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Text: Romans
7:15-25 7th Sunday after
Pentecost Dead Weight In the name
of him who comes to us, righteous and having salvation, dear friends in
Christ: But with a little imagination,
it’s not hard to put yourself in the place of one of the hapless prisoners who
were confined here in times past. Think
of the mind-numbing boredom and hopeless frustration of endless days sitting on
that stone floor. No one to talk
to. Nothing to do. Nothing to think about. Nothing at all to look forward to except
getting out; that, and maybe the moment when, once a day, the little slot at the
base of the cell door slides open, and an unseen hand places there a cup of
greenish water teaming with pond life, and maybe a bowl of thin, cold broth and
a crust of stale bread. Not nearly
enough to live on, but enough to prolong your gnawing hunger and thirst for
another day. They are kind of hard to see, but
there are iron bars in the window at the top of the scene. The bright light beaming in through the
window is almost bleaching them out of sight; it’s as if your eyes are so
accustomed to the darkness that they cannot stand the intensity of
daylight. Makes you wonder, though,
what’s outside that window. A sheer
drop into a moat? Or is it a courtyard
beyond which is a high wall? And beyond
that, what? Maybe you can see the tops
of trees … distant mountains … freedom that you can only dream about? What captures your attention most
in the picture is that almost spherical stone in the foreground. It looks to weigh at least three hundred
pounds (actually, as a former engineer, I couldn’t resist running a quick
calculation and came up with about 380 lbs).
You can see on the top of it, embedded into the stone, is an anchor for
a chain; and you can probably guess what that’s for. As an added security measure, that would have been attached to a
chain on the other end of which would have been a shackle of some kind, most
likely an iron collar worn around the prisoner’s neck. Even if you could manage to escape from this
cell, you sure weren’t going to get very far with that hanging on to you. Certainly would have made a swim across the
moat more of a challenge. But this
stone was probably for more than just extra security. It was meant as subtle form of torture. In times past it was fairly common to hook a prisoner to a weight
like that with a chain that was several links shorter than would allow you to
stand up straight. So instead, you’d
have to hunch over all the time. The
only way to stand erect would be to straddle the stone, and lift it with the
chain in your hands so that you could straighten your back. And obviously with a stone that heavy, even
if you were very strong you couldn’t do that for long. So you’d be forced into a more or less
permanent slouch – which would be both painful and humiliating – and that, of
course, was the point of it. Okay: now I want you to imagine being in this prison cell with that
heavy stone chained around your neck.
You are a prisoner of the powerful black prince. And let’s add the fact that you’re in here
for a very good reason. You’re a
convicted criminal, guilty of all kinds of terrible crimes. You’re just waiting for the final sentence
to be carried out – though you don’t know when that will be. So your existence is pretty miserable, like
I mentioned before, and you’ve got nothing to look forward to but the hangman’s
noose or the chopping block. And on top
of it all, because of this infernal stone you’re all hunkered over like Igor in
a Frankenstein film. Every time you
just want to move around in the cell, you have to drag or push it around with
you. Your neck is rubbed raw from the
chaffing of the iron collar. How long
do you think it would take before you really started hating that stone? All right, keep using your
imagination. Let’s say that one day you
hear a lot of noise and commotion coming from outside the window. It’s the sound of a mighty battle
raging. There’s shouting, the clash of
steel, and the cries of the wounded.
You try to see what’s going on, but all you can see is lots of smoke and
confusion. After some time, things quiet
down. The battle’s over, but you’re not
sure who won. Some hours later,
suddenly your cell door bursts open.
Soldiers with unfamiliar uniforms and strange accents come into the
cell, grab you, and drag you out. You
realize it’s probably over for you. The
soldiers take you and set you on your knees before their commander, who just
happens to be the white prince, the heir to the throne of a distant
country. You know of him. He is the long time enemy of your own hard
and merciless prince; and though they have been at war for as long as anyone
can remember, you’ve heard this white prince has a reputation for compassion
and kindness. You’ve nothing to lose,
and now that you’re faced with your final seconds, you realize the prospect of
dying doesn’t appeal to you very much – in fact, you’re terrified. So you latch on to only hope you have and
you start pleading for mercy. The prince is seated at a table
before you. You can see that spread out before him are the various papers that
pertain to your case: all of your
crimes carefully documented, the statements of witnesses, your own signed
confessions, transcripts of your many trials, your conviction notice and
sentencing. This doesn’t look
good. But then he looks up from the
papers right into your eyes. He seems
to be able to see right through you – as if he knew the whole truth
about you, not just what’s written on these records. He knows everything; and it makes you feel really
ashamed. But strangely, instead of
being angry, like you would expect, there’s a comforting warmth and
friendliness emanating from his eyes.
