Time to Prune
Romans 6:1-11
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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You might remember me saying that in high school, I had a part-time job working at a garden center. One of my tasks was to prune some of the plants. For those who don't know, pruning is the practice of selectively removing certain parts of the plants such as branches, and to either remove dead parts, improve the shape, or promote growth. In the same way, pruning benefits the overall health of a plant; our life of faith calls us to cut off the various aspects of our lives that are not life-giving. This act of trimming away benefits not only ourselves but the communities of which we are a part of as well. And that is key for us to remember; that our life in Christ is not about individual freedom, but the well-being of the whole.
The passage for this morning resonates as something key for Paul as we hear similar sounding words in his letter to the Corinthians, "'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things are beneficial." (I Corinthians 6:12, NRSV) Wise words that we need to remember as the weather gives way to warmer days and luring opportunities that lull us into wrongly thinking the past months of social distancing have eradicated the virus. Of course, there are other truths that we find in our reading this morning as well. Sparks of truth that call us to take our baptism seriously and understand that a life that is born anew in the love of God is not a pass to do whatever we want. Some sacrifices need to occur, pruning for the sake of growth, and setting aside our pride so that we can take a step back and see the bigger picture.
It is for this reason we talk about being a citizen in the Kingdom of God. For those who identify themselves with the life-giving will of God, the forces of sin and death can no longer stand as an expected reality. For those who put on God's mantle, our lives take guidance from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That means the spheres of our public and private life are blurred. Daily we are challenged to live as people who are being transformed by the Spirit of God. So how are you living as someone born anew today? What are your pruning, trimming, or letting go of so that your life bears witness to the power and love of God? Perhaps it's hard for us to comprehend such a sacrifice, but God expects our lives to be different for the better.
As parts of the United States and New York continue to reopen, we must remind ourselves that just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. It's why we haven't resumed in-person worship. Of course, I miss all of you! But the virus hasn't gone away. And as a church, we ask ourselves if putting the people we are called to love at risk is something that Christ would be okay with us doing. I don't think Christ would be okay with that, especially knowing that things have not changed all that much. The new life we find in Christ does not give us a license to go out and act like things are all okay. Things are not okay, and if we listen, we will discover that this new life in Christ asks us to wait, listen, and trust more deeply than we ever have before in our lives.
This waiting, listening, and trusting is something you can witness in the ancient Christian rite of baptism. Along the banks of a river, believers would wait and then led down to the waters. They would remove their old clothes, and then after their baptism, they would climb out and receive a new set of clothes. These new clothes represented the new life they had received in Christ, and it was a visual sign that they would live their lives anew from that day onward. There are things that they promised to give up so that they could live as a reflection of the love and life of God. Life would no longer be about themselves, and life would possess a more meaningful purpose as they sought out the well-being of all those who lived in the community with them.
Sin kills. Sin is a force of death that dehumanizes and reduces some to positions of oppression and suffering. Think of sin as an invading force that takes and leaves nothing for those who worked the land first. Think of sin as the depraved times of human existence where voices were silenced and squashed under oppressive systems. Sin is all those things, the force that stands antithetical to the life God offers. As overwhelming as it might seem, Paul's message this morning is that we can overcome and be freed from sin, and all it takes is choosing to follow and trust in the life of Christ. So may we choose that pathway of life. May we choose wholeheartedly the way that brings life to those around us! In our baptism, Christ freed us from the bonds of sin and death. So at the very least, may our response be a shout of hallelujah, and a renewed sense to be agents of change who make manifest the love of God. Amen.