Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Francis Schaeffer was once a prominent philosopher of the Calvinistic persuasion. Those of you coming out of an Evangelical background might remember him as well as a popular book he wrote many years ago exploring the decline of Western society and culture as we know it entitled, How Should We Then Live?. Today, the Apostle might very well be asking us the same question, except with this slight twist, “Having been baptized, how should we then live?” The point for both Schaeffer and St. Paul is quite simple: the Christian Faith has meaning and substance. It looks like something. It is identifiable. Indeed, the Christian Faith is intended to be lived, not studied. It is not a philosophy. It is rather a way of life, of being, of thinking and doing. It is theology that colors my life and yours in terms of practice. If one is spiritual, which is to say, led by the Spirit of God (Rm. 8:14; Ga. 5:18), then one is spiritual in and through the physical body for the body and the spirit and the soul form one unity. Our doctrine of the Resurrection of the body to be re-united with the soul in eternity affirms this and speaks to how God created us.
“Having been baptized into the Death and Resurrection of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, how then should we live?” The answer of the Apostle is found in this chapter from Romans, along with the succeeding chapters of his Epistle to the Romans. Quite plainly, it is all rooted in worship. We are a liturgical people. Adam and Eve were created by God to liturgize, that is, to worship, by being faithful in the priesthood bestowed by God upon them in Paradise. Paul says in the very opening verses of this twelfth chapter of Romans:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service [or worship] (Rm. 12:1).
And how do we do that? By not being
conformed to this world, but [by being] transformed [transfigured] by the renewing of your mind [nous], that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rm. 12:2).
This is what the baptized sons and daughters of God do. They worship God. They serve God and they serve one another, and this is all done within the Body of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Which brings us to today’s lection. At first hearing, it sounds sort of hodge podge, disconnected and disjointed, strung together somewhat willy-nilly. The Apostle moves from talking about spiritual gifts and their use to a staccato list of virtues and behaviors, seemingly unrelated to the verses on spiritual gifts. That is, until we realize that whatever spiritual gift God has given to each one of us – and we all have at least one according to the measure or proportion of our faith, says the Apostle – whatever spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has willed for us (1 Cr. 12:11), He has done so, not for our individual benefit (though unquestionably we do reap benefits from exercising them), but rather for the sake of the Body of Jesus Christ – the Church. “But the manifestation of the Spirit,” says St. Paul elsewhere, “is given to each for the profit of all” (1 Cr. 12:7).
This is how the Body of Christ is. It is nearly impossible in Sacred Scripture, not to mention the Holy Tradition itself, of envisioning a loose knit association of believers vaguely bound together, if at all, by who knows what. Rather, the Tradition and her Scriptures see the Body of Christ as a unity – an organic whole – as real as the unity of our souls and bodies. It is inconceivable to have a soul without a body and a body without a soul. They are one. We are one in Christ. “[W]e, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another,” St. Paul says earlier in this chapter (Rm. 12:5). In Christ, we belong to one another. In Christ, we belong for one another. If any of us opts to go rogue or to ride off like the Lone Ranger to carve out our own version of spiritual life, the Body suffers an amputation. And an amputated body is a deformed body – something our Lord does not intend nor will.
Therefore, if you have been baptized into Christ, you have received the heavenly Spirit. If you have received the Holy Eucharist, you have received the heavenly Spirit, just as we sing. And, if you have received the heavenly Spirit, then you have been graced with one of His gifts to be used for the edification and building up in love the Body of Jesus Christ (Ep. 4:11-16). This is why St. Paul speaks of the Spirit’s gifts or graces bestowed upon us. They are for Christ. They are for our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Apostle lists seven here in Romans which is by no stretch of the imagination an exhaustive list. Paul lists others elsewhere 1 Cr. 12:1-14:40; Ep. 4:1-16; 1 Pe. 4:7-11). However, as one Church Father suggests, Paul’s list here in Romans is a symbolic expression of the perfection of the Church in Jesus Christ with seven being the Biblical number of perfection, completeness, wholeness, catholicity. The Spirit’s gifts listed here by the Apostle are gifts provided by God that will edify His Church and her members and build them up. Or, if you prefer, they are given by God “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, . . . .” (Ep. 4:11-12): prophecy or prophetic proclamation which might be called preaching, ministry or diaconal service, teaching for the handing on of the Faith and for the strengthening of the Faith in the baptized, exhortation for the consolation or the stirring up of others, giving for support like the women who provided for our Lord out of their means (Lk. 8:1-3), pastoral leadership, and the showing of mercy to those in need of mercy-works or charity. Whatever gift we may possess is by the grace of God, determined by God, and to be used by us in faith and in obedience for the sake of our Lord and for our brethren in Christ. As we know from another Church season, when we serve our brethren, we serve Jesus Christ Himself (Mt. 25:31-46). “’For whatsoever ye have done to the least of these, . . . .’”
