Vengeance: A How-To-(Not) Guide: Sermon on Romans 12:17-21

'Twas a fair if misty afternoon at sea. From a half-sunk rowboat, a captain surveyed the damage to his vessel – the hull breached, the doom of all still aboard seemed sealed. The ship had been rammed by a whale that now floated, waiting, nearby him – just in front of the captain. But it – that whale, a massive albino unmistakable in age and feature – well, that was what he'd set sail for. The captain, in his late fifties, had been a whaler four decades, since leaving the cusp of youth. But that whale had ruined his last voyage – ruined him his last voyage – a fact the captain recalled every time he walked, whalebone peg from his bitten-off stump clunking against wood in alternation with his sole good leg. In the wake of the tragedy, people said the captain's “torn body and gashed soul” had “bled into one another.” Oh, that “murderous monster” of a whale. To the captain, it seemed something more – something like the prison wall of the universe, confining him, representing the face of the malicious void beyond, which he had to breach, had to strike that taunting cosmic malice.

Ever since they'd embarked on this voyage, he'd had one thought in mind: to find that same whale and bring it to its death. Nothing could dissuade the captain; he'd chase the whale all over the earth, even round and round the flames of hell itself, before giving it up. To him, that whale was the most loathsome thing, invested with all the weight of evil since the days of Adam. The sight of it chased all thought of himself, all thought of his wife and boy back home in Nantucket, from his mind. That whale seemed somehow... vengeful. Vengeful in striking the hull of the whaling ship that pursued him so far. But the whale's vengeance was met by the captain's. That was his single driving passion: vengeance. 'Twas a “wild vindictiveness” that drove him. “Vengeance on a dumb brute,” a critic said – no, the captain thought, vengeance on malice itself. But right in that particular: he had sailed for one “all-engrossing” object, to gain “an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.”

And so, as the Pequod in the distance took on torrents of death-dealing water through its breached hull, her captain cared for little but the whale before him – at long last. The whale seemed to wait for their encounter, too. Standing, and letting go for a moment of the gunwale to which he'd clung for safety, the captain shouted, “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!” And a last harpoon flew from the captain's hand. It struck, but the line behind ran foul, and no sooner had he cleared it than the rope managed to catch him by the neck and shoot him from the boat. It dragged him down as the whale dove, tangled him beneath the deep – and so vengeance was the end of Captain Ahab.

Herman Melville's classic 1850s novel Moby Dick is about many a thing, but on the surface, at least, it portrays the quest of one man for vengeance against the whale that not only stole his leg but comes to embody all his rage. And no one can deny the white whale hurt Ahab. Think about it: to watch so many of his last crew slaughtered and torn apart in the ocean foam, and to have his own leg bitten off, and to have it replaced with a prosthetic made from whale bone, but every step he took reminded him only of what he'd lost. I can't imagine the torment Ahab went through, even physically, let alone psychologically. Not a one of us here, I think, has had quite that done to us. 

But I won't deny, couldn't deny, that we get hurt in this world – not by whales in the sea, but by men and women quite like ourselves. Some of us have been wounded, hurt physically, attacked. Some of us have been traumatized by tragedy of human craftsmanship. Some of us have been bankrupted by the machinations of others, robbed blind, left destitute. Some of us have been tossed to the curb, abandoned. Some of us have been accused falsely of wrongs we didn't commit, had our names dragged through the mud. Some of us have been excluded and exorcised from former places of business, former places of leisure, former places of worship. In a world of crime and offense, a world of blood and sweat and tears, it doesn't take a whale to hurt us; we get wounded, traumatized, cursed, excluded, denounced, betrayed, and all the rest, just in human society. Maybe it's a small thing, sometimes – a petty word or glance, a sharp remark, a simple slight, that sets your blood a-boilin'. Or maybe it's a larger thing – something that shakes us, something that redirects the path of your life.  Whether it be an unkind word or a terrorist attack, evil is at large in our world, and we get hurt.

The Bible never ignores that. And the Bible doesn't tell us to ignore that. “Just shake it off” isn't the biblical way to see things. Neither is the old Stoic idea of being imperturbable – undisturbed by all the misfortunes that come your way. No, the Bible tells us to “hate exceedingly what is evil,” while we “cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). The Bible is too honest to pretend the world is fair or life is fair. Injustice is out there. It is real. It matters. We should take it seriously. Even when it gets personal.

Faced with the different ways we get hurt, slighted, excluded, and betrayed, we hate it – we hate injustice done to us. And that's not wrong – we're to hate what is evil, and hate it a lot. That can easily drive us to vengeance. That's a heavy word – 'Vengeance' – but more commonly these days, we just call it 'Payback.' And it isn't only about the big things. A business does wrong by me, and what's my first thought? Leave a bad review – but my mind might not be on other potential customers, but on hurting the business. Payback. I get cut off in traffic, and what's my first thought? Drive in a way that inconveniences them, whether it be by tailgating or getting around and slowing them down. Payback. Someone gives me the cold shoulder, and what's my first thought? Giving it right back to them, engaging in some passive-aggressive games, giving them a 'taste of their own medicine.' Payback. Someone criticizes me, and what's my first thought? Lay into them, put them in their place, teach them a lesson. Payback. Vengeance. Our world seems to run on vengeance. On payback. How else can we show we hate what's evil than to punish it, training those around us not to hurt us any more? We do it all the time. With our neighbors. With our relatives. With our co-workers. With each other. We want to behave in a way that will hold up a mirror to the way they've treated us. Payback. And just like Ahab, things may not feel right until we've done it; it can stew and boil inside us, because injustice is plain to see.

And yet... And yet, not so long after Paul tells us to hate what's evil, he says something else. He says, “Repay no one evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). How can that be? How can we not fight back? How can we take things lying down. If the business does wrong by us, aren't we to one-star it? If the colleague picks a feud with us, aren't we to outfeud him? If the driver cuts us off, aren't we to inconvenience her? If the family member cheats and mistreats us, aren't we to respond in kind? If the system cheats us, aren't we to work against it? If the whale bites off our leg, aren't we to hunt it? How else, when we're on the spot, can we show we take evil seriously? Something seems wrong here, we want to tell Paul.

But then Paul makes it worse; he says something harder: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves” (Romans 12:19). And we wonder, “Really, Paul? Really? Never avenge yourselves? Never get payback? Never teach them a lesson? How, then, shall they learn?” And Paul says back, “You heard me.” When the business does wrong by you, don't make it your aim to hurt them back. When the driver cuts you off, don't make it your aim to inconvenience them – Paul says, not even to curse them under your breath (cf. Romans 12:14). When your neighbor complains about you, Paul says, don't level the playing field by destroying their reputation. When your family member treats you coldly and distantly, don't give them the cold shoulder in return. When your critics surface with words of hurt, don't lash back with hurtful words of your own. Not even for the big cases. Not even against the whales of the world, the murderous monsters that roam the seven seas – and the seven continents, too. Paul doesn't say, “Sometimes avenge yourselves, when the case is serious enough.” Or, “Sometimes avenge yourselves, when it should be a quick thing to teach them to fix it.” Just, “Never avenge yourselves.” That's the word Ahab couldn't hear.

