What if there was no condemnation?
Link to video: https://www.facebook.com/138797592802860/videos/1140472256334859
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
July 12, 2020—Proper 10A
Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9
Let’s sink into that gospel for a minute. Let’s begin and end with this reminder: that God is willing to work with anything; that God knows life can burst through the ground in any situation! That’s the reassurance here: that God can and does scatter the seed; that God insists on scattering the seed of the kingdom of God anywhere and everywhere, not worrying too much about whether it’s a likely plot of land. Sometimes, surely, the Kingdom grows up like those trees that hang on valiantly to the sides of rocky mountains. Just as it also grows like plants sown in good soil, with compost and fertilizer, flourishing at seemingly miraculous rates.
God can do God’s work in anyone, in any circumstance. And it’s all good. All astonishing. All the deepest desire of our God.
God can do God’s work in anyone, in any circumstance. Let’s start there. So that you might be able to enter the words of Paul with a believer’s heart: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
There is no condemnation. Which is an invitation, a plea for us to step out of the impossible demands of the law, that send us running after a perfection that we will never be able to attain. A plea to let go of the pressure of needing to earn it, needing to do it all, needing to be perfect, and to never fail. An invitation to take hold of the truth that all God ever wanted was our hearts, and once we give that, God will be able to use us.
Then, there will be no condemnation. Which is good news. Because condemnation doesn’t work. Yes, yes, if you threaten people with terrible punishment they might avoid the forbidden behaviors. But threats break people more than they remake people, because condemnation (no matter how well-meaning) walks a straight line in the human spirit to shame and self-hatred. And that’s not salvation. That’s not healing.
Paul knew this. Paul had suffered all this, had struggled mightily, and cried out to God that he knew the kind of condemnation he deserved for all that he had done and all that was in his heart. He knew it, and he wanted to be able to follow the law and be blameless, but he couldn’t. He knew what he was supposed to do, and what he was supposed NOT to do. He knew, and he longed to do it all right. But knowing all that wasn’t enough. Facing the condemnation wasn’t enough. He failed anyway.
Until he encountered grace. Until he was offered entry into God’s kingdom. Until he discovered and believed that God could work with him, as flawed as he was. And once he had let go of all that anxiety, God would work within him, bringing about all the things Paul could never do on his own.
There is no condemnation. Not for Paul, and not for you. God can do God’s work in you. God longs to do God’s work within you and through you. It’s what God created you for.
So, I ask you: How would you act, if you knew (really knew) you were safe from condemnation?
Imagine that, as a model for God’s world! Imagine the possibility and the freedom, if this world could reflect even a fragment of that? If you could simply allow the spirit of God to live in you, and trust where that led you?
What might you do, that you had previously thought was forbidden by the people who had declared a monopoly on righteousness? Where would a life, guided simply by love of God, self and neighbor, lead you? What might no longer worry you? And what might begin to draw you deeper, as you felt the call of that love?
What questions might you ask, if you could trust that you were asking them because of the promptings of the spirit within you? Trust in your motivations, and be brave enough to continue and explain and apologize if necessary, if others misunderstand you. How much deeper could your love be, if you weren’t crippled by the fear of judgment?
What kinds of things could you explore, if this life was a condemnation-free zone? So much becomes open to you, when you’re freed from the idea that there is only one way to be good, one way to be successful, one way to be happy. Imagine the miraculous growth, tenfold, a hundredfold, when you truly believe that you can try and fail and change and still be beloved.
There is no condemnation. Let God live in you, and none of the rest matters. Because God dwelling within you will bring astonishing growth. Growth that astonishes because it’s like that stubborn tree growing out of rock. Growth that astonishes because it's so bountiful the world needs more storage bins just to contain your radiance.
The growth is there, the yield will come. Even as you are stumbling through some whole new territory. There’s no condemnation for stumbling. (My God, what if that were true? What if we could live as if that were true?) It would be a miracle. It would be a reflection of our bountiful God, sowing wherever She pleases.
It would be undeserved, unearned, saving Grace. There is no condemnation; there is only Grace. May we know it to be so. Amen.