Characters of Hope

By

Reverend Litton Logan

June 3, 2007

Scriptures:

¹Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. ⁹Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.^{£ 10}For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. ¹¹But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:1--5:11 (NRSVA)

Introduction and Comments:

            Many of us have cut our spiritual teeth on these passages from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  One might ask why bring a message to a congregation of the faithful on these passages.  My answer to such a question is best summarized in the story about the Baptist minister who decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon on the topic of substance abuse. Three worms were placed into three separate jars.

The first worm was put into a jar of alcohol.

The second worm was put into a jar of cigarette smoke.

The third worm was put into a jar of good clean soil.

At the conclusion of the Sermon, the Minister reported the following results:

The first worm in alcohol - Dead.

The second worm in cigarette smoke - Dead.

Third worm in good clean soil - Alive.

So, the Minister asked the congregation, "What can you learn from this demonstration?"

A young lad on the front row quickly raised her hand and said, “As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won't have worms

            Which is to say that we don’t always grasp the broader meaning of scriptures the first time around?

Sermon:

            On the USA Network there is or was a program where two people traveled around the country looking for people that distinguished themselves as being characters--characters meaning people that have unusual talents, skills, quirks, or distinguishing idiosyncrasies.  The USA Network also promotes its general programming by saying “Characters Welcome”.  The promo goes on to say:

USA Network is not only a place where characters live; it’s a place where characters come alive.

Where we can connect with the people, we see on the screen and on the streets.

Where we can look at ourselves and be entertained, or inspired, or simply proud to be who we are.

Because each one of us is a character.  Yes, even you.

Especially you.

Characters Welcome USA

(http://characters.usanetwork.com/)

Just prior to a time of reading and researching for this Sunday’s message, I had been watching a program on the USA Net Work.  This whole idea of Characters Welcome struck me as coincidental because the Apostle Paul in the first five versus of Romans chapter 5 talks about Christian character and the ends to which people possessed of Christian character obtain—they become Characters of Hope—Characters of Hope in the Righteousness of God.

The Apostle Paul pens his letter to a group of Jewish and Gentile Christians in Roman, who live and worship together in a tentative peace over their cultural differences.

Paul hopes to use the Christian community in Rome as a base of operations for his planned missionary work in Gaul—the western portion of the Roman Empire comprised of Northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland, parts of the Netherlands and Germany.  However, in light of his apparent failure to convince Jewish Christians in Antioch to get on board with his practice of granting believing Gentiles the same status as believing Jews, Paul was determined that as he looked toward evangelizing Gaul he was going to make things clear up front. 

Let me point out that as much as the Book of Romans has been hailed as a book about personal salvation through faith, the major theme of the book is the Righteousness of God.

Paul makes this case in Romans as he talks about Abraham, the spiritual and ethnic father of the Jews.  As Paul understands it, with Adam and Eve’s disobedience came their fall from primal glory—their original relationship with God.  Through their disobedience, sin came into the world and the entire world went wrong.  The only remedy for this condition was for God to take the initiative.

As a side note, the story of Adam and Eve should be off some comfort to us as parents.  It is comforting to know that even God as the Creator and Sustainer had trouble with God’s kids. After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing He said to them was: "Don't."

"Don't what?" Adam asked.

"Don't eat the Forbidden Fruit." God replied.

"Forbidden fruit? We got Forbidden Fruit?

Hey, Eve…we got Forbidden Fruit!"

"No way!"

“Way!”

"Where?"

"Don't eat that fruit!" said God.

"Why?"

"Because I am your Creator and I said so!" said God, wondering why he hadn't stopped after making the elephants.

A few minutes later God saw the kids having an apple break and was angry.

"Didn't I tell you not to eat that fruit?" the 'First Parent' asked.

"Uh huh," Adam replied.

"Then why did you?"

"I dunno," Eve answered.

"She started it!" Adam said.

"Did not!"

"DID so!"

"DID NOT!"

Having had it with the two of them, God's punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own...thus, the pattern was set, and it has never changed.

And we thought that expulsion for the Garden of Eden was Adam’s and Eve’s punishment.

To remedy the lost divine-human relationship, God calls Abraham to be the founder of a people through whom God would bless the people of all nations and restore the original divine-human relationship.  We are not told why God chose Abraham as the father of God’s elect, we can only guess that Abraham distinguished himself to be of exceptional character or his desperation at not having a male heir made him highly susceptible to listening to and complying with God’s call.  On the other hand, maybe a combination of both things is true.

God makes a covenant with Abraham.  If Abraham would do as God leads, God promises that Abraham and his descendants would be blessed, protected, and highly esteemed among all nations, and bask in the glory of being God’s elect people. 