It's hard for us to hear, too. It makes no sense. How can we hate evil without showing evildoers in our lives that we take their evil seriously? But Paul sees something all too true. Paul sees that our vengeance, our own efforts to get payback, to put people back in their place, to teach them a lesson, can so easily get out of hand – that they run too high a risk of dragging us and our worlds down with them. It's too easy, in seeking to punish evil, to become an evildoer. Criticizing our critics, our words can run away with us. Inconveniencing the driver who inconveniences me, I can put myself in harm's way (or them!). Giving the cold shoulder to a cold kinsman, I can ruin a relationship's chances for revival. Tearing down the reputations of those who falsely accuse me, I can land in hot water myself. Our vengeance spins out of control: remember the Hatfields and the McCoys. Think of the escalating atrocities in almost any war. Sometimes the whale wins the day again, and you end up tangled in your own schemes, fathoms beneath air and sun.

It's hard for us to hear not to avenge ourselves. That seems so much like being a pushover, a doormat – like letting people, letting life, just walk all over us, by showing that we don't take injustice seriously. But Paul isn't done with his sentence when it tells us to never avenge ourselves. He says there's something else to do instead: “Give place to the wrath” (Romans 12:19b). And what he means is, “Step back and make room for the wrath of God to take care of it.”

That phrase – “the wrath of God” – we don't much like that. It's not the way we picture God in America these days, is it? God is all about love, about mercy, about kindness and grace. But the Bible paints a richer picture and uses some heavier colors. The psalmist prays, “O LORD, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O Judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve” (Psalm 94:1-2). Hear that title: “God of Vengeance.” When injustice rears its ugly head, that's how the psalmist sees God. When people get crushed, when the vulnerable get killed, when towers fall, when darkness thinks God isn't watching, the psalmist turns to a vengeful God, a wrathful God. The psalmist maybe remembers the song God taught to Moses, the one Paul quotes in today's passage. In the face of those persecuting Israel in the desert, God says, “Vengeance is mine, and recompense … for the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone … I will take vengeance on my adversaries and will repay those who hate me. … Rejoice with him, O heavens, and bow down to him, all gods, for he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries” (Deuteronomy 32:35-36, 41, 43).

In the face of the world's evil, Isaiah pictures God wrapping himself in “garments of vengeance for clothing” (Isaiah 59:17), and foresees the proclamation of “the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2). Jeremiah, a persecuted prophet, prayed for God to “take vengeance for me on my persecutors” (Jeremiah 15:15) and ultimately preached about God's vengeance against both Egypt and Babylon (Jeremiah 46:10; 51:11). Ezekiel heard God announce his vengeance on the Edomites and on the Philistines (Ezekiel 25:14-17). Micah heard God promise, “In anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey” (Micah 5:15). And the prophet Nahum even opened his book with the bold announcement, “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies” (Nahum 1:2).

It's not just the Old Testament, either. In Revelation, the martyred saints pray for the Lord to “judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 6:10), and it shows God doing what the prophets foresaw by “avenging” on Babylon the Great “the blood of his servants” (Revelation 19:2). John the Baptist threatened the Pharisees about “the wrath to come” (Luke 3:7). Paul warned that an unrepentant person was “storing up wrath for [himself] on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5), and that for those who “obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8), and that “the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6). Revelation describes Jesus as treading “the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:15), and just so, Paul pictures the coming day when “the Lord Jesus [will be] revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who don't know God and on those who don't obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). In the New Testament just like in the Old, God is a God of vengeance.

We can be uncomfortable with that. We don't feel at ease today with that, maybe – at least, not until we're hurt, not until we see evil up close, and then we remember its value. There's a Croatian theologian who teaches at Yale – I met him once – who grew up in socialist Yugoslavia, which was ripped apart in the Yugoslav Wars. And there's one passage from one of his books that I'll never forget. He said:

I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. … My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. … Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.

Miroslav Volf is right. God is a God of Vengeance because God is a God of Love. God is a God of Vengeance because injustice against his people, injustice against you, is not something he will tolerate. He loves you, he loves us, far too much to let our harm go unavenged. That's why Paul chooses this verse to remind us who we are: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but give place to the wrath, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'” (Romans 12:19). Paul reminds us that we're God's beloved ones. God can afford to be a God of vengeance because no whale, no leviathan of the deep, can drag him down; but the reason God is a God of vengeance is because he loves you too much to watch those who hurt you get off scot-free.

And Paul explains to us that this truth, this reminder of God's wrath and God's vengeance, is exactly what frees us to abandon the hunt. No matter how badly someone has hurt you, you don't have to carry that burden. You don't have to carry it, because God loves you so much that he guarantees he'll deal with it – in his own way. No matter what someone has done or said to you, putting them in their place is not your place; it's God's place. And when we try to take vengeance into our own hands, we are getting in God's way. Vengeance is his – therefore, not ours. Payback is his exclusive domain; we need to stay out of it, stand clear of it, yield that turf to him and give him elbow room to work when and how he chooses – which, as it turns out, frequently involves the cross of Jesus Christ.

So what's Paul said so far? Injustice in the world is real. Injustice in our lives is real. People hurt us in many ways, they do us wrong. And we should hate evil – hate it with a burning passion. But that doesn't mean we're to deal in payback. Payback is God's business, not ours. So Paul tells us to never avenge ourselves, never try to dish out a taste of their own medicine, never try to get even, never try to get payback. If there's something criminal done to you, of course you're free to refer that to the proper authorities – Paul outright tells us that the ruling authority in the land is supposed to be “God's servant, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). But that's between God and his avenging servant, and our position is to never avenge ourselves but to instead leave a vacancy for God's action, trusting that his love for us will set all things right.

So where does that leave us? In the face of all the hurt, all the evil we're supposed to hate, do we then just let it slide – do we keep our distance? Paul tells us to aim to “live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). But Paul is hoping for something better than mere avoidance, if possible. Paul asks us to respond proactively to the hurt, the evil, the injustice. “Bless those who persecute you,” he says; “bless, and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14). Instead of cursing, instead of criticizing, instead of tearing down, we should work for the benefit of those who have harmed us. The driver who cuts you off – respond by driving in a way that blesses her. The coworker who won't stop getting in your way and in your face – respond in a way that blesses him. The family member who stirs up trouble – respond with blessing. The leader who betrayed you, the business that cheated you, the group that excluded you – respond in a way that blesses him and them.

When we're hurt, it's easy for our minds to get drawn into stewing over it, making our blood boil like Ahab's. It's easy to daydream about all the things we'd like to say and do to get back at those who did that to us. Paul suggests a better use for our brainpower. “Repay no one evil for evil” – don't even think about it – “but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all” (Romans 12:17). When he says 'give thought,' he means to do active planning. Instead of meditating on payback, meditate on mercy. Not in a way that makes you look like a pushover or a doormat, but a way that shows an even greater control over the situation – Paul's calling here for an active response, not just a passive one. We aren't to be paralyzed in the face of conflict, not fearful when confronted with injustice and hurt, but to have already laid plans for how to respond in a vengeance-free, mercy-soaked way.

