March 26th Rev. Justin Cheng

St Paul writes to the Christian community in Rome on many topics. The Protestant traditions focus particularly on the passages dealing with justification by faith, or those parts which deal with how to be right with God. Paul answers that to be right with God, is to live in faith, that is, to believe and trust in God’s grace. The answer has reverberated throughout the centuries, it spawned Martin Luther’s reformation and the birth of our own Anglican Church in the 1500s. However, the rest of Romans deal with the question of what comes after justification, what comes after becoming ‘right with God.’
For Paul, and for most of us, who have accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour, who have opened our hearts to trust in God, the more pressing question now, is how we live the Christian life. It’s all right and good to have faith, but what does it mean to live that faith out. And Paul gives the answer, it is to live according to the Spirit, and not live according to the flesh.
But what does Paul mean? It might be helpful to correct a common misunderstanding. People sometimes think what Paul means by ‘flesh’ is the physical body. As in, we have to love the Spirit within and hate the body. But when Paul describes the sins of the flesh, he talks a lot about excessive anger, jealousy, rivalry, greed and selfishness. He does include sexual lust as a sin of the flesh, but it is often remarked that the church historically have fixated only on that particular sin and not on the others, extreme anger, selfishness and greed, that are at least harmful, if not more, than sexual lust. But when looking at these vices carefully, all of them are rooted not in the physical body, but in the mind, as in the problem is a corrupt and wayward mind, not an evil body. So when we are talking about life in the spirit versus life in the flesh, we are talking about life with a mind and a heart that is good and life with a mind and heart that is corrupted.
A more helpful and modern way of looking at is: the life of the Spirit is life oriented towards God, towards other people, and towards one-self. It is a life of right relationship, of overflowing and generous love. If you think of it this way, then Paul stands in continuity with the Old Testament and with Jesus. The Old Testament, especially with the Ten Commandments are about creating and maintaining right relationship, of fostering good relationships of support and care. Jesus, especially in his Beatitudes, those blessed statements, talk about those same right relationships. And so the Old Testament, Jesus and Paul are all fundamentally talking about the same thing but using different language.
Life in the flesh, by contrast is life oriented towards the ego. I hesitate to call it life oriented towards the self. Because if we think of the life of the Spirit, we do end up loving our own selves, God doesn’t ask us to hate ourselves because we are created in the image and likeness of God. But life in the Spirit is loving ourselves in right relationship with God and other people. Life oriented towards the ego is about loving ourselves at the expense of our relationship with God and other people. Which is why Paul says it cannot please God. It cannot please God because life oriented towards the ego does not care about God.
You might be wondering, why with such a wonderful Gospel story, the dramatic raising of Lazarus why did I chose to start my sermon with Romans. Because the passage from Romans helps us makes sense of the raising of Lazarus. The raising of Lazarus takes place in an atmosphere of heightened tension in the Jesus story. We get a glimpse of this in the first part of the passage which is often overlooked by preachers who focus on the drama of the miracle. The disciples warn Jesus not to go to Lazarus, because Lazarus is buried in Bethany which is a suburb of Jerusalem. At this point, the authorities in Jerusalem are already suspicious about Jesus, and are looking for any opportunity to ensnare him.
But Jesus goes to Bethany, towards Jerusalem, knowing full well, that any vivid miracle, any act of power that he would perform would eventually result in his drawing the ire of the authorities and his own death. He goes to raise Lazarus, accepting full well, that he does so at the cost of his own life.
Why? He does it because of love. He does it because he lived fully the life of the Spirit, the life oriented towards God and towards others. He raises Lazarus out of love for not only Lazarus but for the sisters, Mary and Martha. Note that this same Mary later anoints Jesus with costly, expensive perfume. She does this because she realizes just how much Jesus loved her and her brother. Jesus brought back Lazarus from the dead and literally gave up his life as a result. If someone not only brought back your loved one to life and gave up his own life as a result, no gift would be too expensive to express your deep gratitude and love in return.
It is startling when you see the Lazarus story from a wider, cosmic, spiritual picture. And John, most spiritual of all the gospels, invite us to see it from this angle. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and in doing so, enters into the events of Holy Week, suffering on the cross, being buried and rising from the dead on the third day. In these events which we will celebrate next week, the most holiest time of our Christian year, we are transformed, saved, and brought into eternal life. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead not only because he loved him, not only because he loved Mary and Martha, but ultimately because he loves us. And so when we see how Jesus perfectly and wondrously lived that life of the Spirit, the life lived for God, lived for others, and lived for all creation, so we are invited to live that same life now. To live in right relationship, loving God with all our heart, mind soul and strength, and to love our fellow human beings as ourselves, that is the way of the Spirit, the way that truly leads to life.