Romans 8: 12-17
Trinity Sunday/ 3rd June 2012
There’s probably no
better summary of what it means to be a Christian than Paul’s majestic and
profound theological claims in Romans 8, written to Christians in Rome. There’s probably no better summary of Paul’s own understanding of what it’s
like to be a follower of Jesus. In many ways, the core, the center, the
linchpin of the chapter, as well as the center of his personal experience, is
right here in verses 12-17, and the lead-in actually begins with verse 11. In these verses we are presented with an
extraordinary, bold understanding of what it means to be, as Paul often said,
“in Christ.” What we’re given here is Paul’s own’ Pentecostal insight, we’re allowed
to see Paul’s view of the Holy Spirit – who the Spirit is and what the Spirit
does and where the Spirit is at work doing all of this.
To
“get” this we need to proceed slowly, very slowly, and follow what Paul is
saying here, following his logic. He
packs a lot in of a few sentences. If we
go slowly, we might be able to have a better understanding of how he viewed the
Christian life – and it might just change the way we see our lives as
Christians. So listen (again) for the
Word of God in Romans 8, starting with verse 11:
If
the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
he who raised Christ
from the dead
will give life to your
mortal bodies also
through his Spirit who
dwells in you.
So then, brother and sisters, we are debtors,
not to the flesh [read: human
nature],
to live according to the
flesh [human nature] –
for if you live according to the flesh, you will die;
but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds
of the body,
you will live.
For
all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
For
you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received a
spirit of adoption.
When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’
it is the very Spirit
bearing witness with our
spirit
that we are children of
God,
and if children,
then heirs, heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ –
if in fact, we suffer with him
so that we may also be glorified with him.
There’s a lot here, but
there are two major points I think we need to lift up, and they’re related –
being children and being part of a family.
Did you notice how Paul
defined the children of God? He’s very
specific. In our age, we tend to be
generic about how we use this phrase. People
of faith and even of none often refer to humanity in general as “children of God.” That is, simply being born, given life by the
creator, means that we are children, having been fathered and mothered by God,
as it were. We think to be created in the image of God means to be a child of
God – and to some extent, this is all true. We’re all God’s children. However, this is not what Paul is talking about here. He’s being very precise, very particular
here, and has something very special in mind:
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Who are the children of God? Those who are led by the Spirit. Now, to our ears this might sound
exclusionary, that the true children of God are Spirit-led, the rest have to
fend for themselves. It sounds as if Paul is being divisive. But this misses the point.
He wants his hearers to
know that to follow Christ is to be “in Christ,” and when we’re in Christ the
same Spirit of God who raised Christ from the grave and granted him new life is
now at work in us, continually raising us up from the grave, giving us new
life. It’s in this sense that we are children of God, when the Spirit of God is
leading us; when this is happening we are the offspring of the generative
Spirit who is making us into sons and daughters, children of God.
This means that as the
Spirit is leading us, as we’re becoming children of God, we are leaving behind our
former family of identification, children of the flesh, children of a wayward
human nature, children of the ego that wants to live a life apart from
God. The term Paul uses here for this
transfer of allegiance is uiothesia –
adoption. When the Spirit leads us there
is – or should be – a break, even a total break with the old family. This does
not mean we reject families altogether, it’s just that they no longer
ultimately define who we are. We give up
our identity through biology and are placed within the context of a new family
– the family of God – with all its
rights, privileges, and responsibilities.
To be in Christ means
that we have been incorporated into a new family, called to be part of a larger
community. The family of faith now
becomes our adoptive family, which is not biologically related. We’re all adopted children of God, adopted
into the very life of God, as fellow-participants. This is one of the reasons a text like this
is the lection on Trinity Sunday, because this text makes it very clear that to
be led by the Spirit means that we have and are being taken up into the
community of God’s love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – into that holy family.
The evidence of this is
found in prayer. And Paul couldn’t be
more explicit here. When we cry in
prayer, “Abba! Father! Daddy!
Papa!” this profound, sincere, heart-felt cry of parental intimacy that
comes from the depths of our being to God, Paul tells us, is the Spirit praying
through us, bearing witness with our
spirit, reminding us that we are children.
In other words, just the fact that we turn to God as intimate parent
testifies to the fact that we are indeed part of the family of God. The Spirit works deep within the depths of
our spirit and tells us, reminds us, shows us that we are not alone, that the
deepest parts of ourselves are intimately connected with God, that we are safe
and secure within. And every time we cry out that way and direct our prayers to
God as Father or Mother we are reminded that we are not children of the flesh,
not children of nature alone, not left to ourselves, but that we are the
beloved children of God, part of God’s family.