Hunting around in Proverbs, Paul has an example to suggest: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20; cf. Proverbs 25:21). It's an idea that Elisha implemented all the way back in 2 Kings 6: the Syrian army comes to threaten Israel, so by the prophet Elisha's prayer, God strikes the enemy soldiers blind, and Elisha leads them into Samaria to the Israelite king. Seeing his enemies blind and helpless, the king of Israel asks the prophet if he may strike them down and win the day. But Elisha gives him other advice: to “set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master” (2 Kings 6:22). It was a concrete act of mercy – more than the blind Syrian soldiers could have expected, to have their enemy whom they persecuted come to their aid in their moment of weakness.

In that story, the result, we're told, was that “the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel” (2 Kings 6:23). And so Paul and Proverbs tell us to feed hungry enemies and water thirsty enemies, “for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head” (Romans 12:20; cf. Proverbs 25:22). The idea is to heap up the burning shame of remorse through these acts of practical blessing – to hopefully shame the one hurting you into realizing that they're lashing out at a friendly face. The hope is to shame the evildoer into repenting.

Does it always work out like that? No. Paul's a realist. It's why he tells us, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). Paul knows it doesn't always depend on you. Sometimes the other party just can't bear the thought of peace. So sometimes, it isn't possible to have peace with everybody. Even after you heap burning coals on their heads through active blessing, sometimes they won't repent, won't turn, won't give up the evil they've done or plan yet to do. In that case, Paul says, just make sure you stand clear, and trust the God of vengeance to handle it. Just because the evildoer doesn't change his or her tune, doesn't mean you have a reason to change yours – because God has freed you from the burden of avenging yourself, and has told you to stay out of his way.

When we take it upon ourselves to dish out payback, even if it's petty, even if it's passive-aggressive, even if it's a small thing, we're encroaching on God's turf. What's more, we're tempted to “repay … evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). But who's left standing in a contest between evil and evil?  You guessed it: Evil. Evil can't beat evil – it can only multiply evil, multiply hurt, multiply hate. And when our hearts and minds stew over the things we refuse to release into God's care, the evil done to us keeps its hold on us. It drags us down. It tempts us to vengeance. It clings to our thoughts and our emotions. It restricts our freedom to relate to people unburdened. When we don't turn vengeance over to the God who holds the copyright on vengeance, it will eat away at us, distort us, mangle and deform us. Remember Captain Ahab – his obsession with the whale consumed his life, blocked out every other thought or pursuit, and brought about his destruction and that of his whole ship. “Do not be overcome by evil” (Romans 12:21). Don't let that evil attach to your heart and overcome you. Hate doing evil more than suffering evil.

But don't ignore evil. We can't ignore evil. All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for it to go ignored and unopposed. We can't afford to let evil run rampant. We have to name it for what it is. We have to stand in its way. We have to work for justice in this world – justice in how we treat others, and calling on God's appointed servants to administer his justice well – but that doesn't mean avenging ourselves, taking justice into our own hands, as it were. To hate evil, to stand in opposition to evil, to show that we take seriously the hurt that's been done to us – there's another way. There remains an option for victory.

And that option is the path of active blessing that Paul's been talking about. When you feed your hungry hater, when you give a drink to your wounder when he or she is thirsty, when you take care to show kindness to the one who hurt you, in deliberate and planned proportion to the hurt so that there's no mistaking that it constitutes a conscious response – well, Paul calls that “overcoming evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Take evil seriously by beating it with serious good. That's the only way forward. In Captain Ahab's case, it would've meant leaving Moby Dick to a long and happy life. In the case of the Hatfields and McCoys, it would've meant the sorts of joint family reunions the families really now do these days. In your case... what might it mean? What would it look like to claim the real victory – not by getting payback, but by leaving that in God's hands and aiming to overcome evil with good?

Maybe someone has come to mind during this message. Some person in your life who's done you wrong. That particular family member, or co-worker, or neighbor, or former leader, or schoolmate, or former spouse – or current spouse, for that matter. Someone who's hurt you, done evil to you, treated you unjustly, in a way that at some time or another, you've been tempted to treat them in a way that might teach them a lesson or put them in their place or otherwise pay them back. Well, pay them back this way: We've got a church cookout coming up. Reach out and invite them. Yes, that's my challenge for you this week. Go to them and seek ways to bless them somehow. Don't let the estrangement, don't let the hurt, don't let the wrong have the last word. If the two of you disagree on who did what, don't let that drag you back down into the dispute. Let God make it clear to them, and to you, what you and they have to repent of. Just bless them, bless them in the face of their injustice, and give space for God to handle the rest.  May our God teach us how rightly to overcome evil with good, in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The Many and the One: Sermon on Romans 12:3-8

It would have been a pleasant afternoon. Tired, Agrippa Menenius Lanatus walked out of the city gates along with nine of his most distinguished colleagues. He was in the last years of his life, and his energy was waning. But the republic was in crisis. It was so young, the republic; not even twenty years had passed since Rome had tossed its last king to the curb. Only a couple years ago did Rome repel the last effort of King Tarquin and his son to invade and reclaim a throne that was no more. Barely out of the woods. But the republic was in danger of dissolving in its infancy, devoured by the maw of class warfare.

Over the past few years, debt had gotten out of hand – at least, the lower class, the commonfolk, the plebeians, seemed to think so. Frequently pressed by violence or thrown in debtors' prison, they called out for debt relief. Many in the senate hadn't thought it prudent to give in. What kind of government would pander to the whims of the rabble? The patricians, the upper class of noble breeding, had a responsibility to lead as they saw fit. It had always been that way here, and it was that way everywhere they knew. Those were the points Appius Claudius kept hammering home whenever the senate met, anyway – Appius Claudius, that Sabine-tribe merchant who'd defected to Rome with all his riches and bought himself into the patriciate.

With the senate in gridlock, class warfare threatened to break out in riots in the streets. Twice, in the face of peril from invading Italian tribes, the senate had offered a truce – a get-out-of-jail-free card, but a temporary one – to those who'd fight for Rome. It was the only way to get the plebeians to do their civic duty, it seemed. And twice, after each time, they seemed to expect things would be different afterwards. Twice disappointed were the plebeians. After their military oaths were extended by decree, the plebeians in three legions staged a walkout – took their weapons, took the sacred standards, and withdrew to a hill outside the city. Many of the plebeians in Rome burst out the gates to join them. To the senate's relief, they didn't threaten to join with the city's enemies in plunder – after all, many still had elderly parents, spouses, or children within the walls. But neither would they defend Rome or return to tilling the fields or anything else, and they were considering leaving altogether.

With the bulk of the plebeians having deserted the city, and hostile tribes lurking in the countryside, ever hungry for an opportunity to take back whatever Rome had won from them before, the senate had little choice but to meet. Some, like that hard-line aristocrat Appius Claudius Sabinus, urged no compromise: let the plebeians go, let them starve, or let them come crawling back begging. Others, like Agrippa Menenius Lanatus and Manius Valerius Maximus, had lived long enough to remember what civil wars really looked like. They condemned the senate for looking on plebeian misfortune as if it didn't impoverish the whole city, and urged them to restore the plebeians' rights and offer mercy. The senate, at last, agreed, and sent ten senior senators to make a deal.