The Apostle doesn’t stop there, however. He dives into a virtual staccato listing of virtues following his exhortation on the use of spiritual gifts. And yet, if we pay particular attention, these graces, these virtues, these fruit of the Holy Spirit, are the very things the spiritual gifts we have been graced with are to help cultivate in all believers. Not all of us are gifted by the Spirit alike. But, we all can grow in all the virtues or fruit of the Holy Spirit here and elsewhere described throughout Sacred Scripture. St. Peter tells us to be diligent to add to our virtues so that we might have the fullness of Jesus Christ (2 Pe. 1:58). Most notable or most familiar to us perhaps is the fruit St. Paul lists in Galatians: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law,” he says” (Ga. 5:22-23).
Here, however, in Romans, he fleshes this fruit out, expanding its comprehensiveness. First up is love – the keystone and identifying characteristic of all Christians precisely because “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:7-21). “’By this,’” Jesus says, “’all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another’” (Jn. 13:35). So, St. Paul clarifies just a tad, “Let [this] love be without hypocrisy.” In other words, our love for God and for each other must be genuine, real, authentic. What I am to your face I am to be behind your back. I need to be consistent behind closed doors. I cannot feign caring up front and then behind your back speak uncaringly – unlovingly – about you or anyone else, for that matter. That is hypocrisy. You will not find among this list or any other virtue-lists the virtue of “niceness,” of being nice, such as the world demands. It doesn’t exist because niceness isn’t a virtue. Niceness will fail miserably under fatigue and be like a reed that pierces our hands when we lean upon it (4 Kg. [2 Kg.] 18:21; Is. 36:6).
But, the love that epitomizes Jesus and His sacrifice is a virtue of the highest caliber (1 Cr. 13:1-13). It is what we are called to by Jesus. Hence, Paul can say that we are to “abhor what is evil” or better, abhor the evil one. For all the love called for in Scripture, we cannot, however, love evil; we cannot love sin. But, we can and do and must, like our Lord, love the sinner who has fallen into evil through the machinations of the evil one. Thus, the Apostle urges us then to “be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another.” Elsewhere, St. Paul says it this way:
Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself (Ga. 6:1-2).
In other words, in all humility and soberness of self-opinion (Rm. 12:16), we are to lay our egos aside (actually, we are to put them to death) and outdo one another in honoring each other which means we honor Christ in our neighbor. We are to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, . . . .” (Hb. 10:24). We are to “cling to what is good.” We are to know goodness because it is “God-ness” (for only God is good) and we are to cleave to it as surely as to life itself! So, if there is a competition in the Church, it is to be a holy competition – a race to humbly outdo each other in love for one another!
The Apostle goes on urging each of us to stoke the fire of the Holy Spirit Who dwells in the Church and in the hearts of all believers. We pray for such in the Holy Eucharist, “O Lord, Who didst send down Thy Most Holy Spirit upon Thine Apostles at the third hour: Take Him not from us, O Good One, but renew Him in us who pray unto Thee.” Do not lag in zeal or diligence, Paul urges, but be boiling [zeon], if you will, in the Spirit of God, “serving the Lord.” We remember the words of the Baptist and Forerunner that when our Lord comes, He will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Mt. 3:11).
Quickly moving on, in rapid fire succession, the Apostle counsels us to rejoice in hope – the hope of all that Christ God has accomplished “for us men and for our salvation” (Nicene Creed). Anything less is hopeless. Be “patient in tribulation” because we know how it compels us into the hands of Christ producing in us an abundance of other virtues that are Christ-like (Rm. 5:1-11). Continue steadfast in prayer, persevere in prayer, as our Lord teaches (Lk. 18:1-8), which is to say, “pray without ceasing,” beloved (1 Th. 5:17). Prayer is our lifeline. Prayer is the sap of the Holy Spirit flowing through us keeping us in the True Vine which is Jesus Christ (Jn. 15:1-17). Prayer fuels love for God and for one another. It is a dynamic act of hope in Christ. It is the fertilizer of all virtues. It enables us to live the life of the Beatitudes so that we are empowered to bless and not to curse, to be strong in the face of the evil one and to do good, overcoming evil by it (Rm. 12:17, 21). The holy Apostle lists others in this chapter, but I’ll let you go home and read them for yourselves.
The point is: you are graced with the Spirit of the living God. “You are baptized. You are illumined. You have been chrismated. You are sanctified. You are washed: in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mystery of Baptism/Chrismation). This is the Truth and the reality of our life in Jesus Christ. We have been graced and gifted for one another. When the Apostle tells us we are the Body of Christ, it is “more than a metaphor or analogy. It is and expresses the metaphysical reality made ours . . . through the liturgical actions of the Church.” Therefore, “each [of us] works not separately for personal salvation [alone], . . . [but] functions for the benefit of all” all the while “working out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God Who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Pp. 2:12-13). “The virtues of Jesus Christ which we are to put on and grow up into are not selfish nor do they foster selfishness.” And the Church is not an aid or an adjunct or supplement to our spiritual life. She is “the very essence of [our] Christian pursuit. “The life in Christ,” Fr. Reardon tells us, is, by its very nature, life in the faith and communion of the Church.” The Body of Jesus Christ is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 138 [139]:14), and by the grace and mercy of God you have been united to Jesus Christ.
Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
PROPERS:
Rm. 12:6-14
Mt. 9:1-8