You can’t explain it … why this foreign prince would be so kindly
disposed toward you, a notorious criminal – and an enemy criminal at that; but you
realize that he isn’t going to harm you.
He collects the papers together in a big pile, and without taking his
eyes off you he hands them to an aide and says, “Destroy these – I never want
to see them again.” And then to you,
“You are free to go. This is my kingdom
now, so you are one of my subjects. I
trust that you will be a loyal one. See
if you can be a productive citizen from here on out. And make it your rule to treat others as kindly as I have treated
you.” You are
elated, naturally. This seems too good
to be true—but it is: you’re free. You profess your humble gratitude to the
prince. You pour out your promises to
be a good and faithful person from here on out – and you really mean it. And so off you go to make a new and better
life for yourself, and—yank!
Whoops. With everything that was
going on, it seems they forgot to unlock the collar and set you free of the
stone. Well, not exactly. When you ask about it, they tell you that
it’s not that they don’t want to take it off; it’s that they can’t. (I hope you’re still using your imagination,
because this is where the story gets a little contrived.) It turns out that this is not just any stone
and chain. Rather it is part of a
terrible curse brought down on you by the black prince. The only power in all the world that can
free you from the stone is the power of your own death. Because of the curse, your very life is
locked to the stone; but in the instant you die, the curse will be broken and
the collar will fall off. So this is
your situation: you are free from the dungeon
of the black prince. You are free to go
where you please and do what you want.
And you no longer have the fearful sentence of death hanging over your
head. And having been freed and
pardoned, you want to do what you can to be a good citizen of the white prince
… but you’ve got this awful dead weight holding you back and dragging you
down. You still can’t quite stand up
straight. So if you hated the stone
before, you ought really to hate it now. Well, I’m
sure that up to this point, my little parable is very transparent – and
deliberately so. But you understand
that the black prince represents Satan, and that his prison is the bondage of
sin. And you also understand that the
white prince represents the Lord Jesus, who frees us from sin’s bondage by the
power of his death and resurrection – like today’s Old Testament reading says,
“ … [By] the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners …”. So far, so good. The stone, of course, represents the sin nature that clings to
each of us even after having been released from Satan’s bondage by coming to
faith in Jesus. This is the
situation St. Paul describes in today’s Epistle. He finds himself wanting to do good – to be the person that the
Lord wants him to be; but he finds he still can’t stand upright like he wants
to. He is still held back by the dead
weight of his fallen nature. This is
the part of him that thinks evil thoughts, and doubts God’s Word and promises,
and urges him to yield to every temptation imaginable. It’s also the part that prevents him from
following through completely and living the life of love and faithful service
to God and neighbor that his new nature, his redeemed nature, really desires. And let me
be more specific. Part of the genius of
Martin Luther was to see in each of God’s commands not just a prohibition
against doing something evil: “don’t
kill, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness”; but also the flip side of it –
the command and encouragement to do the right and loving thing. So, when you memorized the catechism, you
learned that it wasn’t just that you were not to murder, but the command was to
“help and befriend your neighbor in every bodily need.” Not only are you supposed to not commit
adultery; the command requires you to love, honor, and cherish your spouse, and
do whatever you can to respect and preserve everyone else’s marriage – and to
honor and uphold the integrity of the institution itself by practicing and
encouraging all forms of chastity and purity.
Then again, it’s not just, “Don’t steal”; it’s also do what you can to
help your neighbor keep his property and prosper from it. You are to rejoice with and for him when he
gets ahead and enjoys successes, and help him out when he has needs. Likewise, it’s not just that you are to
avoid bearing false witness; you are to actively think and say positive things
that build up the reputation of others, and do what you can to stop the spread
of gossip. You get the idea: having been freed from sin’s dominion, we
are given the desire to do the loving thing and to fulfill the positive aspects
of God’s commands. And Paul is
saying, “That’s what I want to do!
That’s what I’m trying to do!
