A Treatise Or A Tale
Romans 6:1-23
John 8:1-11
Ken Whitt April 29, 2007
Pastor Ken has asked me, before reading the scriptures this morning, to ask you what you prefer. A treatise or a tale? We have both in the scripture readings this morning, a fairly long, relatively involved treatise and then a short and lively tale.
And we’re going to start with the treatise, which is Romans, the 6th Chapter, verses 1-23:
Dying and Rising with Christ
6 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 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.
5 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. 6 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. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instrumentsa of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instrumentsbof righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Slaves of Righteousness
15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.c For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And then the shorter, livelier tale, John 8, verses 1-11.
The Woman Caught in Adultery
8 1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.r 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11 She said, "No one, sir."s And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."t
c Gk the weakness of your flesh
r Other ancient authorities add the sins of each of them
s Or Lord
t The most ancient authorities lack 7.53—8.11; other authorities add the passage here or after 7.36 or after 2l.25 or after Luke 2l.38, with variations of text; some mark the passage as doubtful.
Which do you prefer? A treatise or a tale? An exposition or a parable? An essay or an account? A thesis or a story.
Let’s talk a couple minutes about the text that Jim just read from Romans and then from John. What were you thinking and feeling as Jim was reading the theological probing of Paul in Romans 6, 1-23? Where were you, in fact? Was the text so tedious that you exited this sanctuary and went outside to enjoy the sunshine and the gentle breeze? Or were you at the restaurant where you’re heading after church? Where were you and what were you thinking and feeling during those twenty-three verses? Were you captured by the text or die you run away from it? Did the treatise seem long and boring to you or do you like extended Biblical discourse? What you may not realize is that we gave you a break. Those twenty-three verses of logical argument are but a tiny fraction of the entire dissertation on sin and salvation found in Romans. If you wanted the whole discourse, you would have to start at Chapter 1, verse 1 and read on through Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 and Chapter 8. If Jim was doing that, he would still be reading, tomorrow. He could still be reading next Sunday morning. This could all be a plot to keep Jim in Springfield forever. You agreed to read this treatise, Jim, and you’re not leaving until it’s done. Paul was highly skilled in such theological discourse. He was a Pharisee from school of Gamaliel. Paul knew how to prove his point using references to scripture and tight rational discourse. By the way, you might be interested to know that the father’s and mothers of our faith, who listened to sermons in the early 19th century, were skilled and appreciative listeners to sermons lasting two and three hours, filled with nothing but rational discourse. They insisted on hearing an extended treatise. It was how they learned.
Most of us have little interest in learning that way and most of us know little or nothing about the religious debates that so intrigued and inspired Jewish scholars of the first century. It is not easy for us to follow such arguments. We mostly are not interested in such arguments. Yet, if we do not, is it possible we might miss something important? Paul’s articulate argument is intended to help us to understand why we need Jesus, and how we will behave once we have discovered that he loves us forever, in all ways, and under all circumstances.
For example, just like the Christians Paul wrote to in Rome, we might also make the mistake of thinking that since Jesus forgave us once, we can thus sin again, sin more and more, and just keep on sinning. Why not, for heaven’s sake? We’ll be forgiven.
Why not keep on sinning? Because it can’t be done! When once you know that Jesus loves you, and died for your sins, you just can’t keep on betraying him. By definition, you have to change, because when you really know that you’ve been loved and forgiven, doing the right thing comes automatically. Strangely, that is exactly the message of the tale Jim Huffman read from John’s gospel. I guess someone might think that once they’ve been rescued by Jesus from the ugly mob, you can just go back to living the same way, because what the heck. He’ll rescue you again. But that’s impossible when you’ve been loved that way and forgiven that way, it’s impossible to go back.
