Turning to Romans 7

The Monday after I was made a priest, just about three weeks ago, I started an intensive summer class in liturgical leadership. That’s the class that teaches us how to do the things like baptism, Eucharist and marriage. The kinds of things a priest might be expected to do. I figured that two days after my ordination might be a good time to begin learning them!

Since it was a seminary course, we were taught more than how to conduct the familiar Sunday rituals. We also learned the theology and history of these rites, and some of the ways they’ve evolved over 2000 years. I was particularly intrigued to learn that the ancient baptismal renunciations and affirmations (page 302 in your Book of Common Prayer) were often ritually enacted with a physical turn. Baptismal candidates, who were adults in the early church, would face west to renounce Satan, evil and sin, and then turn eastward to affirm the lordship of Christ.

So of course when we practiced leading the baptismal rite in class, I had to try out the turn. Another student was my faux baptismal candidate, and when I rehearsed with her and her sponsors, I asked them all to make a full turn. It looked and sounded like this. Facing west, “do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God? I renounce them.” Then, with a 180 degree pivot, “do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your savior? I do.”

The physical turn was a powerful visual and embodied symbol. It became a literal re-orientation of the baptized person. And witnessing it reminded me that the Latin etymology of the word “conversion” is to turn together.

I find the image of people turning together towards Christ to be a useful one when pondering Paul’s letter to the Romans. Its tempting to hear that theologically dense second lesson as Paul’s own inner struggle to do good in the face of temptation. But in general, that’s not what Paul is concerned about. His orientation is almost always towards the spiritual health of the community; towards building up the body of Christ. Most scholars agree that when Paul writes here in the first person—as in “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate”—he is speaking generally of the human condition. So although the language in this lesson may sound like a personal confession, its more likely that Paul was challenging Christian communities to recognize the systemic dimension of our sin.

The reality is that faithful people with good intentions mess up. By what we do and by what we leave undone. We mess up together, we mess up each other. And the impact of our collective sin can be global and persist for generations, as in the case of war or climate change or economic injustice or immigration policies. And worse, we may participate in sin without realizing it, because it is in the nature of evil to lie in wait for us—as Paul astutely observed— for complacent moments when we’re convinced that we’re doing the right thing. My son Aaron and I were sitting by the Russian River this weekend, reflecting on how much we enjoyed the natural beauty of Sonoma County. But then we suddenly realized that we had driven up here in two separate carbon emitting vehicles. Lordy, I do not understand my own actions…

In this context, Paul’s letter to the Romans becomes a much-needed invitation to self examination, and also to the examination of our collective conscience. Its a call to humbly consider where sin is at work in our bodies—individually, but also within the body of Christ, the body politic and even the body of the earth—and notice how we are asked to turn. But being open to ongoing conversion isn’t easy, as Paul so poignantly observed. Sometimes despite our very best intentions, we don’t do the good that we want, but rather the evil we do not want.

This could all seem rather depressing, except that Paul then pulls one of those theological jiu jitsu moves that he uniquely capable of making. After underscoring once again the wretchedness of the human condition in verse 24 of our lesson, he announces in verse 25 “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” And then continuing in chapter eight, which (although not part of this Sunday’s lectionary) is part of the same theological argument; “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free…”

Did you hear that? You are free. Did I hear that? I am free! Independence Day weekend is a time to give thanks for freedom in all its dimensions. And God’s gift in Jesus tells is in no uncertain terms that we are free to return to God, even when we are enmeshed in personal sin that we cannot overcome, or collective sin that we cannot even see.

The letter to the Romans is an extensive theological discourse, but at the heart of it is that God’s love always beats us to the punch. In the fifth chapter Paul has already written, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” Which is to say that God’s love was there before we did anything good, bad or indifferent. Theologians call that the prevenient grace of God.

Turns out prevenient grace is also good social psychology. I chanced to read an interesting article in a New Yorker blog this week about how people’s false ideas—ideas like that vaccines cause autism or that president Obama is a Muslim—can be changed. Scientists have observed that offering more and better information simply doesn’t work. And worse yet, the more fearful we become, the harder we cling to potentially damaging misinformation. But the startling insight of the scientific study was that the single variable that does affect people’s ability to change their minds is feeling good about themselves. When we are not scared—when we are feeling loved and affirmed—we are open to new ideas and to changing our minds. Its love that frees us to change. In Pauline terms, Christ Jesus—God’s decisive manifestation of love—sets us free.

Which leads me to wonder if our conversion—our baptismal turning away from sin and turning towards Christ—isn’t actually a double turn. From the love of God which is already and always there—and which we are all capable of turning away from—followed by the invitation to turn back. Even though we don’t usually make those physical turns in baptism, in another sense our sacramental rites are all about practicing the art of turning. On the Sundays when others are gardening or lingering over the paper, we are turning over in beds and getting up and getting ourselves to church. We turn to where the Gospel is proclaimed in the assembly, we turn to each other when we pass the peace. We turn to the altar trusting that God is always in the business of turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. We turn to someone in pain or struggling with sin and remind them that God loves them, no matter what.

We humans are entirely capable of turning away from God, as Paul so starkly reminded is. But we are always invited to turn back. And right here, right now, is our opportunity to practice. So once we’ve finished our weekly Episcopal calisthenics and been fed, let us turn towards the door and go out into the world, proclaiming the original and everlasting love that makes all other turns possible.