“It Was Worth It!”

(#5 in the Lenten Sermon Series: “Dennis in the Corner”)

 

What then are we to say? 

Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?

(Romans 6:1)

 

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 8, 2008

Volume 2 Number 36

First United Methodist Church, 605 West Sixth, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

 

 

We are now deep into Lent, this the fifth installment of our Lenten series, Dennis in the Corner.  Each week, as a catalyst to lead us to Lenten-oriented truths, I’ve featured a frame or two from Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace.  For our visitors, I should explain that for years I’ve collected one particular genre of Dennis the Menace, what I call Dennis in the Corner.  The common denominator of these frames is Dennis being punished for wrong-doing, sitting in his rocking chair facing the corner, alone with his thoughts.  The Corner symbolizes our need for this time of self-reflection, our need to create a space for God in which we ask, “What have I done?” and “How can I rise again and be more faithful in my walk with Christ?”

 

I hope you’ve found Dennis In the Corner to be a thoroughly Lenten exercise, suggestive of that spiritual corner of our lives into which Lent directs us, that space of forty days where our liturgies and sermons lead us to acknowledge our sins, to reflect, to confess and repent, to seek redemption, and to rise again, shaped through our Lenten experience into better equipped disciples of Christ.  So, though he’s just an imaginary, mischievous kid, we’ve been using Dennis as a conduit for learning some of spirituality’s grandest and most profound lessons. 

 

I’ve printed three frames for you today, all sharing a common theme.  In the first, Dennis faces the corner and says to Ruff, “Ya know what?  It was WORTH it!” 

 

In the second, Dennis is facing the corner, his Teddy laid aside for a different kind of reflection.  He sits, chin in hand, clearly in deep thought.  Evidently he’s scheming.  Alice and Henry (mom and dad) look concerned as one whispers to the other, “I’m afraid he spends his time-outs thinking up new ways to get back into the corner.”  In other words, Dennis seems to have learned that the pleasure of disobedience may be, in some cases, worth the punishment.

 

The third frame has Alice explaining to Henry as he arrives home from work, to find Dennis In the Corner, “Oh, he didn’t do anything wrong.  He’s just building up credits for when he does.”

 

Ah, and that, you see --- achieving pre-Repentance -- makes our wrong-doing even more worth it!  We’ve done the time, now we can do the crime.  John Wesley spoke much of Prevenient Grace, the Grace of God that “comes before.”   So, why not Pre-repentance, storing up credit for future sins.  The church actually had a name for this, the absurdity of which, 500 years ago in the time of Germany’s Martin Luther, sparked the Protestant Reformation . . . Indulgences.  What are indulgences but something of a pre-payment for the consequences of sin.

 

When our girls were small, Sherry once made a delicious chocolate cake and carefully divided it into four even pieces, one for each of us.  We were each free to eat our specially reserved piece as quickly and ravenously as we liked (that was me), or to savor it as slowly as we liked.  The next day, Sherry returned from work eager to dig into the remainder of her portion of the cake which she had saved for just that end-of-the-day moment of relaxation.  But when she went to retrieve it, alas, it was gone.  A short search revealed the culprit.  No, I was innocent, not guilty.  The culprit was our youngest, Ashley, who freely admitted her chocolate-cake-caper.  Sherry scolded, “Ashley, you knew that was mom’s piece of cake!  Why did you eat it?” 

 

Ashley replied with the utmost sincerity and hide-nothing-honesty, “Mom, I ate all mine and wanted more.  I knew what you would do  if I ate yours -- either spank me or ground me.  It was worth it.”  Ah yes, little Ashley had learned that it is sometimes easier to obtain forgiveness than it is to receive permission, so she indulged herself.

 

Nor is that behavior solely and delightfully descriptive of children.  This is a very adult dilemma. We all know what it is to weigh the potential punishment for our actions against the benefit of the enjoyment of those actions.  That balance between our enjoyment of our actions and the possible consequences is inevitably and invariably part of the decision-making process when we are confronted with any temptation.

 

In fact, that very same “It was worth it!” mentality is built into a ritual which many Christians throughout the world observe to inaugurate Lent.  Knowing they are about to go into the corner of Lenten self-reflection and self-discipline, they indulge themselves on the day before Ash Wednesday is what is famously known as “Fat” Tuesday.  As they come to the altar to receive ashes in the forehead, signaling the beginning of Lent, some do so with a smiling remembrance of yesterday’s indulgences, the revelry Mardi Gras.  Might we dare think that some are smilingly concluding with Dennis, even as the ashes are smeared on their heads, “It was worth it!”  