I believe that the woman caught in adultery really did get it. She was changed by the love of Jesus, and she did not return to her former life of sin. Not because Jesus could not forgive her again, because he certainly could if he wanted to, but because the love compelled her. You get this message about the love of Jesus and the forgiveness of sin from hearing this tale in John’s gospel, and you get this same message from reading Paul’s treatise in the letter to the Christians in Rome. Which text, the treatise or the tale, communicates better to you? Which do you want your preacher to preach? It is possible that both have their advantages and that we need some of each? Sometimes the treatise, sometimes the tale? Sometimes the discourse and sometimes the drama? Sometimes the exposition and sometimes the parable? Maybe the fullness of the gospel of Jesus must be communicated by a variety of media, and its important for us to be skilled in a variety of ways of receiving the truth. Just because our culture has lost its capacity to listen to the treatise doesn’t mean Christians can follow this bad example.
Well, what I’ve just spoken from this pulpit is pretty much all you’re going to hear today in the from of a treatise. We shift gears now to the medium of tale and drama and parable.
(Ken goes over and sits in a chair and turns on a TV.)
Oh, when did you all get here? I guess we had better get started. I have this story I want to tell you.
I once lost an argument on the subject of parenting. I did not like it; but I lost it. It all started about TV. I love TV, especially movies. When I was younger, a parent of very young children, I lost this argument with another parent. I was telling him about what shows my kids liked on TV, like Sesame Street, and I never really felt any need to restrict their watching of television. I let them choose what they wanted and they always chose pretty good shows. My friend yelled at me and said, “It doesn’t matter what shows they choose”. I retorted, “What do you mean it doesn’t matter what shows they choose? Of course it matters whether they watch sesame Street of Soap Operas.” But he argued, “No, you don’t get me. The television sends a message to our children no matter what shows are on screen.” “The television sends a message. That’s weird.” “No. No. It sends a message.” Well then, what’s it’s message?” “The message of television,” my fried said, is “Be passive. To live is to be entertained. Don’t entertain yourself.”
My friend argued that television teaches our children to be passive. It teaches your children to be empty sponges, soaking up what anybody else decides to send their way. It’s like a demon. It’s a monster and it sends all these messages, but the worst message is, “Just, soak it in kids, just be passive, just sit there and watch.”
At first I thought my friend was crazy. But he was right. In and of itself, the TV is a message, even prior to any particular program. Suddenly I remembered that I had learned this years before, at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, when I did my Freshman year. Hamilton specialized in speech and communications. Each student had to take three semesters of speech. In the first semester we read about this media guru. You may have heard of him. His name was Marshal McCluen and he wrote, especially between the mid sixties and mid seventies. He was an extraordinarily gifted student of media and communications. But he taught these strange ideas and one of his strangest ideas was, The medium is the message.” The medium is the message? What does that mean? It means that even before you turn it on, television is a message to your children. And every other medium of communication and every other technology also contains a message in and of itself.
Well, I lost that argument. I had to admit to my friend that he was right and I had to go back home and I had to sit down with my wife and we had to talk about our children and we had to talk about TV and we had to decide what influence we were going to allow the TV to have on our family.
Let’s continue to talk about, “The medium is the message,” by considering an illustration about using communications technology in the church. Today, for the purpose of making a dramatic point, a television is sitting where the pulpit usually is placed. What would you think about a world where the television replaced the pulpit? Did you ever think about the pulpit as a medium of communication that contains a message even before the preacher stands in it? The pulpit is a medium of communication, and hardly any of you ever get to use it. I, the preacher, distinctly set aside by the church, get to use this medium of communication. It physically separates me from you and it also declares, prior to my saying a word, that my function in the church is different than yours.
In case it is hard for you to imagine the pulpit as saying anything, in and of itself, I might be able to make this point clearer by reminding you of what has been said to me about my preaching when I have left the pulpit spoken to you from the front and side aisles of the sanctuary. These are some of your comments:
I love your preaching. Now you are one of us.
When you leave the pulpit you are no longer preaching down to us.
It just feels like you care about us and are close to us.
Don’t go back into the pulpit—it separates you from the people.
When you stand next to me and look at me I feel you speaking right to my heart.
I listen to every word you say.
You see, even the aisle of the sanctuary is now a medium of communication. The medium, the aisle, speaks a message. That message is, “We are connected.” The pulpit says something, and as soon as I come down and stand among you and preach in the aisle, the aisle says something. To many of you the pulpit says, “separation,” and the aisle says, “caring.” However, it would not surprise me at all if I learned that the pulpit and the aisle say different things to many of you.
