No Better Than That?

I do not understand my own actions.

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

 (Romans 7:15)

 A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on Second Sunday in Lent, March 4, 2007

Many years ago a country preacher in rural Mississippi was preaching a sermon on the devil.  “Oh, brothers and sisters, it’s gonna be a good week, I know it is.  We got the devil.  Yeah, we caught him and we got him all tied up down in the basement.”  Seeing one of his congregation not paying attention, nodding off to sleep, he had a flash of inspiration.  The preacher aimed his next words at the half slumbering man.  “Yes, we do.  We’ve got the devil tied up in the basement.  But he ain’t so tied up that he can’t get loose and get you, Brother John.”

Hearing his name jarred John, who was now all attention.  John’s response sparked in the preacher an awareness of the potential of this direction of his sermon, so he explored it further.   “Oh, yes, brothers and sisters, we sure have caught the devil and we got him tied up down in the basement.  Yes, we do.  But he ain’t so tied up that he can’t get loose and get to you, Sister Mary Ann, if you ain’t careful.”

Sister Mary Ann sat up and uncomfortably squirmed.  The preacher had happened upon pure homiletical magic.  The congregation was under his control, all except for three little boys sitting in the back of the church.  The preacher thought he’d try one more time, aiming his words at a little boy he had always considered out of control.  “Oh, yes, boys and girls, it’s gonna be a good week.  We’ve got the devil tied up down in the basement.  Yes, we do.  But he ain’t so tied up that he can’t get loose and get to you, Billy Thompson, if you ain’t careful!”

At that, little Billy Thompson, who must have been paying more attention than it at first appeared (is that not a universal truth when it comes to children?), stood and said in a way reminiscent of Huckleberry Finn, “Well, preacher, if you can’t tie him up no better than that, you might just as well turn him loose!”

So to little Billy Thompson I owe my title and theme for this Second Sunday of Lent, No Better Than That?  It’s a Lenten theme, to be sure.  You see, we might had thought Ash Wednesday, when we walked out of such a moving spiritual experience of liturgy and prayer and repentance, that we had reached a new determination to walk with God.  We might had left here more determined than ever, feeling that we finally had the devil tied up.  We discover soon enough, however, that though a service may leave us to think the devil is now tied up, relegated to the basements of our lives – think again.  The devil ain’t so tied up that he can’t get loose and get to us, as the preacher said, “If we ain’t careful.”

This theme many of you have lived with in past weeks through our Tuesday study of Addictions, a study in which we’ve sought to take account of our human nature of flesh and spirit, a duality causing tension between our more visceral, base desires and our loftier spiritual intentions.  We’ve been asking why we inexplicably embrace the very thing that is diminishing us, even after we determine to lock the thing away in the basement of our lives.  Why, being so steeled with determination yesterday to be rid of the thing, is it so soon paying us another visit? 

This Tuesday’s session showed clips of the 1997 film, As Good As It Gets, in which Jack Nicholson plays Melvin Udall, an obsessive compulsive who can’t break away from his compulsions, can’t change the patterns upon which he’s become fixated.  Melvin can’t seem to win a victory over himself.  We showed the scene when, coming out from his psychiatrist’s office, he pauses in a room full of patients who are waiting to see the doctor, waiting for direction on how to achieve wholeness and peace.  Hauntingly, Melvin asks, “What if this is as good as it gets?”   

It is precisely this theme which resounds in our text from Romans.  The first three lines from Romans 6 sound like the preacher’s boast of having the devil tied up on the basement.  “What then are we to say?  Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?  God forbid.  How can we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”  You have been baptized, Paul goes on to say – you have put the flesh nature to death in baptism.  So, like Christ, you rise to a new reality, you should “walk in newness of life.”  Do these words not convey a sense of mastery over oneself, of fresh determination to live without ungodly influences wedging their way back into our lives? Paul says, “do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.”  In these lines it seems the devil, “O, yes he is, brothers and sisters!” is tightly tied up in the basement.

Well, not so fast.  Then comes Romans 7, spoken in the context of spiritual struggle.  Paul seems to have discovered that the devil wasn’t so tied up that he couldn’t get loose.  “I do not understand my own actions,” Paul complains as he realizes that his actions, compelled by the lower “flesh” nature, don’t square with his intentions.

So, from our Romans 6 Confidence to our Romans 7 Confusion, we might be made to wonder – is becoming a Christian No Better Than That?”  Are those special moments of renewal and reformation, when our spirits feel refreshed and we leave with a new determination to live for God – are these moments No Better Than That?

Today is Communion Sunday.  In various settings, I offer communion many times a year.  We haven’t begun yet a weekly mid-week communion here in Mountain Home, but while doing that in Warren, in addition to monthly congregational communion and sharing the Eucharist in small groups, nursing homes, and homes – it was not unusual to offer Holy Communion 100 times a year.  And I’ve wondered at times (perhaps you have as well?) as we pray the liturgy of confession, why is it that we gather time and again to say precisely, or very nearly, the same words?  Is confession’s endless repetition not itself a confession of the failure of the whole enterprise?  Is Holy Communion No better Than That?

Over and over, as we will say again in a few moments, we say, “We confess we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church.”  How is it that we can come to Holy Communion and always expect those words to be true?  Won’t there ever come a time when that we can say, “No, this time we have the devil tied up down in the basement so that he can’t get loose.  This time, indeed, we have been an obedient church.  This time we have loved you with our whole heart.”

The liturgy continues, “We have not done your will.  We have broken your law.  We have rebelled against your love. We have not loved our neighbors and we have not heard the cry of the needy.  Forgive us we pray.”  But might we ever leave a service of Holy Communion so renewed in heart and soul that we won’t ever need to pray this way again?  Or, at least not so soon?  Won’t there be a time that the devil is tied up on the basement for a while, if not once for all?  Part of me wants to cry with little Billy Thompson, “If you can’t tie ‘im up no better than that, you might just as well turn ‘im loose!”

Paul faced precisely that question.  He anticipated that the Christians in Rome would ask, “Well, if God continues to answer our sin with abounding grace, then why not just give ourselves to sin, so that grace may abound all the more?”

“By no means” Paul says.  “We should walk in newness of life.” 

Yet, a mere chapter later, he prays in the midst of personal struggle he seems not to be able to escape, “Who shall deliver me?”  Is Paul not asking, as did Melvin, “What if this As Good As It Gets?” 

The 17^th century British preacher, John Donne, thought so, as is poem below will show.  Yes, this is as good as it gets.  Still, he envisioned a Hero coming to the rescue, the Christ, and the ultimate victory of grace:

 Have More

 Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun:
   Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,
   And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
    For I have more.

 Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
    Others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
    A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
    For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun
    My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son
   Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, Thou hast done,
    I fear no more.

John Donne (1572 - 1631), a British metaphysical poet and preacher

 As Good As It Gets?  No, not in this life, and certainly not in the life to come.  While our determinations to hear a higher voice and to become more than what we are may be imperfect and flawed, we can make real and substantial progress in our journey with Christ.  We can discover heroes in our lives who impact how we live by opening our ears to a higher voice, and we can play the role of hero in the lives of others. 

 Yet it’s true that the ultimate deliverance, our ultimate hope, doesn’t reside in our resolutions, but in divine grace and mercy.  This is our grandest hope, that despite our failings God’s covenant is a sure and certain hope, a hope which is the anchor of the soul.