Tuesday • 3/16/2021
Week of 4 Lent

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Jeremiah 17:19–27; Romans 7:13–25; John 6:15–27

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

The Law puts the spotlight on sin—Romans.

Every single one of us knows that it is one thing to want to do good, and another actually to do good (Romans 7:18–19).

The apostle Paul has this same experience. “I delight in the law of God in my inmost self.” And yet, “I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:22,15). This is a stark juxtaposition, put as profoundly and poignantly as one could imagine.  

It seems odd to many students of Romans that as passionate a follower of Christ as Paul acknowledges such a deep, existential internal conflict: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,  but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:21–24). 

Nonetheless, it seems to me, Paul describes an agony of soul that is unique to those who have been tracking with him. People who are “in Christ” now have the potential: no longer to let sin reign in their lives (Romans 6); truly to find the law as the delight of their inner selves (Romans 7); and genuinely to desire to walk by the Spirit (as he will discuss in Romans 8). They—and especially they, for most others could care less!—detect within themselves a resistance they recognize as being foreign to who they truly are in Christ (“sold into slavery under sin” … “another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin”—Romans 7:14,22). Paul’s agony of soul besets those whom Christ has reclaimed, and in whom he has begun his titanic campaign to reshape them after his likeness. 

It is the confession of countless saints through the ages that the closer they grow to Christ, the more tender their consciences become. There’s a very good reason why  it was the desert fathers who formulated for us “the seven deadly sins.” They had left the evil world behind so they could pursue their relationship with Christ without all the world’s distractions and temptations, only to find that they brought “a world of iniquity” (James 3:6) with them, for it resided within them. It was in the purity of the desert environment that they discovered the pride, envy, bitterness, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust that dwelt in their hearts. Their gift to us is to affirm the struggle that Paul articulated so well in Romans 7. A Paul who can describe himself in terms of Romans 7 can also register an increasing tenderness of conscience as he matures in Christ: in 1 Corinthians, he is “least of the apostles”; by Ephesians, he is “least among the saints”; and by 1 Timothy, he is “chief among sinners” (1 Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 1:15). 

The trick is to stay in the fight. It’s one thing to acknowledge helplessness in the face of an oppressive force. It’s another to surrender to it or to appease it. That is not the way of Paul. It was not the way of the desert fathers. Theirs was the way of repentance and confession—of naming the problem. And then of calling out for rescue: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” With that cry comes the immediate and instinctive response of the heart that lies more fundamentally under the dominion of Christ (Romans 6). It finds its deepest delight in God’s Word (Romans 7) and  is where  the Spirit vibrantly lives (Romans 8): “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25a). 

Prayer from the Rite of Reconciliation: Therefore, O Lord, from these and all other sins I cannot now remember, I turn to you in sorrow and repentance. Receive me again into the arms of your mercy, and restore me to the blessed company of your faithful people; through him in whom you have redeemed the world, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP, p. 450). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: "Split Personality" by CariSometimes is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0