Living Bound: Romans 6:12-23 - Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NRSV)

monday breakfast on the patio by Indabelle on flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0

Earlier this month, the Quaker Oats Company announced that it would be retiring the Aunt Jemima brand. The brand began back in 1889 with two men who created a self-rising pancake mix. They attended a minstrel show where male actors wearing black face performed a song called “Old Aunt Jemima.” They portrayed what was known as a “mammy,” a stereotypical slave woman who cared more for her white master’s children than her own. Once they applied the name and image of this character, their pancake mix became a huge success. 

Sadly, Aunt Jemima is a byproduct of a tragic legacy of 250 years of slavery, a century of Jim Crow Laws, and the racism still embedded in our economic, educational, and political systems.  

Yet slavery is not something we like to talk about, and I see two reasons for that: the first is that it’s unthinkable that such evil happened in our country for so long. It’s unthinkable that human beings could do this to other human beings, call it good, and even be willing to die for it. 

The other is that it is inconceivable to think of ourselves as not being free to exercise our own will and be in control of our destiny. But these are truths you and I cannot deny.

As sinners, we rebel against God, and do unto others what we did to Jesus at the cross. We visit death upon each other and upon God’s creation, to gain wealth, power, and glory for ourselves. You can accumulate all the power and riches the world has to offer, but you will still die. 

You didn’t choose to be a sinner; you didn’t choose to be mortal. You were born into it. “I confess that I am captive to sin and cannot free myself.” Like it or not, you are enslaved. All of your striving and hard work cannot make you righteous or immortal. 

Only God is true freedom. Yet God in Jesus Christ traded that freedom for enslavement to a sinful, fallen humanity. He was crucified with your sin and your mortality, and God set him free by raising him from the dead. And God’s desire for you is to be set free, every single day, from enslavement to sin and death through your baptism into Christ. But there’s a catch: you are not free from God. You are not free to exercise your will, to the exclusion of God’s. To seek freedom apart from God is to sin. To seek freedom apart from God is to die, even if, for a while, you feel very much “alive.”

In Christ, you are both free and not free. As Martin Luther famously said, you are a slave to none and a servant to all. Sin and death have no dominion over you—but Jesus is not your slave to satisfy your needs and wants. Jesus is not your “pal;” he is your Lord.

The challenge for you is to cede your will; to consider your hearts’ desires along with your greatest fears; and surrender them all to God. This may sound disheartening… Yes, God’s righteousness demands a righteousness in you that will cost you the wealth, the success, and the glory others appear to be enjoying. Yes, you will be surrendering battles you could’ve both fought and won. Yes, your priorities will be reordered to put God’s kingdom and neighbor’s need above your own. But you are also seizing the promises of God.

The reason why we speak of peace that passes understanding is because the world can’t give it—but God sure can! God’s life and love will reign in your heart and in your soul—and nothing in the world can take it away. Isn’t it good news to know that you’ll never be free of God, because God refuses to be free of you, even when you rebel against God?

Freedom isn’t about doing whatever you want. Freedom is the gift of right relationship with God and each other. To be bound to God is to be bound to the other in mutual love. 

To enjoy God is to love righteousness. Christ has bound himself to you—so live bound to him. Claim his righteousness. Be alive. Be free.