To demonstrate God’s faithfulness, Abraham’s barren, aged wife, Sarai, conceives and bears a child, Isaac.  And, as they say, the rest is history.

Over time, the descendants of Abraham are established as a distinct nation or people living under God’s Laws, which called for them to be separated from the profaneness of the world and other people, making them a holy people, as God was holy.  The Law mediated God’s grace to the people commensurate to their willingness and ability to participate in the Law. The keeping of the Law and being holy proved too difficult for the descendents of Abraham.

Paul adds to this story that contrary to the failed expectations of many of the Jews and Christians, past and present, the world was not so evil that it required a cataclysmic, divine intervention to inaugurate God’s final solution to bless all nations and people and usher in God’s kingdom on earth.  The final act of setting things right began in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, a Jew, a descendent of Abraham, God’s son.  God has and is fulfilling God’s righteous promise in the new age of the Christ--an age whose fruition lies out in the future.  Paul thought the culmination of God’s plan lay in his near future; however, that turned out not to be the case. 

The old era of divine-human relationships and salvation under the Law with all its condemnations and awareness of sin is past.  Paul does not say that the moral and ethical dimensions of the Law are suspended but rather that the moral and ethical dimensions of the Law are now lived out under the catalyst of God’s grace made known in Jesus the Christ.  In addition, Paul seems to reject those ceremonial or cultic laws that radically defined Jews as different from other people.  Jewish cultic distinctiveness and their misunderstandings of the requirements of being holy, Paul seems to believe, kept the Jews from becoming the wholesale blessing to all nations that God had intended in the Abrahamic Covenant.

In summary, God began God’s restorative work of a fallen world with Abraham, who responded in faith to God’s call.  God’s culminating efforts to bless the world comes in Jesus the Christ, the faithful Son of God.  In Christ, God calls people of all races to respond to God’s righteousness and become the true spiritual heirs of Abraham as opposed to just physical heirs.

However, the lives of those who embrace Christ will not always be easy—it will cost, because the world will resist with all its might.  Sinful, prideful, humankind will not relinquish its illusions of power, its unrestrained pursuits of pleasure, belonging, security, and comfort easily.  Those possessed of a sinful nature will resist and inflict personal and systematic pain and vilification upon those called upon to proclaim and give witness to the Good News of the new age of God--an age that is to be ruled by justice, compassion, kindness, and love.  An age where power is defined by a personal surrender to God’s will and in one’s love for others not in the pursuits of prideful, human will, and transitory notions of glory.  An age characterized by the peace of God.

This peace of God paradoxically carries the dimension of suffering and adversity.  Christians should not be dismayed by this; this is to be expected when one confronts the world with its antithesis.  Stay the course, be patient, preserver, don’t falter. Our perseverance will produce in us the character of Christ, who was also tried and tested.  In addition, like Christ who stayed the course and was not deterred when he was rejected by friends, family, his Jewish leadership, and suffered crucifixion only to receive the glory of God in his resurrection, so shall we who are faithful.

Just as Christ was subjected to persecution, vilification, and rejection, so will the Christian of all ages who makes a stand for Christ and proclaims the Gospel in word and deed.  However, those who endure, preserve, may boast, that is, have the confidence, and the hope that they do so not in vain. 

·        The church of Jesus Christ is not only a place where the character of Christ lives, it is a place where this character is supposed to come alive in its people and reaches beyond themselves to embrace and transform a sin directed world.

·        The Community of Christ is a place where Christians acknowledge not only their connection with other people of Christ but also our responsibilities to all the people of the world.

·        The Church of Jesus Christ is a place were Christians understand  themselves within God’s grace and the discerning power of the Holy Spirit and take pride and joy in their distinctiveness not become apologetic for the Christ within them.

·        The Community of Jesus Christ is made up of unique and diverse people who are supposed to be possessed of the common character of Christ, which becomes our confidence in the righteousness of God.

·        Christians are to be people of love.  How do we know this? “…because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

·        Christians are Characters of Hope.  We are supposed to welcome all comers to the Eternal Now of the New Age of God in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, in times of persecution and uncertainty Christians are to take heart, let us have the peace of our confidence in God’s righteousness.  Remember, those who are justified before God by their faith in Christ have already entered into God’s glory.  That is, through Jesus Christ our relationship to God is as it was originally intended to be.  We stand in the eternal “Now” of God’s righteousness.  If God loved the world enough to send the Son to die for it, God will surely complete this work in our personal lives—know this by the Spirit that is within you and trust it.