Proper 7 Sermon - BMT - June 21, 2026

Historians and anthropologists, people who study cultures and tribes at different times today and throughout history will know very well that one thing that's really hard to do is to find like a universal claim.

That is something that's present at all times throughout all places and all languages and all cultures, all religions, throughout you know, all of history to find like a common denominator to say, like, oh, humans have always done X.

Like, that's really hard to do.

But one thing that's that's actually really interesting is that there is a universal or a transcultural observation that historians and anthropologists can make.

And it's that there's this intuition, it seems to be a human intuition, of associating darkness, the reality of darkness, with the uh uh with evil, malevolent forces.

And by contrast, light with good, they actually see this in like every culture.

Like darkness, bad, darkness, evil, light, good.

And what's really interesting is it's not like an ethical or like a moral category of like, oh, this is good or bad, but it's like a religious category.

It's very elevated, right?

Good and evil.

That's like religious language.

And what's really interesting is even in our modern time, our secular neighbors will even reach for this language, this religious language.

And in the midst of tragedy, when something horrific is happening, you see this language is the language that's being used.

Deeply religious language, good and evil.

And in our time and in our lives, you're picking up the news or whatever you're looking at, there is always and historically has been this reality of oh wait, light and darkness.

Some kind of struggle, some kind of incompatibility between these two realities.

And I'm sure people wonder like, is this ever going to end?

Is there going to be a triumph of one or the other?

Is this just like the state of play?

Is this just reality?

This idea of like a perpetual dualism.

And while many of us wouldn't say that these powers are equal, right?

That the powers of darkness are symmetrical or proportional to the powers of God, we often live as though they are.

We often live as though that these powers are proportional, are symmetrical, uh symmetrical, uh equal.

And that's a very anxious way to live.

It's very anxious.

Because at any moment, right, it's a very unstable, precarious uh position to be in.

Because at any moment, right, one could have the upper hand.

The tables can just quickly turn between good and evil.

But what's actually revealed, part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is what's actually revealed is that these powers are entirely disproportional.

That they're not symmetrical, they're asymmetrical, that the power of darkness has been revealed as something that is before the power of God, even negligible.

This is uh, we see Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, he's almost mocking the powers, right?

Oh grave, where's your victory?

Death, where's your sting?

Like, come on.

This is part of what has been revealed in the gospel.

This is why they this the word gospel is actually an ancient Greco-Roman word that is a political term to speak of triumph.

It was to say, like, oh, this king has won this battle.

Go preach this gospel to the people at home.

Go give them this good news.

And the gospel is that Christ, God in Christ, light has triumphed over darkness.

And this proclamation is proclaimed in the middle of history that these powers, the powers of sin and death, are real, but they've been defeated.

And yet, in some mysterious way, they remain powerful as they fall, but they're defeated.

I think of a like a really like high tower, and it's like Christ, God in Christ, is like completely knocked out the foundation.

And this tower is falling.

And it's been falling for 2,000 years, and as it falls, it remains, has some kind of sway, but it's ultimately, right, its power is sure.

This is what is being proclaimed in Paul's reading in Romans, that the power of sin and death pales in comparison to the power of God in Christ.

This is how he opens it in verse 15.

He says, But the free gift, speaking of Christ, but the free gift is not like the trespass.

And he's going to go into great description about why that is the case.

And what Rome does, uh sorry, what Paul does is he gives them Adam before the church in Rome, and then he presents them Christ.

And he's going to show how these two figures, while similar, are entirely disproportionate.

The effects.

And what Paul is going to say is that Adam's sin, which resulted in transgression for many, uh, he even gives this imagery in Romans, like sin takes on this like aggregate, almost like compound interest kind of happening with Adam and Israel.

It's really interesting.

But he's painting this picture of like sin that is maximalized as a result of Adam's one act of disobedience in Adam, and that Christ, his single act of obedience, following this aggregate and this compound interest of sin, Christ's one act of obedience after all of that, is sufficient to bring grace and power to the many.