Still, I want to carry this message of the aisle a few steps further. What would happen if the aisle does indeed say, “closeness and caring?” What if we began to use that closeness and that caring to create an opportunity for a conversation, a dialogue about the Bible and the message that is being preached? What if all of us began to think of ourselves as Christians God could speak to and through? What if preaching from the aisle had the effect of reminding every one of us that each of us is a priest; each of us can hear God? Each of us can speak for God? This is of course what all protestants believe, “The priesthood of all believers.” The pulpit can elevate the preacher so high, so high above the people, that the priesthood of all believers is squashed under its considerable weight
It is not the pulpit that counts, it is the preaching that counts; it is the Word that counts. Preaching the word gets the message of God from the written scripture into the minds and hearts and souls of God’s people. But the written word was not always available to the people. How did the church of Jesus Christ get the gospel to the people before the scriptures became available in the language of the people? How did they do it? If you were in church prior to the invention of the printing press and the mass distribution of the Holy Scriptures in the languages of the people, how did the word get to you?
This is a real question. I want somebody to answer it. (Someone responds, the priests told them the word.) The priests? Let’s see. The priests all spoke Latin. The services were all in Latin. No one in leadership spoke the language of the people. So how did he people receive the word? What was an effective tool of communication to the people in the medieval cathedral?
(Someone answers, “The Eucharist.”) Yes, that is right. In the Eucharist, the Communion Service, there were a lot of visual images that shared with the people the Word of God. The priest lifted up the body and blood of Christ and people could see theology being acted out in the service. And, there was one other primary tool for sharing the gospel in the medieval cathedral. Surrounding the worshiping community were stained glass windows. And the windows told stories, stories about Jesus especially. No one ever figured out how to present one of Paul’s great treatises in a stained glass window, but the stories of Jesus could be told that way. So, the stained glass windows were a medium that communicated visually in artistic symbols and the people understood the good news because of the windows.
Okay, along comes Martin Luther and the power begins to shift from the Pope and the religious hierarchy towards the people, the whole people of God, and we call that the priesthood of all believers. We say that everybody is a priest, everyone can read and interpret scripture, but before Luther came along and developed that theology it was impossible for that theology to hold forth in the church. Why? Because the media did not exist to support and undergird the priesthood of all believers. The media that was required for that theology to emerge and that part of the gospel to hold forth was the invention of the movable type and the printing press. With Guttenberg’s invention, with the ability to print the bible, came the capacity for all the people to become literate and once the people were literate, they had the Bible and they could read any part of it. And, yes, the stories of Jesus were there, but what was most exciting to Luther and others was what was found in Paul that was completely inaccessible to the people before. All the thoughts about salvation by grace through faith which emerged in Paul’s theology became available to the people. The theology of the Christian Church actually changed at that time and new thinking became possible that before that was impossible in the church of Jesus Christ. New medium of communication changed the gospel. It wasn’t just that the medium changed. It wasn’t just that you could use different media to communicate the same truths. It’s that the new media communicated different truths, a different understanding of Christianity. The media changed the message, and we got into all the theology of the Protestant Reformation as it opposed the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.
Now there are popular writers today like this one, Rick Warren, author of the best seller, The Purpose Driven Church. He sold over 20 million copies of this book. He is a very rich man, unless he gave it all away. And some of his books and some of the material are good and some of you have probably read Rick Warren’s books. Anybody? A few people have read some of Rick Warren’s books. He also wrote The Purpose Driven Life, and there’s a lot of good material in here. But Rick Warren is fundamentally wrong about a very important issue. Listen to what he writes, “Our message must never change, but the way we deliver that message must be constantly updated to reach each new generation. At Saddleback Church any time a new tool comes down the line, we embrace it”. Let me say that again, “Any time a new tool comes down the line, we embrace it. Right now, we’re using Tivo to broadcast our weekend sermon into several different venues on our campus.” Until yesterday I didn’t know what Tivo was. I still don’t really understand it, but I read an article that just happened to mention Tivo and, well, it just allows you to broadcast to different venues so that maybe there’s 2,000 people that can get into Warren’s sanctuary but maybe 3 or 4 thousand can be at external places in the city and be watching the same preacher, preach the same sermon at the same time.