That's why Menenius was walking. Deep in thought. But they hadn't even gone the whole three miles before a contingent of seceders met them on the road. News had already reached their camp. Negotiations began. But just like the last time, things took a bad turn. Two of the envoys, Manius Valerius and Titus Larcius, spoke too harshly – were too quick to scold the plebeians, too quick to defend the senate. In turn, the spokesmen of the seceders, Sicinius Bellutus and Lucius Junius, issued far-reaching rebukes and laid down an angry ultimatum.

So Menenius, desperate to pacify this situation before it spun irretrievably out of control, called for silence so he could speak. And speak he did, at length. He said he would neither excuse the senate nor accuse the plebeians; rather, he praised the plebeians and appealed to their neighborly instincts as good, law-abiding citizens. He saw the problems the plebeians faced, and promised concrete actions: debt-relief now, and cooperation to issue a law to fairly govern debt payment in the future. He offered them a vision of a city, a commonwealth, where social classes like patrician and plebeian don't compete, don't disparage each other, don't look to their own interests, but amiably work together for the genuine common good, embracing each other in friendship and cooperation.

To that end, he said, he'd give them a parable. He spoke of a person whose body parts each had a mind of their own. The hands had opinions, the feet had opinions, the mouth had opinions, and so on. And over time, in this body, some of the parts began to resent the stomach. After all, they reasoned, the stomach just sat there, passive receiver of the food that the feet had to approach, the hands had to grasp, the shoulders had to carry, the mouth had to chew. Why should the working parts feed this lazy freeloader whose urges kept bossing the rest of the parts around? And so those parts, Menenius said, went on strike. But what, he asked, happens to the body when they do? The whole body starves, because without nourishing the stomach, nothing is nourished.

Just so, Menenius explained, “A commonwealth resembles, in some measure, a human body. For each of them is composite and consists of many parts; and no one of their parts either has the same function or performs the same service as the others” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquities of Rome 6.86.1). What's true of the human body, he explained, is true of the body that is the republic. The rest can't do without the stomach, nor can the stomach get by without the rest. The parts, with all their diverse functions, need each other for the body to stay one healthy thing. And with that parable, Menenius won the favor of the plebeians and, with further negotiation of practical safeguards for plebeian rights, he quelled the social strife and saved the Roman Republic.

True story, from over 2500 years ago. The famous speech of Agrippa Menenius Lanatus paved the road toward social reconciliation, turning back the first secession of the plebs and putting an end – at least for his generation – to the class warfare that threatened to shred the republic in pieces. Twenty-first-century America could no doubt learn some key lessons. But what every Roman of later generation would know about the story – part of the patriotic lore they were fed from childhood – is that famous parable Menenius came up with: Rome as a body of many members with different functions meant to support each other, all necessary to the common good.

Like I said, every Roman knew that story. I'd go so far as to say Paul, living over five centuries after Menenius, knew they knew that story. I think Paul was no dunce at his Roman history. He was an educated man, raised a Roman citizen from birth in a provincial capital and leading intellectual center of the Roman world. So, writing to Romans who were raised on this story and who lived under the rule of Appius Claudius' many-times-great-grandson Nero, it's no wonder that what Menenius said about an earthly commonwealth, Paul will say about what he sees as a heavenly commonwealth on earth: the church. It isn't Rome that's the most important body; it's the church, which the Romans have split into little partitioned clubs. Sounding like Menenius, Paul tells them, “As in one body we have many parts, and the parts don't all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually parts one of another” (Romans 12:4-5).

What Menenius said of the Roman Republic, Paul sees as even truer of the church. We're “one body in Christ.” Not many bodies. Not that each house church, each apartment church, is its own separate body – no, the whole Christian network in Rome, and beyond Rome, is “one body” – not because they all grew up together from their infancy, not because they all have a common language or a common culture, but “one body in Christ.” If that's true, then what goes for bodies must go for the church. “In one body, we have many parts.” That's just the way bodies work, don't they? The body of Christ is no ameoba, no protozoan, no single-celled organism. No, bodies are complex, bodies are composites. Our bodies have eyes, ears, noses, mouths, arms, legs, hands, feet, hearts, lungs, stomachs, kidneys, livers, pancreases, and so, so much more – more than Menenius or Paul even saw in their time. Even today, with all our advanced technology, we're still discovering new features of human anatomy. One body has many parts.

And those parts, Paul says, “don't all have the same function.” Menenius saw that in Rome: the patricians had some functions, and the plebeians had some functions, and not all the same one, at that. There were lots of jobs to be done, lots of roles to be filled: cultivating fields, serving in the armed forces, carrying on trade overseas, working at assorted crafts, and more. Menenius saw the Roman commonwealth as “composed of many classes of people not at all resembling one another, every one of which contributes some particular service to the common good, just as its members do to the body” (Antiquities of Rome 6.86.4). And Paul sees the same thing happening in the church. The parts don't have the same function; they have lots of different functions. Each part brings something unique and special to the table. And importantly, all those functions – like Menenius said – offer “some particular service to the common good.” They're what makes the body united. Without all those functions continuously going on, a body dies; and death means ceasing to be one unified thing, but disintegrating – coming apart.

One body. Many parts in that body. Many functions of those parts. One body living by the many functions of the many parts that are in the one body. The many and the one. The life of the church. And that, Paul is telling us, is how a 'renewed mind' thinks. We talked last week about Paul's call for you to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). And a mind made new doesn't think of itself in isolation. A mind made new thinks big-picture – thinks of the church as the body of Christ, and takes that image seriously. And that's why, we saw last week, rational worship – the worship that comes from a mind made new, thinking rightly – involves presenting our bodies as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). A sacrifice is something we surrender control over, something we give up completely. It's an extreme step, sacrifice is. But we give our bodies to God as a living sacrifice – one that doesn't die, but in fact gains more life through being sacrificed, given over, given up. But how will God use our bodies when they're sacrificed to him? Well, if our bodies are sacrificed to the God who is the Head of Christ who is the Head of his Body, the Church, don't be surprised if God uses your body for the health of Christ's Body. To be a living sacrifice means giving your whole self to God for that. And anything less is not the kind of worship appropriate for people who can think clearly. Because this is the heart of God's will for you: to be a body part in Christ (cf. Romans 12:2).

See, that's how God wants us to see ourselves. Paul's talking to Romans, but he's talking to us, too. We are one body – right here, this very congregation – but not us alone, but the whole worldwide church. We may not all think alike. We may note all see the world alike. We may not all vote alike. We may not all work in the same profession. We may not all talk with the same accent. We may not all be from the same area originally. We may not all have the same life experiences. We may not all have the same personality or temperament. We may not have very similar bank account balances. We may not go on the same sorts of vacations. The places we live in may not have too much in common. But whether in the whole worldwide church or in this local place, “we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually parts of one another” (Romans 12:5).