It is to say that like Adam had the best of circumstances to work with and it goes off the rails.

And Christ had like the worst of circumstances, like all the odds were against it, and yet somehow God and Christ can pull it off with one act.

This is incredible.

This disproportionate relationship of power between the power of sin and the power of God, the power of grace, the power of Christ.

The free gift is not like the trespass.

Often how we speak of God's power, or even how we hope, it's like I just hope that God will salvage what the power of sin is taken away.

I just hope God will get me back to baseline.

Like I'm not asking for a lot.

Just like get me a par.

I'm not asking for birdies or any, just get me par.

Like, I want to back to baseline.

Help me salvage this.

Oh, if God's mercy and power could salvage my life.

Man, that would be grace.

And yet the vision that Paul gives us is that the power of grace surpasses the power and the damage of sin.

Paul says, wherever sin abounds, grace superabounds.

Translation, as I've put it before, like if sin knocks you back one, when grace comes in, it knocks you up three.

Or better, seven or twenty.

It is to say that when God's power comes in, when grace comes in, it's always a benefit.

You can get further by grace than you could have ever gotten without it.

With all the righteousness in the world, right?

Jesus says it's this, it's the prostitutes and uh the tax collectors and sinners.

They're gonna be showing up at the table of Abraham at the party long before you Pharisees, like, will have a seat at the table.

This is the power of God.

And yet we often view the power of sin and death as so much more powerful than what it is.

As though God, like what God's power, all that God can do is like salvage, maybe salvage.

This is not the vision that Paul has in Romans.

I mean, this is the power of God.

If you grew up like me in like evangelical uh purity culture, like this is the power, this is how the power of sin and death was understood, right?

It was maintain your innocence before marriage.

Because if you don't, you will never get it back.

You will never salvage your body.

This is just a pious, creative way of denying the power of God.

Sanctity, yes.

Purity, yes.

But by the power of God.

By grace.

This is an attempt like the Galatians, right, to begin in the spirit and think you can be perfected by the flesh.

This is the power that's been revealed in Christ.

And what I love about the power of God, what I love about grace, is it doesn't add up.

It doesn't calculate, it's not good math.

And that's precisely why it's so powerful.

See, Paul makes a huge deal, and Paul is insistent that the benefits that come from God in grace by Christ, the benefits that come from God in salvation are a gift.

They are not a wage.

He's very big on this.

Because wage is all about proportionality.

Right?

I do this, I earn that.

Right?

I gave this, you give me that.

I merit this, and here we go.

It's proportional.

It's like you're putting it on a scale, right?

Wages, merit.

For Paul, the benefits that we have in God are not scalable.

You can't do math with it.

It's not proportional.

It's, in Paul's word, gift, grace.

Which is to say, it's not good math.

The moment we begin calculating internally our worth, our merit, our joy, our peace, our salvation is the moment that we've left grace far behind.

This is the power of God that has been revealed.

God's power when it comes into our lives.

God's grace when it infiltrates your heart.

It is a power unto betterment.

It's a power unto enhancement.

It's a power that leaves us better than we could have ever found ourselves.

God's power is not simply power to make you innocent again, to salvage purity, or to salvage whatever it is in our past.

This grace comes in and it makes you pure, yes.

Makes you innocent, yes.

But it makes you a daughter, makes you a son, makes you treasured, makes you the apple of the father's eye, makes you the bride, a torn, a ring around your finger.

And you say, well, that doesn't add up.

Yeah.

Isn't that wonderful?

May we all see and experience and open ourselves by the grace of God to the power of God.

A power that wherever sin is abounded in your life, by this power superabounds.

That God's power would be experienced in your life not simply as salvaging some past, but a power that makes manifest a whole new future of blessing, peace, joy, salvation, mercy, love that you could never have arrived to any other way than by the grace of God.

Amen.