But this rock chained to my neck, my old sinful nature, keeps holding me
back.” As you read the passage, you can
feel his frustration. And since we are
all in the same situation, the big question before us is: “What do we do about it? How should you deal with the dead weight?” Well, first
let me suggest a couple of things that you should not do. One solution is to accept the stone as a
partner and work out some sort of compromise.
We all do this to some degree.
We make friends with the stone sort of like Tom Hanks did with a
volleyball in the film Castaway.
“Tell you what, you get your way for a while – we’ll go ahead fall for
this temptation and indulge you, and then we’ll go do what I want to do.” There are two big problems with this. First, there really is no compromise with
sin. You’ll find that even if you let
it have its way for a while, it still doesn’t want to cooperate when it’s your
new nature’s turn to name the activity.
The stone will still hold you back.
Your sin nature lies and doesn’t play fair in such negotiations. Secondly, if you are disposed to let it have
its way, your sin nature will take you farther and farther in its preferred
direction. It’s as if the stone always
wants to take you swimming, and each time you go, it suggests going a little
deeper. First it’s just standing on the
shore, then it’s take off your shoes and getting your feet wet, then it’s
wading up to your waist. If you keep
going, sooner or later it gets in over your head – and then it’s too late. Another
solution we’ve all tried is to pretend that the stone is not there. It actually turns out that whole theologies
are built on the premise of denying that the sin nature even exists. What happens in this case is that all the
activities of your free and new nature are confined to the limits of the
tethering chain. The sin nature, though
rarely allowed to move you to actively do sinful things, is also never actively
challenged or confronted. So while you
may not kill anyone or steal from them, neither do you act fully on the
positive aspects of the commands, because if you did, you’d feel the tug of the
chain and have to admit that the stone’s still there. So you settle for doing nothing as if that were good enough. It’s Christian stagnation; and when all is
said and done, it’s just another form of compromise with your sin – and as it
has been said already, with sin there is no compromise. If you try, it wins. Well, if you manage to see the
futility and danger of the first two solutions, you may get to where Paul is in
the text, straining against the chain to grow in Christian life and
virtue. Unfortunately, here too is
where a lot of people get stuck. Their
Christian life becomes one of constantly striving to gain mastery over the old
nature and force it to conform. Now, I
want to be careful here, because it is right that we maintain the battle against
the fallen nature and fight to subdue it.
But the danger here is that by focusing all of our effort and attention
on the fight to avoid sin and temptation, we still don’t accomplish the good
the Lord and our new natures desire.
Instead, exhausted from all the work, we tend to measure progress by
seeing how far we managed to drag the stone.
“I used to do this sin and that all the time. But I beat it, and now I don’t have that problem anymore. What a fine person I have become!” Maybe; but are you really any better
off? You’re still chained to the stone,
and it’s still holding you back. “So, wait a minute pastor … let me
see if I’ve got this straight. I’ve got
the dead weight of my sin nature hanging on to me all the time. I can’t compromise with it, I can’t ignore
it, nor can I beat it if I fight with it.
It seems that there is no way for me to win and to be the person I
really want to be.” Exactly. And that’s precisely where St. Paul ends
up: “What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of
death?” Fortunately,
he also provides us the answer: “Thanks
be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It only makes sense: the same
One who was able to release you from Satan’s prison when you were powerless and
could not escape, is the One to help you live now in the freedom he has given
you. How? The full answer is in this morning’s Gospel reading where Jesus
says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you
rest.” Can’t carry that dead weight
stone of your sinful nature and serve the Lord as you want? Of course you can’t. But you can if you hand the stone over to
him and let him carry it for you. He’s
really much stronger than you are, and he wants to take the load off your
hands. You do this by staying close to
him, listening to his Word, and daily, even hourly, handing the burden to him
by confessing your hesitation, your reluctant thoughts, and the self-interested
fears that weigh you down and keep you from going forward with him as you want. If you step away from him, you have to carry
the load alone. As you do stay close
and keep handing the stone to him, he lifts it from you by assuring you of his
love and forgiveness. His forgiveness
lightens the load so you can stand up straight and godly, and his love gives
you the strength to bear his yoke of love for others – a yoke that, with his
might, is an easy pleasure to carry.
Thus we are empowered to fulfill the law of love. May he give us grace to do it – to rely on
him to carry our dead weight of sin, until the day comes when we through death
we are finally set free of its curse.
In the Holy Name of Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
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