To that end, Paul explains that “one body” has “many parts, and the parts don't all have the same function” (Romans 12:4). I may not serve the same function that you do, or you over there, or you right here. And vice versa. And that's good, because if we all served the same function, we'd be a real mess of a body! Paul explains that these different functions operate by “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us” (Romans 12:6). These are God-given things, things that emerge as the Spirit puts them into us or brings them out of us. It's a work of God's grace in Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and ruling today. Paul offers here examples of seven gifts, seven functions, and how to use them well (Romans 12:6-8). It's not an exhaustive list. Everywhere in his letters he lists different 'gifts,' the list looks different each and every time. Maybe even Paul couldn't get his brain around just how many different sorts of gifts, different sorts of functions, different sorts of parts, there were in Christ's body. Just like we're discovering new parts and features and functions in human anatomy in 2018, maybe the same's true in the anatomy of the body of Christ.

One of the ones Paul says we might see is “prophecy” – some measure of new insight from God, the kind Paul had when everything about God's mysterious plan for Israel and the nations suddenly clicked for him, or the kind Agabus had in seeing a famine on the horizon or terrible danger in Paul's future. Sometimes that sort of thing may well happen in the church. Praise God! All Paul tells us here for how to use it rightly is to keep it in proportion to faith – to make sure every new insight fits with sound doctrine, and to be humble enough to stop running with your new insight when you reach the limits of what you really heard (Romans 12:6). So maybe that's your gift. If it is, use it “in the proportion of faith” – but use it, honor it, as one function carried out for the benefit of the whole body.

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to be the one doing some teaching. Maybe you're good at diving into the Bible, and knowing all the history and the words and the ideas, and you can explain what's going on, you can put it in a way that makes sense to others and is clear and is accurate. Maybe you're good at passing on and handing down what got passed on and handed down to you. Maybe instructing is just what God has made you good at. Paul says, Use that gift! That's a function you fill, and it's a function this body needs. How can you best use that gift to benefit the body? Use it “in teaching,” living out what you teach (Romans 12:7).

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to be “the one presiding.” Maybe you're good at being a leader. You've got the organizational skills to keep things humming. You can see what needs to be done, and you can run a meeting, and you can direct things in a way that puts the skills of others to good use. Does that sound like you? Well, if it does, Paul's guideline for how to use it is this: “In diligence” (Romans 12:8). Namely, with the sort of aggressive efficiency and thorough care that will indeed keep things humming along smoothly, without letting all the details slip through the cracks. Because efficient, thorough administration and leadership are a function this body needs, one it can't do without or look down on. If that's you, use that gift.

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is practical service. The word Paul uses is pretty flexible. A lot of times, it could refer to what a waiter does. Sometimes, it referred to the work of those who assisted in religious ceremonies in the Greek and Roman world. It could be used for ambassadors, but has connotations of running errands. Maybe that's you. Maybe you're good at waiting tables. Maybe you're good at running errands. The practical stuff, the humble stuff, the stuff that isn't flashy but happens sometimes behind the scenes, making sure that everyone has what they need in order to carry out their function – is that you? Has God given you that? If so, use that gift! That's a function you fill, and it's a function this body needs. It's the work of a servant, and it may not be glamorous, but Paul bids you to embrace it as real service, and use it in serving (Romans 12:7).

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is comforting, exhorting, encouraging. Maybe you're the sort of person people can turn to when they've got a problem and need advice or a hug or just somebody to be present with them. Maybe you're the rare sort who does know what to say when bad things happen, and how to say it. Maybe you're sensitive, you're gentle, you're devoted. Maybe you've got the character of a parent or a nurse, and building up the hurting is where you thrive and what you do. That's one of the gifts Paul mentions, a gift that God distributes into the body of Christ. Is that something you can do, and do well? Maybe you're where God tucked that gift away. It's a function this body needs, and if it's a function you're gifted to fill, use that gift! Be that sensitive and warm and tender presence, have the actions and words to encourage and cheer and heal, and use it like a clotting factor for the whole body of Christ, to heal and repair what's been broken.

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to be “the one who shares.” Back in those days, the church used to eat together – a lot. Not just an annual picnic or a quarterly potluck. Not just an occasional cook-out or hot dog roast or ice cream social. It went beyond that. It went beyond a monthly batch of pastries, or a weekly time of coffee and donuts. They ate a full meal together every week, and maybe even ate together every day. And some in the Roman churches, Paul said, had received the gift of being able to put food on that table, often out of their own pocket, to provide these church dinners for the church as a whole, and thus feed the people of God. Or maybe there were other ways they could provide for the church, not as individual people one by one, but as a whole, taken together. These days, we don't eat together that often. Maybe we should do that more. But just think, just consider, that in Rome, food scarcity was a real issue: a lot of the poor were at risk of going hungry. Think how impactful it was, in the church, to know that you had a supper with fellow believers to look forward to, to rely on to quiet your whimpering or roaring stomach and get you through the day. I don't think too many of us are in that situation, at least not so far as I know. Maybe that's because we've self-selected to exclude the poorest in our broader community. But in any case, there will be times when the church as a whole needs to be fed, needs to be provided for, needs to be tended to. And Paul says some will have the gift of being that kind of giver, and putting that food on the table. Is that you? If so, use that gift! That's a function you fill, and it's a function this body needs. Paul only says to do it in simplicity – no ulterior motive, no hankering for credit, no ostentation or needless fancy, but a commitment to living the simple life so that you reckon more of what you have as shareable.

Or maybe, finally, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to do acts of mercy. Maybe you're driven, by the grace God has given you and the way he's wired you, to be the one who, by wallet or by hands, aims to meet the real human needs of individual people inside or outside the church. Maybe you're gifted to care for the sick. Maybe you're gifted to ensure that the dead receive a proper burial. Maybe you're gifted to give handouts to those with their hands out, or to tend to the needy in a hands-on way. Is that you? Are you gifted for acts of mercy, acts of individual provision inside or outside the church? That, too, is a function this body needs, so if that function is one you can fill, go on and use that gift (Romans 12:8)!

Paul doesn't rank these in order of how important he thinks they are, or how noble he thinks they are. Can't say Paul really cares much about that sort of thing. These gifts are all necessary. None are expendable. There's not a one of them that the church can say, “Well, we don't really need that kind of thing.” These are among many functions that need to operate in the one body of Christ, and in its local church manifestation right here. Do we have all of these operational, or are some systems offline? If they're offline, we're in trouble. If some are being shut out, we're in trouble. We can't last long if they are.

As a body, we cannot last long if we fall into class warfare or partisanship or other forms of divisive bickering and exclusionary praxis. Menenius saw that. Paul saw that. We have to see it. It does no good for somebody with one function to proclaim it the best way to be a Christian, and treat the others as expendable. It does even less good to pretend the Christian life is something a person lives on his or her own, in isolation. Because it just ain't so. An ear, cut off in a box by itself, is not exactly a paragon of life. If you watch enough crime dramas, it's usually the start of a very disturbing case. The same is true for a Christian cut off in a box by him- or herself – it's a sign that something very disturbing has happened, and just like isolation from the body is no good for the ear, isolation from the local church is no good for the believer. Nor is it good for the church, which needs the diverse functions of the many parts in order to keep healthy and in motion. We cannot afford to shut out or exclude or look down on each other's functions – that's why Paul writes, “Everyone among you must not think of himself above what he ought to think, but to think in sober-thinking ways” (Romans 12:3).

