A Sermon for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C
Rev. Laura Gentry
Preached at Our Savior's Lutheran Church
Lansing, Iowa
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Picture this: you are sitting alone in a prison cell. You are shackled, hungry and miserable. You are aware that you are awaiting your death sentence. Worst of all, you didn’t commit any crime. You are here in this awful place because you did the right thing and you boldly proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ.
What’s your response? Do you live in denial and try to pretend this is not happening to you? Do you shake your fists at God and ask why you’ve had to suffer so? Do you give in to depression and lose hope?
You don’t do any of those things. Not, at least, if you are Saint Paul. Instead of despairing—which is obviously his natural reaction (he is human, after all), he holds firm to his faith, resolute to endure everything. And then gets busy with his letter writing.
In our first lesson, we are privy to one such letter. This one was written to Timothy, a young church leader who has worked with Paul. In Ephesus, Timothy is facing false teachings that are threatening to destroy his ministry. Scholars today find it unlikely that Paul himself wrote this letter to Timothy. It was probably a minister who was inspired by Paul and who was writing in his style. In ancient times this was a common practice and was a way of showing respect for the person in whose name it was written. In any case, the timeless truth of God’s power shines out in these words.
This is a letter of encouragement. Even today, so many years after this piece was written, we Christians still need encouragement. Perhaps, we need it more than ever before. It is so easy to feel sorry for ourselves and think that God ought to be doing more for us. But this letter reminds Timothy and it reminds us that we must focus on the gospel if we are to endure our presence circumstances.
This amazing passage declares the central message of our faith: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. He has broken the bonds of death and is alive, and because he lives we may live also. This truth should always be in the forefront of our minds. We must hold firm to this. We live because Christ gave us life and not just life for this world, but life beyond the grave.
Paul knows this. Here he is, languishing in prison while nearly all of his friends have abandoned him. His ministry has led him to suffering. But he knows that his Lord Jesus Christ also suffered and so this suffering can draw him closer to God, not further away. He is aware of the truth that though his body is chained, God’s word is not. God’s word is not chained. What a powerful message!
And because God’s word is not chained, Paul is not chained. Yes, he may be in prison, but his soul is unchained. All things are still possible because he walks in faith. Now, he can endure this suffering and he reminds us that God gives us the power to do the same. We an live as resurrected people. Every morning is Easter morning because we are risen with Christ and that means we are risen above any of the circumstances of our lives that chain us. In Christ, our souls are unchained.
The other scripture readings for today bear witness to this reality. In both the Hebrew Scripture reading about Naaman and the Gospel reading about the 10 lepers, we see God’s word being unchained. In both stories, there are men who are stricken with leprosy. Talk about chains. These people were afflicted both physically and socially because their disease caused them to be ostracized. They were truly men without hope.
And then God’s power comes into the picture and heals them. They are given their lives back—resurrection is truly what happens to them. And not only that, some of those healed are outsiders. Naaman is the commander of the enemy army and one of the ten lepers Jesus heals is a Samaritan. It would have been unthinkable to the ancient audiences of these scriptures that God would heal such unworthy candidates. Yet that’s precisely what God does. Unchained? Yes! God’s word is unchained and God’s embrace is so much wider than we could ever fathom. And now, those who have been healed and unchained as well. Their lives are resurrected and will never be the same again.
So what does this all mean for us? We who live with the many chains of our modern world, we who suffer untold pain, we who fear about the future—what can this brief letter, which wasn’t even necessarily written by Paul, do for us?
Well, if we listen closely with the ears of faith, we know that these words were written just for you and me. "If we have died with him, we will also live with him." There is nothing surer. Though life may be full of suffering, we follow a living Lord. Paul says it all in his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4 verse 17, "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
God's Word is not chained, my friends. Do you believe that? Can you embrace that truth even when things look really dismal? Can you allow God to unchain your soul so that you may truly live today?
The wonderful thing is that God offers to free us even without our own doing. We don’t have to earn God’s love. It is a gift. Martin Luther once said that "the only thing we bring to our salvation is sin and resistance!" How powerful to know that all is God’s gift, all is grace even though we are so imperfect and so frequently faithless.
And now that we have this gift of resurrected life, we have the gleaming opportunity to live it. We have the amazing chance to be truly unchained. God wants to heal us and lift us up so that we can walk in newness of live today and on into eternity. Let us be unchained. Let us live. Amen.
Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© Laura Gentry 2010 (painting and sermon)