 

Mardi Gras is a ritual way one culture has of preparing for the disciplines of Lent.  “Ah,” you say, “but that’s the Roman Catholics!  That’s not my Methodist tradition.  I certainly don’t believe in such immature indulging prior to entering upon a season of Lenten-type discipline.”  Oh no?  Is this not the very same mentality that leads us to say, “I’m going to enjoy this wonderful meal tonight, and go ahead and order that decadent piece of cake — what did the waiter call it – oh, yes -- Death by Chocolate!  It will be worth it . . . because I plan on starting my diet tomorrow.”  So tomorrow, Slim Fast in hand, even as I put it to my lips to allow its meager and unenjoyable properties to wash over my tongue, I shall smile and think to myself as I recall last night’s Chocolate Death, “Ya know what?  It was worth it!”

 

In our text from Romans 5 and 6, Paul draws out the theologies of sin and redemption, concluding that though in Adam all have fallen, in Christ we have found forgiveness.  His statements are nothing if not sweeping.  “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, spreading to all because all have sinned . . . (but) if the many died through one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many . . . Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”

 

Paul then anticipates a natural human response.  “If, Paul, what you say is true . . . then why should we not  increase in sin intentionally, so that grace may abound all the more?”

 

Paul counters, “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?”  In other words, he is saying for the child of God seeking to honor God by living as a disciple of Christ, we should not be tempted to consider sin “Worth it,” but rather recognize that our sin is diminishing our walk with God through Christ.

 

And for what is Paul pleading other than a mature, adult perspective?  It would seem childish reasoning to take the theology of sin and redemption as a license to sin so that God’s glory in redemption through Christ might shine brighter.  To do so would be to make mockery of God’s grace.  Adults know that our sin can have devastating consequences, bringing intense heartache and pain, shame and ruin, both to ourselves and to those we love.  “It was worth it!” would not be found on the lips of, say, King David in Psalm 51 as he prayed for God to create a new heart in him, for God to blot out his transgression.

 

That said, when we consider the human race as a whole rather than the moral lapses of individuals, the Apostle Paul suggests that it was, indeed, “Worth it!” That’s not be a bad theological assessment as we look back upon the bible’s story of how sin entered the human race through Adam and Eve.  Viewed in this universal sense, “It was worth it!” is, I think, precisely Paul’s conclusion.  His contrast of Adam’s sin and Christ’s redemptive act has this “It was worth it!” feel.  Yes, sin entered through one man, Adam, we hear Paul saying.  True, however the redemption God offers in response to sin is so amazing, so free, so awesome, that it’s far better than anything we might otherwise have known of God. Thus, his conclusion,
 “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more!” 

 

Paul makes it clear that our participation in the free gift of God’s grace is not merely equal to but is far better than had God’s creatures continued in innocence.  We would have known, in that case, the fairness of God.  But what is knowing the fairness of God compared to knowing the love and grace of God?  For this reason the redeemed community might say with Dennis, “It was worth it!” because, without sin, we would never have known the riches of God’s love!

 

I love the ancient Latin Roman Catholic liturgy, O certe necessarium Adae peccatum (O truly needful sin of Adam), quod Christi morte deletum est (which was blotted out by the death of Christ!), O felix culpa (O Happy Transgression), quae talem ac tanctum meruit habere Redemptorem (that merited so great a Redeemer!)

 

This is spoken, not of our individual moral lapses, our transgression which brings shame and hurt to ourselves and to our loved ones.  It is spoken within the wider scope of the human condition.  Still, as Henri Nouwen points out, even as individuals we can grow from our sins.  Our lowest moments, our guilt, he writes, should at last “become a happy guilt and our shame a happy shame, because they have brought us to a deeper recognition of God’s mercy, a stronger conviction of God’s guidance, and a more radical commitment to a life of God’s service.” 

 

Once all of our past, even our lowest moment, is remembered with gratitude we are free to be sent into the world to proclaim the Good News of abounding love and abundant forgiveness.  Consider the Apostle Peter as an example of this.  His thrice denial of his Lord didn’t paralyze him for long.  As Christ had urged him, once converted, once repentant, once forgiven, his denials became a new source of his faithfulness.  So also can all our failures and betrayals be transformed into gratitude and enable us to become messengers of peace.  This is a Lenten lesson truly full of hope for those struggling with a sense of guilt, that as we grow in the Spirit, the super-abundance of God’s grace will become less and less an excuse for our sin, and more and more a prompting to a life of faithfulness. 

 

Sources:

“Renewed for Life: Daily Lenten Meditations from the Works of Henri J. M. Nouwen,” Creative Communications, edited by Mark Neilsen.