What is Paul Trying to Say?

Third Sunday After Pentecost + Proper 9 (Year A - RCL)

Romans 7:15-25a

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.  But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  For 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.  

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?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

This has to be one of the most-dreaded passages for Lectors! (Another is the reading from Acts of the Apostles for Pentecost Sunday – the one with all the place names: Parthians, Medes, etc.) I would love to say that this passage is really clear and beautiful in the original Greek, but it isn’t!

(If you can’t read Greek, you’ll have to trust me – this paragraph is just as much of a tongue-twister in Greek as it is in English.)

We might legitimately wonder why Paul, whose lament is so familiar to all of us, had to express it in such convoluted and confusing phrases. Couldn’t he just have said, “I do the things I don’t want to do, and I never do the things I do want to do”?

To better understand what Paul is getting at, we need to step back a bit and look at the parts of chapter seven that come before this passage.

First of all, Paul is concluding a section of Romans in which he addresses the fact that, as a faithful Pharisee, he spent most of his life carefully obeying “the law.” For Paul, that meant not just the Ten Commandments, but also the other 635 (found mostly in Leviticus and Deuteronomy), plus all of the detailed interpretations of the rabbis down through Jewish history.

Paul was the consummate Pharisee: well-schooled in the law, its interpretation, and its enforcement – somewhat like the modern-day religious police in Saudi Arabia who drag women who are driving out of their cars, and who publicly rebuke women who are not “modestly dressed” according to their interpretation of the Qur’an. Paul and the Pharisees did their best to make sure that the people knew what the law was (according to their interpretation), and that violators were properly disciplined (including the stoning to death of the first deacon, Stephen).

As you know, Paul’s understanding shifted dramatically at his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Paul probably didn’t immediately appreciate the turn his life had taken at that point: the fact that all he had believed about obeying the law was of no use, that faith in Jesus was all that one needed in order to be righteous – that in fact ONLY faith in Jesus could accomplish a person’s reconciliation with God.

That explains what Paul is now writing to the Romans. In effect, he is saying, “don’t be afraid of me – I no longer believe that following every detail of this complicated set of laws is the way to heaven. In fact, I completely reject the idea that following laws can save anyone.”

At the beginning of chapter seven of Romans, Paul wraps up this teaching. First, he reminds his readers that laws only apply at certain times. If a married woman lives with another man while her husband is living, that is adultery. But if she does so (presumably after getting married) when her husband has died, it is not a sin at all. In the same way, Paul writes, Christians are no longer subject to the first law, because they have died in Christ and been reborn by his grace. That is perhaps his key point: the law cannot save anyone, so trying to be the best follower of the law that you can is the wrong thing to do.

Paul goes on to explain that the law does have one value to Christians. If it were not for the law, we would not know what sin is. We would not know right from wrong if it were not written down somewhere exactly what is right and wrong. So far, so good, but then Paul goes on to describe the disadvantage of having the law. While it is a good thing that the law tells us what is a sin, it is also a bad thing, because once we know what sin is, we tend to want to do it.

That’s where today’s reading comes in. Paul’s lament, if it may be called that, has six or seven major points:

·         I just can’t understand my own actions.

·         I don’t do the things that I want to do (namely, the good).

·         Instead, I do the very things that I hate (sins).

·         I wouldn’t even know that I am sinning if I didn’t know God’s law, so it’s a good thing that I do.

·         The reason that I do these bad things (sins) is because I am filled with sin (sin dwells within me), and I can’t get rid of it.

At this point, Paul goes off into his well-known attitude that the body is evil and the soul is pure and good, but we don’t need to dwell on that aspect of his theology. After a somewhat depressing condemnation of his body and its parts (members), Paul offers some hope:

·         Who will rescue me from the sins of my flesh? Thanks be to God – it’s Jesus Christ our Lord!

It feels like we’re “home free” when we get to this verse! After a confusing series of sentences, Paul offers the prize: there is hope – Jesus will save us from our sins (and not only from the sins of the flesh). Today’s Gospel sums it up perfectly:

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30]

So, should we stop caring about God’s law? Never! Without the law, we would never know how much we need to be saved. Should we make obeying the law the prime goal of our lives? No way! It would be an exercise in futility, and at the end we would still not be saved. So, what should we do? Come to Jesus! Learn from him. See how his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Paul may have seemed to struggle greatly under the burden of his sins and his constant failure to do what he wanted to do, but he had faith in Jesus, and that’s all he (and you and I) ever need. Amen!