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July 7, 2002
"Sanctify Me Lord"
Romans 7:15-25
Reverend Larry Gerber

When something goes wrong, we're likely to deconstruct the disaster to find out why. This is the same approach the apostle uses to work on the frustrating problem of why humans tend to act out in destructive, counter-intuitive behaviors.

Upheaval Dome in Utah's Canyonlands National Park is a mile wide and 1,500 feet deep, and scientists are still not entirely sure how it came to be. One theory involves the erosion of a vast underlying salt dome. Another theory invokes an otherworldly collision. This one rings true, since Upheaval Dome certainly looks like an impact crater. A sign at its edge offers this explanation: "Some 60 million years ago, a huge meteor streaking through space ... pierced the earth's atmosphere directly above this point." The text goes on, "The meteor hit with little warning."

With little warning?

Was the meteor supposed to give a BEEP, BEEP, BEEP warning, like a garbage truck backing up?

Of course not. The Park Service's writers meant nothing more than "suddenly," and the wording they chose came to mind naturally. Cullen Murphy, columnist for the Atlantic Monthly, notes that we inhabit a culture of warning and have come to expect advance notice of nearly everything. Doppler radar picks up storm fronts. Traffic copters swoop over commuting bottlenecks. Financial analysts predict stock futures. Medical imaging outlets offer full-body radiological scans, designed to highlight warning signs of tumors and heart disease.

This represents a big psychological shift. Our ancestors woke up not knowing if a hurricane was about to strike. They didn't need traffic predictions, because they didn't have any traffic. They did not anticipate fourth-quarter downturns. The threat posed by arterial plaque never entered their minds.

But people today are obsessed with looking ahead and spotting trouble on the horizon. And that's not all. Our forward-looking efforts have a counterpart in backward-looking attempts to figure out what went wrong after trouble has arrived. Think of all the brains that have been strained by rehashing the events leading up to September 11.

Look at the volumes of books written on the aftermath of almost every disaster in the world. Book after book has been written on the things that lead to every war, as well as every so called "natural disaster. Terrorist attacks and suicide bombings could have been stopped, if.......We analyze everything to death. It usually does not stave off future disasters, but "we learn" what went wrong the last time. We have learned very litttle from past wars. We fight wild fires, but it does not help us to be prepared for the next disaster, because we never know where lightning will strike next, or what the prevailing winds might be at the time. We don't know when the next terrorist or arsonist might stirke.

Yet, we stirve for a fuller life, one of sanctification. A life that offers explainations about everything that happens. We want to be sanctified, made whole. We want everything to go right, as we understand what right means. Yet, we do the things that we should not do, and do not do the things that we should. We fear and predict the future, while detailing and analyzxing the past. At the same time, we do little to deal with the present situation. We are like Paul, agonizing over what went wrong!

One could make a case for the apostle Paul. In search of an answer to one of the great unanswered questions of all time: "What is wrong with me? Why do I do the
things I don't want to do, and don't do the things I should do?" (7:19-20).

Paul craves an interior SoulAlert warning system that will awaken him to the evil that lies close at hand. He also desires someone or something to swoop in and free him from the "law of sin" that dwells deep within him. He doesn't simply want to know that sin is bearing down on him -- he senses that quite acutely. He wants to be rescued from it (vv. 21-24).

So he indulges in some rear-view analysis to see what's going on. "I do not understand my own actions," he begins. "For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (v. 15). Paul begins by admitting his own personal powerlessness over sin, like an alcoholic stumbling into AA for the first time and confronting the truth of the first step: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol -- that our lives had become unmanageable."

Paul has hit rock bottom.

Of course, he doesn't want to stay there. Desperate to climb out of this hellish hole, he says: "I know that nothing good dwells within me," "that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me" (vv. 18-20).

There is a sin-principle, he argues, that resides like an alien power within us, determined to dominate our flesh and corrupt all our actions. The apostle has unearthed an alien operating system, a worm virus wreaking havoc in the deepest cavities of his moral hard drive.

When we want to do what is good, this virus lies close at hand, tapping and scrambling all our spiritual data and programs. When we attempt to follow the law of God, an internal code war erupts -- full of command deletions and program overwrites. When we deconstruct the mess we've made of our day, or our week, or our life, we come face to face with a nature, an inclination, a power, that pushes us to disobey and rebel. The result, according to Paul is that we are captive to the law of sin that dwells within us (vv. 21-23).

So how do we escape?

Not by our own power, insists Paul. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" he exults. Threatened by complete defeat in the struggle with the enemy entrenched deep within us, we throw ourselves into the arms of Christ. Only there can we find freedom from the grip of sin, and victory over the power of evil.

Like members of Alcoholics Anonymous, like the Wesleyan covenant model of spiritual accountability before there was such a covenant, Paul knows that we must acknowledge that only a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.

The mystery of Upheaval Dome in Utah may be solved by the discovery of fragments of a huge meteor that streaked through space some 60 million years ago. Or maybe not. There may be nothing left of that alien body. But we who struggle to follow the law of God have discovered, along with Paul, that we have been hit hard by a force called sin, one that has left a huge crater in our lives. We're also beginning to see that only
Christ can rescue us, only Christ can protect us, only Christ can prevent our spirits from becoming a dry, dusty wasteland -- what Paul calls a "body of death" (v. 24).

So, how do we restructure our daily lives so that Christ can be more present in them, offering us rescue and protection and new life?

Think about it. In AA, men and women acknowledge that addiction to alcohol is ruining their lives. Their purpose in coming together is to give it up, and to help others to do the
same. They realize they can't pull this off by themselves --they need each other, and they need God.

As the church, we should follow the example of A.A. in telling our own stories,
and in reflecting on where we went wrong and how we can do better. We can share with each other the secrets of where we find the strength and understanding and hope to keep trying, and how the forgiveness and guidance and new life of Jesus Christ help us to face another day with confidence. As the body of Christ in the world today, we can take responsibility for each other -- and be available at any hour of the day or night if the need arises. We can be open to people of every background, to help and to heal, to listen to the truth and to tell it.

"There's not much more to it than that," writes Frederick Buechner, "and it seems to be enough. Healing happens. Miracles are made."

Clearly, one of the great unanswered questions for every human being is the mystery of why we do the things we don't want to do, and why we don't do the things we should do. Come to the table. Talk to God. Seek forgiveness. Pray for a better tomorrow. Bt, also take time to look at today, and do what you know is right.

Let us prepare to break bread together, as we read the Prayer of Humble Access, printed in your bulletin........

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766