan or free-will, then justification is to get
right with God. The thing with this path, on my own, is a never-ending
question of whether I have done enough.
As a Stephen Minister
My first months as a Stephen Minister, I found myself working
closely with my dad on his journey with cancer. My dad and I had some
deep conversations and this “justification” idea always came up because
my dad kept wondering if he had done enough.
Have I been welcoming enough, open enough, patient enough or compassionate
enough? I would listen pray and believe
that he had done enough.
This is not just a Catholic dilemma
I have had Protestant people question whether they had done
enough, especially when there is sudden sickness or surgery needs. Despite
being loyal, compassionate and good people with strong faith, there is that
lingering question.
So what have I done to be right with God and Is it enough? Even when you come home and feel
I have had enough.
Faith Carries
My problem and even my dad’s was that we were focused upon us
and our feelings – instead of letting God lead us. Yes, our body and mind can cause us to wander
about in misery of sin and temptation, but our spirit can reconcile these
through Christ and get us closer to the divine. According to the lesson from
Paul is that our faith gets us there.
I believe that faith carried my father (and others with this question)
through the gates of heaven because he had strong faith, and faith can do so
much for us. He inspired me to live better as I hope that I inspire Tyler to
live.
If we are all created by God in his image, and we are all children
of God, why did I have to feel shame for being? Proverbs 8 says, God made me
the way I am to truly understand the power of faith. It took me a long time to
understand that faith can carry us through shame and vulnerability.
As Brene Brown would say, “you gotta dance with the one who
brung ya.” Thus, I am going to dance with God because God “brung” me this way.
With where I am on life’s journey, this faith carries me and
this is powerfully moving and encouraging. Brown quotes Theodore Roosevelt “Man
in the arena” “ It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man who sits and
points out how the doer of deeds could have done things better and how he falls
and stumbles. The credit goes to the one in the arena whose face marred with
dust and blood and sweat. But when he’s in the arena, at best, he wins, and at
worst, he loses, but when he fails, when he does, he does so daring greatly.”
Dad got in the arena of living life and service as so many have.
I am the way God made me just as you are what God made you. God wants you and I
in the arena, the authentic you; not just the façade and shell we create. I
have faith in that wisdom to trust in God.
Our Focus not on suffering but God
Faith in the Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit will move us and
heal us – as it has for so many.
God’s wants our help to do the good work. Shame and evil do not
need to be our focus or that might be what we become – as it did me. We
do fail and we will. We do not need all
the answers if we leave a place for God to fill our souls with grace and hope.
In fact, Thomas Aquinas suggests that evil and suffering might
be there to help us understand the good we can do and what Christ has done for
us.
Therefore, I honor that holy sacrifice by getting in the arena
as a martial artist, a wrestler, a queer, and in service of Jesus. I honor that
sacrifice by living the life that teaches and learns, builds and encourages,
welcomes and heals with that faith in the Spirit working. The spirit is working
right there for us because that Spirit reveals God to us.
Good service is Our Witness
Yes, good service is our witness to God’s love and demonstrates
our commitment to faith, but our faith in the Spirit working with us can do so
much more. With the Spirit working in us, as we talked about last week, we can
reveal that divine inspiration and that new life in our world.
God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, invites us to into holy
service and witness of all God’s children because Jesus reminds us that we have
work to do :
-
helping
the poor,
-
comforting
the sick,
-
visiting
the inmate,
-
supporting
the refugee,
-
valuing
the dignity of immigrants, queer and Native American as creations and children
of God.
-
Valuing
ourselves as beautiful and messy children of God.
So Dare greatly! Witness the life and grace through your good
work, welcome, compassion, comfort, and your faith.
Then our focus is not upon shame and temptations, but rather, we
might look forth into the possible with the grace we have been given. Calvin calls this “irresistible grace” and
isnt it after all?
What "possible" do you leave for the mystery of God to fill you?
God has revealed to us to be forgiving even during judgment. In fact, Luke 6 says that Jesus tells us to
forgive because God already has. We have such bountiful grace as the morning
sun. We have God with all the grace and glory! Faith and grace are gifts for
you and me!
Bring it Home…
Our faith can do so much because of this!
We have peace through Christ and access to grace.
We get to share in the wonder and grace of God
Despite suffering, we learn discipline and endurance.
So yes do good work! God is working with us through the Holy
Spirit and Christ.
When you live your faith in the good of Christ with the Spirit
working with you and for you – you can have true life and grace! I could let go
of shame and let God lead.
God’s love has been poured onto our hearts through the peace and
grace of the spirit.
So dare greatly with your faith!
Live that life poured out for you and walk with the love and
comfort of God with you!
Then your answer to the question of “have I done enough” will be
“yes”
Thanks
Be to God.
