Trinity 4: Welcoming Grace

 Trinity 4

Romans  6.12-end, Matthew 10.40-end

I wonder if you are a sesquipedalian. In case you don’t know, that means a lover of long words. Sesquipedalian. If you are a sesquipedalian, then here’s a long word for today – antinomianism. It’s at the heart of the first reading today, from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Nomos is Greek for law, and anti means you’re against it. 

I can think of lots of people who are against laws – hardened criminals for example, or small children when it’s bedtime – but antinomianism is a bit more than that. It’s a theological or philosophical idea, and in Christian contexts, it has its roots in the idea of salvation by grace, but it takes that idea to its extreme. 

If we are saved by grace – God’s free gift to us, his endless, indestructible love and forgiveness – then why does it matter what we do? It was a question which bedevilled the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther, was a monk who nearly drove himself to despair at his own failings – not big things, but countless small ways he didn’t feel he lived up to the ideals he believed he should. His big breakthrough came as he studied the letter to the Romans and found in it the good news that it wasn’t his works or his prayers, or the rituals he undertook that put him right with God – who could ever be good enough for that? No, it was God’s own decision to love him and forgive him – and all of us - that mattered.  It is grace that saves us, not anything we can do for ourselves. It wasn’t that the Catholic church didn’t believe that or teach it, but somehow, at least for this one rather over-anxious monk, it had got lost in the thickets of complex rules and traditions that held sway over his life.

But there were some groups who took this idea and ran away with it. They decided that it meant they could do what they wanted. It didn't matter. God had forgiven them. They had their ticket to heaven and no one could take it away. In the mid 17th century, for example, a group who became known, rather disparagingly, as Ranters, decided that they didn’t need to observe any moral law at al. Some of them thought it was wrong to do so. If you kept externally imposed laws it was a sign that you didn’t really trust God’s forgiveness and were trying to earn it by your good behaviour.

The splendidly named Abiezer Coppe wrote in a pamphlet, “I can if it be my will, kiss and hug ladies, and love my neighbour's wife as myself, without sin. There’s no evidence that he actually did this, but he believed it would be fine to do so, a demonstration of his assurance that he was saved, and that was that.

The historian Diarmaid MacCulloch summed it up like this, “Antinomian freedom might be expressed by such gestures as ecstatic blasphemy, joyous tobacco-smoking and running naked down the street.” ( A History of Chrstianity p 653) Don’t try it at home!

Of course, if they had read the letter to the Romans a bit more carefully they might have seen that this was nonsense from the start. Paul is very aware of the dangers of this interpretation of grace – it sounds as if some of the Roman Christians have been suggesting it. “What then?”, says Paul. “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!” 

Salvation is not a get out of jail free card, to be guarded until you need it and then deployed at the vital moment as you approach St Peter at the pearly gates. It is the beginning of a new way of life in the here and now. Yes, it will go on into eternity – “the end is eternal life”, as Paul puts it – but eternity starts now, not at the moment of death. If we wait until then to start living as people who are forgiven and saved, then we will have missed the fullness of joy and the sense of wholeness that God wants for us in the present moment. We are living in the kingdom of God right now. Salvation is not me getting into heaven when I die, it is us, making the world a better place, living in ways that lead to life, hope, joy, peace, wholeness for us all. Because salvation in the Bible isn’t just a personal, individual thing, it is something that affects whole communities, something we live out together. The arguments which tore Europe apart during the Reformation about whether salvation was gained by works or by grace through faith, arguments which led to so much suffering, missed the mark anyway. It was never about what happened to people at the pearly gates, and everything about what was happening right then as people discovered, or didn’t, the life God meant for them and their communities.

In the Gospel reading Jesus talks about getting a reward, but it’s clear from what he says that he doesn’t see this as a medal to be handed out at the end of our lives. It is something which is the natural consequence of the way we live, the choices we make, which shape us into God’s likeness – or twists us out of alignment so that his image in us is marred and spoiled.  You can’t miss the world “welcome” in this short passage. It comes six times in three short verses. It is perhaps more accurately translated as “receive”. Welcome can sound a bit vague – just being nice to people. But receiving someone means taking them to yourself, letting yourself be changed by them.  If you receive a prophet, says Jesus, then you will listen to their prophetic words and that will change you. If you receive a person who makes things right – a righteous person – someone who brings healing and restoration, then you will inevitably be healed and restored to some extent yourself. People can bring the smallest thing – a cup of cold water – but if we receive it, it will change us. I think we’ve all been aware of the importance of a cup of cold water this week! We are continually reshaped into God’s likeness by the things and the people we receive, the things and people we welcome into our lives. We are continually saved by God’s gracious gift of himself, his grace to us, which enables us to become the people we were meant to be, individually and together.

So today, we are invited to think about who and what we are receiving, welcoming into our lives, who and what we are allowing to change us, and whether that change feels like life or death, like salvation or not. We don’t need any long words to know the importance of that.

Amen