Anyway, Rick Warren and many evangelical Christians have decided that every media that comes along can be utilized widely, as long as you don’t change the message that you’re preaching. But what they don’t understand is a new medium always changes the message. There is not such thing as a medium not having an impact on the message. As a Christian Church, or as an individual, you have to careful to evaluate how the new media is changing the old truth.
Now, a really good example is my cell phone. Raise your hand if you have a cell phone. Not on you, just if you have one and use one. Almost everybody uses a cell phone. Mine plays a really nice hymn. Joyful, joyful we adore thee. I got my first cell phone shortly after I became a single parent of three younger children. I got home one day from work and found out that my daughter, Lauren, had been injured on the playground at school. And they had called my office and they called the house and they weren’t able to track me down. I decided that because I was a single parent who had to be available for my children I would go out and get a cell phone, because it connected me to my children.
Now, that worked for a while. And I still have three children and they still call me on my cell phone and I know they can always find me to update me when they’re coming to visit and so forth. But I did some reading this week about how a lot folks use cell phones. You probably know, that they can intrude at any moment in your life. Even if I’m having a really important discussion with Brad here over breakfast, the cell phone can ring, and I can suddenly allow whoever is on the other end of the phone be a more important person to me than Brad. And if I allow that to happen with my children very often, what message is communicated to Stacey, Lauren and Micah? Does the phone now connect us or hinder our relationship?
If I don’t use my cell phone carefully, the message of the cell phone could be that I am available to everyone and committed to no one. On the one hand, carrying a cell phone tells people, “I can be reached,” which is a good message for a pastor or a parent to communicate. On the other hand, I could be communicating that I am so indiscriminatingly available that I don’t really care for anyone, especially myself, for I allow this technology to consume my life. And you all know that. You have to measure the consequences and the message of every media.
Here is another example. Since I have begun preaching more from the aisle and less from the pulpit I have also found myself drawn to using more illustrations like paintings, photographs and video clips. For the first time in my ministry I find myself intrigued by the possibility of installing a projection screen in this sanctuary and utilizing the computer and a projector to help communicate the gospel. I don’t know for sure if this will be or will not be a good idea for our church. This new technology must be carefully examined. How will it assist us in proclaiming the Word of God and how might it change that word? We need to ponder the possibilities.
What do you think? How does a projection screen change a service of worship? I did some reading about this. Some people think that the screen helps to build community; that when you’re reading from a hymn book or from papers, if there’s a responsive reading, that everybody’s looking down and reading from their books, and they’re all separated. But the moment you project the same images on a screen, everybody’s looking up and they’re projecting their voices out, and it strengthens worship. Is that the only way to look at it? I don’t know. But, it’s the kind of question we have to ask, if you’re going to evaluate any new media that comes along in the life of the church, or in the life of you as an individual.
Okay, well we had two great texts this morning. Paul’s reflections on the subject of sin and salvation are some of the finest theology you’ll find in the Bible or anywhere else. Paul was an expert at theological reflection. He lifts up some difficult problems that impact people’s lives, and then he writes a logical argument to help people who will study the scriptures to gain insight for their spiritual journeys.
But the story from the Gospel of John has no such theological reflection. Instead it has emotional impact and compelling drama. Its all about people being so judgmental that they want to kill this woman, forgetting about the man who’s probably more guilty than she is. esus finds a way to turn the whole thing around in this short and startling story, and he helps this woman discover a whole new life.
The question we need to carefully decide in any given circumstance of our lives or the life of our church is, “What is the best way to communicate?” Do we use treatise or tale to convince the people in our neighborhood that Jesus loves us and forgives us with the kind of love so that changes our world? What medium do we use, what collection of media to we use, to share the Good News? And what media do we avoid because the intrinsic message of that method of communication contradicts Jesus? Let’s be sure to ask the right questions. That is the best way to get the right answers.
So be it.
Amen.