And the most reasonable, the wisest, the most sober-thinking way to think, is the way a renewed mind thinks by instinct. It's to view the church as the body in which you, each of you, are one part. You cannot live separate from the church. Church is not primarily an event. Church is not primarily a building. Church is not primarily a program. Church is a society, a commonwealth, a body. These functions aren't just used on Sunday mornings. Does your heart beat once a week? Does your stomach digest once a week? No! Body parts are in use all the time – 24/7/365. “Living sacrifice” is a full-time thing; “one body in Christ” is a full-time thing. Americans aren't used to thinking like this. We're used to expressive individualism, to hobbies, to compartmentalized lives. No wonder we're in such trouble. But Christians must get used to thinking like this, being like this, acting like this. If Menenius, a pre-Christian Roman senator living before Ezra or Nehemiah were even around, could see it, surely we can. Train yourself, train yourselves, train each other, to view yourselves, not as individuals who sometimes come together and attend the same events as your church friends, but as parts who are meant to continuously function as a single body of Christ, whose aim is to heal and save the world.

So ask yourself, each of you, “What is my function? What different, distinctive gift do I have as a result of the grace that God gave specifically to me? Which part am I?” And then devote yourself actively to doing that. It doesn't mean you never have to do anything else. Teachers have to comfort others. Leaders have to do acts of mercy. Bankrollers of the church may need to wait on some tables from time to time. But with whatever grace God has given you, get it operational. Employ your gift actively to function within the body, for the body.

And then as you look around you, not just in this church but in other churches, the people you see there are not your competitors. The church around the corner is not your competition. The big church in town is not your competition – even if, sadly, sometimes churches can try to run roughshod over each other. But no, we are not competition. We are the same “one body in Christ.” That means the people in those other churches, and the people in this church right here – even the ones you don't care for, even the one you've had grudges with in the past, even the ones you're disappointed in or dissatisfied by – they are your body parts, and you are theirs. We are, Paul tells us, “individually parts, one of another” (Romans 12:5). We are diverse, not all alike. But we belong, as living sacrifices, to a God who chooses to give us to each other as parts of the body of Christ. So do not look down on those who fill other functions, who exercise different gifts, who are wired in different ways, who bring different things to the table, as it were. Be, live as, act as, one body with them. Use your gift for the health of the whole, whatever it is, and don't hold it back. Thanks be to God, in the name of Christ. Amen.

Offered Alive: Sermon on Romans 12:1-2

The warm December sun overhead was fittingly bright – fitting even for a day the man wouldn't live to see the end of. His heart thundered warmly in his chest, burning hot like a fragment of the sun to which it would soon be offered up in return. As he stood so near the height of the pyramid, he heard the conch shell blow, and saw a vision of his near future tumble unceremoniously down the steps. But no sense fighting it. If, after all, as he believed, the gods had shed their blood to restore life to the world under the fifth sun, the least men could do – the least he could do – was shed his blood to repay their debt and keep the sun and world in motion.

Not that he had much choice. Through a long train of tragedies, a month ago he'd found himself up for sale in a slave market at Azcapotzalco. The bidder – the buyer – was a merchant from Tenochtitlan in the east, eager to contribute to the upcoming Panquetzalitzli celebration. Nine days ago, the slave – like others bought with the same intent in mind – had been drenched in sacred water, stripped and clothed in paper vestments, coated in stripes of blue and yellow body paint. Forced to dance the serpent dance with his captors, and sing along with the song to Huitzilopochtli, god of war, the Dart-Hurler, in whose likeness the slaves had been dressed and painted.

He recalled, as the conch shells blew, how last night he'd been marched up and down these same steep steps. How he'd been drugged with fermented sap. And then the day came. The city, adorned in blue-striped banners and pennants from every tree and every cactus. While the masses raced in procession from place to place, he'd been forced to fight captive warriors, re-enacting the battle of Huitzilopochtli against his sister and brothers. The slave remembered the combat, the brutality, the close calls; then how the battle ended as the parade arrived, setting their adversaries to flight.

Then they'd stood marched to the pyramid, made procession around it, and stood at its foot, gazing up toward its unfathomable heights. A priest led a fiery blazing serpent, with tongue of parrot feathers, down to consume the bowl of sacred paper. The drums were beating; the trumpets were blaring. And at last, the slaves and captives were led up the steps – step by step, step by step – by those who'd bought them or caught them. It was a somber trek upward. The city, the lake, the plain stretched out to distant mountain horizons around Tenochtitlan, all too visible the closer he drew to the lofty summit of the Hueyi Teocalli and its twin temples. The steps were steep. He knew what awaited him. His heart rebelled. But the drinks he'd been plied with soothed and slowed him, curbing his innate fear of death in the face of Huitzilopochtli, the Deceiver, Lord of Battles, of “war, blood, and burning.”

Finally, it was his turn. The conch sounded; the man who'd been in line in front of him, or rather his open and heartless shell, tumbled down the steps below. With trepidation, fear, and obligation, he, too, now surrendered to the hands pushing him toward the stone circle. Sacrifice was demanded. Sacrifice would be had. Knocked to the ground, four tan-skinned priests in capes and loincloths grabbed his ankles and wrists, held him down tight. His last-ditch reflex to fight ebbed away. The rock beneath his back was sticky and slick. His eyes fixed, squinting, on the radiant sun – soon obscured by a high priest with a dark stone knife, glistening wet from use. The waiting victim's heart throbbed in his chest, as if protesting its impending manhandling and exposure in the open air. And soon it was all over.

So lived many lives and died many deaths during the age of the Aztec Empire. For them, human sacrifices like these were no rare occurrence. During their last century especially, they clung to the thought that their gods had undertaken great sacrifices for them, shedding their divine blood to fuel the world's motion and repopulate it; and as a result, they'd have said, they owed those gods a debt to sacrifice constantly for and to them – by gifts, by animals, by constant bloodletting, and ultimately by human bodies and hearts. It's not a pretty picture. Even in surviving watercolors by native artists, it comes through in all its repulsiveness. If I didn't have a point, I'd never have asked you to picture it.

Paul never visited the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan, far across the sea and not yet built in his day. But what if he had? If he'd traipsed into Tenochtitlan during the run-up to a festival like that, inspecting their temples and learning Nahuatl so he could understand their stories – what might Paul have said? Just like Romans 1, I think he'd proclaim them “without excuse; for although they knew God, they didn't honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they become futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:20-21). The Aztecs had, as their sayings went, no polished eye, and clearly their noses lost their power to sniff out the truth.

Grieving the emptiness of their achievements amidst such idolatry and violence, Paul would have frankly said that “they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Romans 1:22-23). Though not in the same way as the more familiar Greeks, the Aztecs, too, had been given over to “the dishonoring of their bodies” through the bleeding and the ritual killing and what came next (Romans 1:24) – all because “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie” (Romans 1:25). And so they became “full of … murder, strife,” as a city and empire (Romans 1:29), and were exposed as “foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:31). The ugly reality is, “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery; and the way of peace, they have not known” (Romans 3:15-17). In this way and in the judgment to come, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18).

