Zombies?

Scripture: Romans 6:1b-11. CEB 

6 So what are we going to say? Should we continue sinning so grace will multiply? 2 Absolutely not! All of us died to sin. How can we still live in it? 3 Or don’t you know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore, we were buried together with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life. 5 If we were united together in a death like his, we will also be united together in a resurrection like his. 6 This is what we know: the person that we used to be was crucified with him in order to get rid of the corpse that had been controlled by sin. That way we wouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore, 7 because a person who has died has been freed from sin’s power. 8 But if we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ has been raised from the dead and he will never die again. Death no longer has power over him. 10 He died to sin once and for all with his death, but he lives for God with his life. 11 In the same way, you also should consider yourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.

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Good morning.  Happy Father’s Day.  We are officially in Summer now, so in California’s Central Valley we can expect 100+ degree sunny days for the foreseeable future.   Perhaps sheltering in place is not such a hardship right now, at least not for those of us blessed with air-conditioning, anyway.

As many of you know, I usually finish writing my message on Saturday morning so that I can record and upload it before noon, so just in case anything weird happens with the interwebz I can get it to Jordan some other way.   This week - today - instead of writing my message first thing, I tuned in to the live stream of the Mass Poor People’s Campaign and Moral March on Washington.  That was at 7 am.  It didn’t end till nearly 10:30, so I got a later start than most weeks.   There were many excellent and passionate speakers. There were testimonies by dozens of people affected by poverty, racism, as well as unhealthy air and water, voter suppression, mass incarceration, and other issues that affect the poor disproportionately.  I was pleased to see Disciples well represented by Rev. Alvin Jackson, Pastor Emeritus of Park Avenue Christian Church, and the Rev. Teresa Hord Owen, Disciples General Minister and President.  And of course, by the co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign, The Reverend Dr. William J Barber, II, who delivered the closing message.  It was kind of strange to listen to him preach with only one or two people listening in person, because there were a lot of places for Amens and other responses.   I did notice that the lack of people in front of him did not seem to affect his passion or the power of his words at all, so there’s that. 

You know, I should probably never spend a morning watching great preachers like Pastor Barber, and then try to write my own message.  Because - wow.  

You all know how I am.  I took one look at this reading about being dead to sin and rising from the dead, and corpses controlled by sin, and my mind immediately went to zombies.  Some of you are fans of the Walking Dead and other zombie apocalypse stuff, and may also have had a similar reaction.  Or not.  I am not a fan of zombies, but there you go.  So I have this picture in my mind of some glittery misty body shaped entity, our soul perhaps, rising out of a rotting corpse with sin written on its back- a zombie.   It would be so great if it was that easy, right?  If sin was always as obvious as a zombie, ‘cause zombies tend to stand out, then avoiding sin  or even just recognizing it would be a snap.  Unfortunately, however, is not that easy.  I mean, murder and grand theft auto and abusing others are pretty obviously sins.      

But, sometimes sin seems rather unremarkable.   I’m trying to think of one of those. Maybe the sin of telling someone an untruth when that untruth is meant to keep from hurting them - like not saying how much you hate their new outfit - maybe that’s a kind of unremarkable sin.  You almost have to choose between hurting someone’s feelings and being strictly honest, and deciding which of those is the more loving behavior.   And maybe giggling over someone else’s misfortune - that’s almost certainly a sin.  

Sometimes what one person calls sin may not seem sinful to another.  Dancing, for instance.  Some Christian traditions think dancing is always sinful, while others incorporate liturgical dance in their worship services.   Some congregations have bingo nights, while others preach that gambling of any kind is a sin.  A woman wearing slacks is sinful in some traditions and not in others.   In those cases, if you do the forbidden thing and feel guilty about it, then it’s probably a sin for you. I guess.  Luckily, I’m not in charge of making that call.  

Sometimes sin seems quite lovely and lively, and not at all like a zombie.  Like acquiring mass quantities of money and stuff, you know? like the newest and coolest gadgets and clothes and car.  So very tempting, and truly, acquiring lots of stuff - wealth - in and of itself is not a terrible thing.  But the greed that keeps us from helping those who need our help when we have the wherewithal to do so - that is where the sin lies.  1Timothy 6: 9-10 tells us “those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”   These, who have wandered away from the faith because of these desires - these are zombies, I think.  For sin has reanimated the corpse that they once left behind in order to live in Christ.  Likewise, hating someone or even just treating them differently because of something that is not in their control - race, country of origin, gender or gender identity - that seems pretty obviously sinful.  There is, after all, that pesky commandment to love one another.    

Love is difficult.  It requires really hard work.  During the virtual March on Washington, Bishop Yvette Flunder, the pastor of City Of Refuge UCC in Oakland said, “My grandmother always used to say, Love is not a say word.  Love is a do word.”   We cannot say that we love someone if we are not willing to manifest that love in some tangible way.  If we say “I love everyone,” but are silent in the face of oppression, we do not love. Indifference to the 140 million men, women, and children living in poverty in not only not love, it is sin.

 

The speakers and the witnesses testifying at that event called out many sins that afflict us as individuals and as a nation and they called out the choice of so many to remain silent.  So many issues that disproportionately affect people living in poverty - in Appalachia, in our inner cities, in the Deep South, in rural Kansas - black, brown and white, of every age and gender and sexual identity.  Over and over, person after person said,  “Someone has been hurting our people, and it’s gone on for far too long, and we won’t be silent any more.”  Silence in the face of sin is sin. 

Dr. Barber said this is the time for a moral revival, a time for all of us to focus on living by the commandments to love God and each other.  He said that now, in the face of the pandemic, it is time for each of us to take inventory of our time on earth. To see how and where we love, how we spend our energy and our passion.  

If we are 48 hours from taking our last breath, what do we want to spend that breath on?   

Do we want to spend it on love, on caring for the most vulnerable?

Do we want to spend it standing up and speaking for those who most need our help?

Do we want to spend it fighting against the causes of poverty?

Do we want to die to sin?  

Do we want to leave sin behind so that we may live?  

Because this is a choice that we can make daily - 

the choice to leave sin behind, 

the choice to love - truly love - one another, 

to stand for the poor, the weak, the sick, the oppressed,

the choice to live in the Kingdom, in the beloved community, 

the choice to give our lives to the one who died for us

the choice to be alive for God through Jesus.