Sunday within Octave of Epiphany
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
I beseech you, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.
On this Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany we hear from St. Paul’s exhortation to the Romans not to be conformed to this world, but rather be reformed in the newness of their minds. They are to present their bodies as living sacrifices and not to think of themselves more highly than they ought. Rather, they are to be “wise unto sobriety and according as God has divided to every one the measure of faith. For as in one body we have many members, but not all members have the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”
What was the context in which St. Paul wrote these words? He has so far in the epistle expounded the gospel that he preached, the good news of salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In him the purpose of God for Israel and the world had finally reached fulfilment. This had revealed the righteousness of God, his faithfulness to his covenant with his people. Salvation was now freely available for all who believed and were baptised. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are freely justified by his grace. The love of God had been poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit that he had bestowed upon them. There was therefore no condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirt of life had now set them free from the law of sin and death. It was therefore necessary for Christians to live self sacrificial lives and not to be conformed to the false standards of the pagan world that surrounded them.
The people of the old covenant had been rescued from slavery in Egypt and had received the Law through Moses in the wilderness. The world around them was one which worshipped power and where the strong ruthlessly trampled on the weak. By contrast, God’s people were called to create a new society in which all, high and low, rich and poor were to be given equal access to dignity and hope. But, since the people were still fallen and sinful, they struggled to be faithful to the Law. When they were settled in the land of promise and fell into sin and idolatry, prophets spoke truth to power and urged them to repent. But their message usually fell on deaf ears. In the dying days of the Jewish nation, the prophet Jeremiah looked forward to a new covenant in which sins would finally be forgiven. It would not be written on tablets of stone but on the hearts of men.
Jesus proclaimed that in his person and ministry the age of the new covenant was now dawning. Since his followers had now experienced a new exodus, not simply from physical bondage, but from sin and death, they were called to live according to the principles of the new order. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus blessed the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek and the peacemakers. His followers were called even to love their enemies, to bless their persecutors and to pray for those who despitefully used them. The day would come when he no longer taught, but acted and suffered. He would turn the other cheek and go the second mile, in taking evil upon himself and subsuming it to good.
Hence, once he had explained how in this paradoxical form the purposes of God for Israel and the world were finally fulfilled, St. Paul exhorted the Romans to walk worthy after the vocation wherein they had been called. The teachings of Jesus had been addressed to a Jewish context, but it was now necessary to apply them to a pagan one. It is sometimes supposed that St. Paul’s emphasis on redemption through the blood of Christ led him to neglect Christian ethics. This section of the epistle to the Romans clearly shows that this is far from being the case, for it is based on the same principles of sacrificial living for others that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. The faithful are exhorted to love their neighbours as themselves, to bless their persecutors and to overcome evil with good.
It is almost impossible to exaggerate the realism of St. Paul’s language when he speaks of the faithful of being members of the Body of Christ. He is not referring to a supra- personal collective, but a single personal organism. It was through the one man Christ Jesus that they were redeemed from sin and death. In their baptism they were incorporated into this new man. They were now members of his body. This did not destroy their fundamental distinctiveness or mean that they all now had the same role. Each had clearly received very different gifts, but they were not to be used for themselves, but for the edification and mutual support of the one body as a whole. If they continued to be conformed to the pagan world around them they would contradict their very nature as fellow members of the Body of Christ.
But, we might say, is not this idealism rather unrealistic when confronted with the reality of fallen human nature? St. Paul was fully aware of this problem, but the whole point of the gospel that he proclaimed was that in Christ a different way of being human from that which had been previously known was now offered to all who repented of their sins, believed and were baptised. He knew that the faithful were still fallen and sinful, but the good news was that while they were yet sinners Christ had died for them. They were therefore called to forgive as they had been forgiven, for nothing could now separate them from the love of God in Christ. They needed the grace of God to think, will and do that which is good, the divine charity that suffereth long and is kind, that vaunteth not itself, that beareth all things, believeth all things, endurerth all things.
The surrounding culture then was saturated by paganism. Increasingly western societies are returning to the same paganism from which Christianity had previously released them from. But we are still called not to be conformed to this world, but rather to be reformed as members of the Body of Christ.
Let us make our own the words of today’s collect and pray for grace to strengthen us to walk worthy of our calling in our own time and place.
O Lord, we beseech thee, mercifully hear the prayers of thy people who call upon thee; and grant that they may both perceive what they ought to do, and may have grace and strength to fulfil the same.
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