Paul would have found ways to connect with them. “I see you are a very superstitious people,” he might well have said, like he did in Athens (Acts 17:22). He would have looked for hints of mystery and longing. But he would have announced that, unlike their Huitzilopochtli, “the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, … is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything” (Acts 17:24-25) – least of all these bloody offerings. Paul would have agreed that the true God is a God who sacrifices for our good – but that sacrifice happened on the cross; that God appeared on earth in the humble Jesus and not as a violent warrior; and the right response to our debt had nothing to do with perpetuating the cycle of death and appeasing the flesh, for “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8), and everything to do with breaking the cycle and reaching something higher. So now this true God “commands all people everywhere” – in Athens, in Lancaster County, and, yes, in Tenochtitlan – “to repent” (Acts 17:30).

Paul would have charged that this whole Aztec system, all these festivals, were empty superstitions. And that meant they couldn't be the right sort of worship – not even a chance. How can the heartless offer their heart? And “what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons, and not to God,” Paul writes (1 Corinthians 10:20). Yet even if they said they did it for God, even then, it couldn't be the right way to worship. Because the only sort of worship worthwhile, Paul would say, is “rational worship” (Romans 12:1). That's the phrase he uses in our passage today. Most modern translations call it something else – 'spiritual worship,' maybe – but the actual words he uses are “logical worship,” “rational worship.” It's the kind of service to God that fits creatures with brains in their heads.

And Aztec worship wasn't that. Human sacrifice isn't rational worship; it's repulsive superstition. Idolatry isn't rational worship; it's the foolishness of exchanging God's truth for a lie and God's glory for petty things. Those foolish kinds of religion might be good enough for wild animals, but certainly not humans with working brains. And so far, that's probably very clear to us. There's nothing about the Aztec religion that resonates or appeals. But when Paul talks about “this age” in the present tense, he's talking about a network of values and structures and powers that hold sway in first-century Rome, fifteenth-century Tenochtitlan, and the twenty-first-century USA all the same. Sure, Paul would have said that the Aztecs had corrupted minds and darkened hearts – he'd call them out on their irrational worship – but he'd say the very same thing to today's America.

Here and now may look different from there and then. We sacrifice our minds and bodies slowly, stretching out the painful death, as we devote them to hungry careers and ambitions; as we let consumerism consume us, and fill ourselves with fruitless distractions, banners waving in the breeze; as we make idols of our families and causes and, perhaps above all, our pride. And that, no less than in Tenochtitlan, is human sacrifice. It just drains the life from us less slowly. It's easier to paper over our mess. But we convince ourselves that the world won't stay in motion unless we drain our lives out for it in overwork. We convince ourselves that the violence of our culture is normal, unavoidable; that sanctioned forms of it are necessary. And we convince ourselves that some people are expendable, can be turned into tools for what we call a greater good, or disposed of altogether (like the unborn, the disabled, the immigrant, the elderly, and plenty of other lives in between). We reduce God's image-bearers to labels we've made up, so that we can better treat them as mere objects. Even in the church, we dedicate ourselves to maintaining the status quo of America as it used to be, or as we imagine it used to be; we make the 1950s our god, perhaps, and sacrifice the Lord's vision for our future to the 'divinity' of a defunct decade.  In and out of the church, so much of what we do, we see its real ugliness only in Tenochtitlan's smoky mirrors.

Paul would tell us that irrationality is a hallmark of this age. Everything characteristic of this age is, at its root, tied up in subhuman thinking. And even if the Aztecs were right, their hearts – and our hearts – are too dark to be offered. We've been naturally socialized into this darkness and foolishness; most of the time, it doesn't even register to us as unnatural – our fear, our defensiveness, our pursuit of power, our patterns of consumption, the standards for the Aztec or the American Dream. And so much of that superstition, so much that's unthinking, so much that just ignores or refuses the truth of God, creeps into our worship and our lives. Because we've been naturally socialized into it. Paul calls on us to open our eyes and resist. He urges us to stop “being conformed to this age” and all its unthinking lies (Romans 12:2). He longs to see us break free of everything unworthy of the kind of thinking creatures God made us.

Because all those bloody superstitions just don't suit us. They aren't reasonable, aren't rational, don't logically add up – for Aztecs or Americans. What is appropriate, what does suit us, is the kind of worship that uses reason – that reflects actively on God's truth and God's deeds. That's what we try to do here. We try to reflect, with our minds and hearts, on God's truth and God's deeds. When we steer clear, we surely fall short; when we get lost or doze during the sermon, we may fall short; when we get distracted and don't even focus on the words we're singing, we likely fall short; when we pepper our church world or personal devotions with unbiblical theology and pointless fluff and feel-good filler, we surely fall short. We lapse into less rational worship, the kind that doesn't suit who God made us. We were made as thinking beings, who string words together in our mouths and minds, who add and link ideas and move toward conclusions – and God wants to see that in our worship and in how we live. He yearns for us to offer worship that opens our vision and stretches our minds as it glorifies him and proclaims the rich depths of his whole truth to his whole world. God calls for our “logical worship,” the proper fruit of our reasonable faith (Romans 12:1).

What suits us is the kind of worship that's holy – that's set apart (Romans 12:1). Not compartmentalized in time – not limited to Sunday mornings – that isn't what holy is. Holy is pure; holy is different from what's all around. Holy is connected to and reflective of a God far above and beyond. The Aztecs would've seen their festivals as holy occasions, perhaps – would have pointed to the banners, the sacred bathing, the sacred dramas, the eating of a dough image of their god, and so many more rituals. But it wasn't holy, because it mirrored gods who were made in the people's image – or, at least, the elite warrior-class people's image – rather than mirroring the one God in whose image they were made. Worship appropriate for human beings isn't recursive; it doesn't just feed us back into ourselves, as if we could live and grow off of our own output, as if a series of copies and reflections could make an original clearer. What suits us is a worship free from distortion, a worship that actually opens us up to something different, to a God who may well change us and break us and remake us.

And what suits us is the kind of worship that's “pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1). Which might be hard for us to figure out. We're so steeped in our ways. We cling to our flesh. We're naturally socialized, like we said, on the unthinking ways of an irrational culture. There are assumptions we make, instincts we have, that are like second nature to us as Americans – just like there were assumptions and instincts that were second nature to the Aztecs before us. What we need is a new way of thinking, a new way of seeing the world. We need to break free from those old assumptions and thought-patterns, we need more light shed in our noggins, in a way that changes and breaks and remakes our brains, our minds. “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). That's what we need.

What can a renewed mind do? Paul says that, with a renewed mind, “by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2). We make so much hay about figuring out what God's will is, when it comes to what we should do, how we should live, how we should worship. But for a mind made new, a mind shedding old habits and open to real change, we make it so complicated (or, as the Aztecs would say, we make a stew of all the chameleons we catch!). First, is the thing good? Does it have value? Is it virtuous? Then it might be God's will for us. Second, can we realistically imagine it putting a smile on God's face when we do it? Is it pleasing to him? Then it might be God's will for us. And third, does it express maturity? Is it something we can honestly say is mature, the action of a complete person living rationally and well? If it's all those things, give it a test, and you may well find it's the will of God.

