Sermon: Matter Matters
Preaching on Paul's understanding of 'flesh' in Romans 8:1-11 and the harm his understanding has caused to the Earth community and its people.
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Sermon
Matter Matters
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (Romans 8:1-11, NRSV)
Let us pray:
God of Life,
May the words of my mouth
And the meditations of all our hearts and minds
Lead us to deeper understanding of you
And the love you all us to live. AMEN.
Matter matters. This is but one of many interpretations that can be made of the incarnation of God, through Jesus, in our world. Matter matters.
Matter matters because Jesus was born fully human. Jesus was a human being, made of flesh and bone, the same as you and me. Jesus was born of a woman, just like you and me. Jesus was a human being and lived a fully human life. He felt warmth and cold, he felt hunger and fullness, he experienced fatigue and what it felt like to get a good night’s sleep. Jesus experienced the full range of human emotions; he felt happiness and joy. He wept when his friend Lazarus died, and he expressed sorrow and fear over what he was about to endure. Matter matters because Jesus was fully human; he was matter.
Matter matters because all of the Earth community, all of creation is made of matter. Matter matters because God made all of creation, and as Paul says in 1 Timothy 4.4, “everything created by God is good.”
Matter matters because so much of matter brings us deep joy. Our children and grandchildren bring us joy and a deep sense of meaning. Being out in the natural world brings us joy, and introduces us to life beyond our own. Sunshine, good food, and the ability of our bodies to show and receive love; these experiences and more show us that matter matters.
Matter matters because, as we have learned in the face of the climate crisis when matter changes, we feel it. The climate emergency, one major part of a wider ecological crisis in which every single part of the Earth’s systems is suffering, has shown us just what happens when we mess with matter. We have messed with the composition of our atmosphere, through the burning of fossil fuels, global industrial agriculture, overconsumption and so much more, that global heating is out of control.
When the tornado touched down in Barrhaven on Thursday and damaged homes, we learned how matter matters. When the hottest day on record over the entire planet was set on Monday, July 3, then broken on Tuesday, July 4, and then again on Wednesday and Thursday of that week, we learned how matter matters.
Jesus, fully human as well as fully divine, was matter. All of God’s good creation, the Earth community, is matter.
But isn’t flesh matter?
To hear Paul tell of it, he has cast flesh into a category that seems to contradict everything that I have just said.
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