And if we’re children,
that means we’re also heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – we’re
all in the family, as it were, sharing in the life of God. We’re all participating in the life and
blessing and joy of God. We’re all participating in the love of God
together.
Joint heirs with
Christ, that’s who we are, – if, in fact,
we suffer with him… Suffer? Everything
up to this point was so affirming, uplifting.
Why did Paul throw this into the mix?
Is he glorifying suffering?
Shouldn’t we be working to alleviate suffering in the world? Jesus suffered on the cross for me, so why do
I have to suffer? We could call all of these responses “natural,” we could say
they’re “flesh-ly,” we might say they’re “of the flesh.” To respond in this way
is to miss the point.
Now, we have to tread very carefully here. I have some anxiety in saying what I’m about
to say because I don’t want to be misunderstood. We have to be careful here that we don’t
glorify suffering. However, we also have
to be careful that we don’t avoid the importance of suffering. To share in the life of God means we also
share in the sufferings of God. It
comes with the “package” called faith in God.
Jesus, as fully, authentically human suffered; that is, he underwent
pain and sorrow and even death, and he did so not because he had to, but
because he wanted to – because of his
love. That’s what love does; it suffers. He showed us that love suffers
when we participate in another’s pain and sorrow and grief. The greater the love the greater the hurt;
the greater the love the great the grief and suffering; the grater the love the
more we embrace it all and feel it all.
This is an extremely difficult concept; it’s tough. For some it might
feel way too challenging, too much. Some
might say, I can’t love or suffer like
that, or I can’t love like that because I
don’t want to get hurt – or hurt again.
Ironically, though, there
is a kind of unnecessary suffering,
the kind that comes in refusing to acknowledge this fact, which avoids
suffering.[1] The psychoanalyst Carl
Jung (1875-1961) found that “neurosis is always a substitute,” for what he
called “legitimate suffering.”[2]
It’s the kind of unnecessary suffering that
comes by avoiding suffering. I came
across a similar insight decades ago in the Gnostic text from the 2nd
century Apocryphal Acts of John. Don’t go calling the heresy police on me for
quoting a Gnostic text; there’s a lot of psychological and spiritual wisdom
here, when Jesus says this, “Had ye known how to suffer, ye would know how to
suffer no more. Learn how to suffer, and
ye shall overcome.”[3] Like Jesus who was willing, in love, to face
suffering throughout his life and yet triumphed over it because of the power of
God working through him, so too, the Spirit empowers us to love and to suffer
and suffer through in order that God’s
glory might be revealed through it all. All of this requires more attention,
but I couldn’t overlook the reference to suffering here, because it’s so
crucial. It’s an insight into the
meaning of redemptive suffering that is given when the Spirit is leading us. In Christ, we know this to be true, maybe
less so when we think “in the flesh.”
It’s all part of what is
being given and granted to us by the Spirit, bearing witness with our spirit,
leading us and reminding us that we are children of God.
Francis of Assisi
(1181/82-1226) knew what it was like to move from one family to another. Francis’ father had dreams for his son,
dreams that came crashing down when Francis heard the voice of the Christ and
led him in a different direction, into ministry. His father was furious with him. He humiliated and shamed Francis in the town
square. Francis lived in poverty on the outskirts of Assisi, but went into town
now and again. He was often wary of
making the trip should he encounter his father.
So one day, on the way up to Assisi, Francis asked a beggar sitting along
the side of the road to walk with him.
Francis said to him, “Every time my father yells an insult at me in one
ear, tells me I’m dirt, that I don’t count, whisper in my other ear, ‘You’re a
child of God. You’re a child of God. And
keep telling me so.’”[4]
That’s what the Holy
Spirit does for us – whether it’s through the voice of a beggar who reminds us
who we are or the community of the church that reminds us daily who we are, whether
it’s through the wisdom of our dreams or the voice of dear loved ones who tell
us until we really believe it – the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that
we are indeed children of God.
Image: Triqueta, ancient Celtic symbol for the Trinity.
[1] Cf. Richard Rohr’s discussion of “necessary suffering” in Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011), 73.
This section is informed by the writings of C. G. Jung.
[2] This is a foundational precept of
Jungian analytic theory. See also James
Hollis, What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life (Gotham,
2009), 59.
[3] Gustav Holst’s (1874-1934)
translation of the Apocryphal
Acts of John, used in his choral composition, Hymn to
Jesus, Opus 37 (1916).