What does a lifestyle lived like this look like? What kind of worship does it generate? What does our “logical worship,” our “rational” or “reasonable worship,” look like, if it's to proceed from a renewed mind that seeks God's good and pleasing and perfect will, if it aims to please him, if it aims to be holy? What kind of worship, what kind of life is that? We know what the Aztecs thought worship should look like. They believed in gods who sacrificed their blood; that we owed a debt; that the present world just needed to be kept in motion; and that violence and bloodshed were what their gods wanted, what their gods needed. So many people in ancient Mexico – men, women, even children – were routinely called on to offer their bodies in a very radical and ultimate way: as sacrifices that would be killed to maintain the status quo of the age.

Is that what God wants for us? It's true that all our hope is founded on a divine sacrifice – the Aztecs had some insight there. “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” for us (1 Corinthians 5:7). Jesus “appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice...” (Ephesians 5:2). “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22), so Jesus provided “his own blood” (Hebrews 13:12). And for that, we do owe a debt, like the Aztecs suspected: “We are debtors,” Paul confesses (Romans 8:12).

But it's the third key idea where the parallels break down.  See, it isn't the present world that needs to be kept in motion, but a new world that needs to break through. That world isn't the domain of Huitzilopochtli, a strife-stirring and deceitful god of war, but of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who eternally live and reign as one God of Love, Peace, and Truth. God has no need for our blood, our violence, our deadly zeal, our destruction, or our death. He has no interest in human sacrifice of that kind (cf. Leviticus 20:1-5; Hosea 13:2; Ezekiel 23:39). But God is looking for sacrifice. In Aztec festivals, the slaves were bathed in sacred water and clothed in new vestments resembling their god before they were sacrificed. Well, we were bathed in sacred water at baptism, and we've been clothed in Christ Jesus and his righteousness (Galatians 3:27). Why? The Aztecs would see the obvious reason: to be a sacrifice. But what kind of sacrifice can we make of ourselves, when God says, “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone” (Ezekiel 18:32)? Only one kind, Paul tells us. “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your rational worship” (Romans 12:1). That is the kind of worship fitting for thinking people – a sacrifice that keeps on living.

God calls for the sacrifice of our bodies, your bodies, but his aim, he tells us, is to “give life to your mortal bodies” (Romans 8:11). God isn't looking for a sacrifice that wipes us off the map; that destroys us; that leaves us worse off than we were when we came. Oh, it may look like that for a while, because the road is hard. But he wants a sacrifice that leaves us more alive, more complete, than we were before. He wants a sacrifice that doesn't drain us dry, used up and thrown aside; he wants a sacrifice that we can make day after day.

“Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought” – what, from life to death, like the sacrificial victims in Tenochtitlan, or like the casualties of modern American consumer culture? No! “Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life,” Paul directs us, “and your body parts to God as instruments for righteousness” (Romans 6:13). We're told to “not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Hebrews 13:16). But God wants more than just what we have; he wants what we are. He wants our bodies given to him by rational minds – he claims ownership, use, consecration, devotion of our bodies and all the parts of them. To sacrifice them, we give them up to him.

How thankful I am that our way of sacrificing our bodies looks nothing like the ancient ugliness in Tenochtitlan. God never takes a heart out of us without putting a better one in (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26). Our “struggle against sin” might, in a climate of persecution, ultimately lead up to “the point of shedding [our] blood” (Hebrews 12:4) – but that's not the idea. It isn't a bloody sacrifice of death, but a full-on living sacrifice that God is looking for. We sacrifice our bodies – offering them alive – to the God who is the head of the Christ who is the head of his body, the church (1 Corinthians 11:3; Ephesians 5:23). So don't be surprised when he insists on using your bodies for the service of Christ's body – but we'll get more to that next week.

What matters now is this call. Paul urges us, appeals to us, to “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your rational worship” (Romans 12:1). It isn't automatic. God has bought our bodies, but it's our choice whether to rob him – as we so often do – or to offer ourselves alive on his altar. It's our choice whether to cling to the superstitions of our Aztec or American way, or to rise higher into rational worship, the appropriate sort to come from the thinking creature God made you.

It will be difficult. (That's kind of the definition of sacrifice, isn't it?) We have to let God break the way we were raised and brought up. “We've always done it that way” is no excuse; it's just a definition of the problem. “I don't get it” is no excuse; it defines the problem. “That's ignorant,” “That's crazy,” “That's folly” – that's just the defensive way our irrational minds react to God's reason, which to us looks upside-down (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:23-25; 2:14). We have to let God make our new hearts bright and our new minds clear. It's a process; it can take time. Tradition, upbringing, age – doesn't matter, because we're “without excuse” (Romans 1:20). Only as God changes our minds can we see the beauty of what he's done for us, and the real depth of our debt, and the kind of God he really is. Only as God changes our minds can we appreciate his radical summons. But now, while it's in process, we have to choose to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Doing it will be costly – again, check literally any definition of the word 'sacrifice'!

For the Roman house churches Paul was writing to, coming out of such a terrible time of turmoil, they were understandably afraid that welcoming Paul and living this Jesus way would be the end of them – that it would get them in trouble, force them into unnatural positions, and spell their doom. Paul, facing their fears without blinking, tells them to go ahead and sacrifice their bodies – and watch God give them life. For us, breaking away from tradition and culture and all our old ways of thinking, and accepting change – well, it's a frightening prospect. Could get us in trouble. Could break us apart or shove us uncomfortably together. Could produce friction and heat. Could make a big stink and a big mess. Paul faces our fears, too, without blinking. And he says, “Nevertheless, present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).

Everything you've got, everything you are – put it at the disposal of the God whose Son is the Head of the Church. Put your whole body sacrificially at the service of his Body – and watch God multiply life. The Aztecs offered human sacrifice by killing bodies to maintain their age's status quo. Paul urges us to sacrifice our bodies as living offerings that defy everything about the status quo. And our sacrifice is more radical than anything that happened during any Aztec festival, and it uses no obsidian knife but just “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).

We sing songs with questions like, “Is your all on the altar?” Well, is it? Jesus – not Huitzilopochtli, nor our coveted American idols – is the God who “comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). He “came that [we] might have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). To that end, Jesus died for us, shed divine blood for us – we are “the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). So “we are debtors” (Romans 8:8). But what will you do? Will you choose to present your bodies as a living sacrifice? Again, it costs; again, it hurts; again, it is no easy or comfortable thing. It is a radical thing, a total thing. But for a thinking church, for a church who knows “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), it's the only thing that fits. It's the only “rational worship” – this “living sacrifice” of your bodies and all they've got (Romans 12:1).

Will you put your all on the altar? Will you present your bodies as a living sacrifice? I can't make that choice for you. I can tell you it's the only worship that makes rational sense in light of who the true God truly is. I can tell you that the life Jesus gives is worth so much more than our jobs and our pensions, our trends and our traditions, our resistance and our recreation, our agendas and our stubborn desires. I can tell you all that. Paul can make his appeal to the mercies of God. But what will you do with it? This sermon is done, and in a few moments you'll have the choice: back to life as it was before, or on to life as a living sacrifice; further away from reason, or further into reason. But that choice is yours. Yours. Here. Now. “Choose ye this day...” (Joshua 24:15).