2023 07 02 Sermon
A Change of Scenery
Pentecost 5A
Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
This is the time of the baseball season when, for the next month, teams are evaluating if they should trade some of their prospects to get a good player who might help them make it to the playoffs—or if they should trade one of their good players to get some prospects who might become good players in a few years. Not only is it tough on the fans when a favorite player gets traded—like, how many people are still scratching their heads about the Brewers trading Josh Hader last year?—but it can be tough on a player if he gets traded, especially if he likes his teammates and the city where he plays. Sometimes if the player who gets traded has been struggling, though, they’ll say that “a change of scenery will do him good.”
101 years ago, one of the oddest trades in baseball history was made. It was odd because it happened in between two games of a double header at Wrigley Field, when Cliff Heathcote of the St. Louis Cardinals was traded to the Chicago Cubs for Max Flack. It was the only time 2 players played for different teams in the same city on the same day. Before the trade Cliff Heathcote’s batting average was below .250 for the season, and Max Flack’s was a lowly .222. For the rest of the season after the trade, Heathcote batted .280 and Flack batted .292 so you could say that a change of scenery did them both good!
It doesn’t always work out that way when a player he gets traded. But whatever happens, once you get traded, you have a new team to play for. You no longer play for the old team. We hear Saint Paul making a similar point today in his letter to the Romans—that when you were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, you were traded! You’ve been traded from the team of sin and death to the team of life and salvation. Jesus has claimed you for his team, and given you a change of scenery to do you good, so that you can have new life in him.
But Saint Paul is also aware of an unfortunate tendency that remains. It’s like we know we’re on Jesus’ team, but still keep choosing to sneak around to the back of the bleachers to put side bets on the devil. Even after we’ve been traded to the team of new life and salvation in Christ, sometimes we still show up in the old team’s clubhouse, and put on our former uniform, and try to keep playing for the old team of sin and death.
St. Paul does not deny the reality of this, and he can’t. All we have to do is take a good look into the shadow-side of our hearts and minds, or take a good look at the world with its continuing injustices that usually hit hardest upon those who are most vulnerable.
What do we do when we’re tempted to cling to the old team of sin and death? You can’t run from it, or deny it, or ignore it. The only choice is to acknowledge the temptation, and work your way through it. It just goes to show that you can be a good person and still be a sinner. Just take a look at the life of Saint Paul, who started out as the greatest persecutor of Christians before his conversion led him to become the Apostle to the Gentiles, telling them how much Jesus loved them. Or the life of Saint Peter who promised Jesus that he would never desert him, only to deny three times that he even knew who Jesus was. Or look at any of the disciples for that matter; the example of their lives teach us that as Christians we are in fact sinners, even if we are good people. No one, on their own, is more or less sinful that anyone else—we just each have our own preferred methods of going about it, and this sin is the harm we do to ourselves or others, intentionally or unintentionally; and this separates us from God and each other.
Even so, we still have something going for us. And that is the promise made by Jesus through his cross and resurrection, that sin does not have the last word about you. Sin does not define you in the end. Only God can truly define you, and he has claimed you as a beloved child forever! No one can take that away.
Since Jesus has made the trade to put you on his team in baptism, your true identity is in Christ; and by putting your faith and trust in him, he provides the God-given power for waking up each day and realizing, regardless of what’s happened in the past, today I have a new chance to live in the new life that Christ wants to give me.
It’s not always easy. Things can get in the way, like ego, annoyance, anger, illusions, delusions, addiction, selfishness, ignorance, prejudice, or greed. If these kind of things afflict us, we have to ask God to show us the way through them to new life on the other side. Sometimes, a good way to begin getting through is just to take a little step in a different direction. In today’s gospel, Jesus even gives an example of a little step you can take, to help you get back to following the game plan for being on his team: “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to a person in need will not lose their reward.” Just a cup of cold water, or maybe even a frozen popsicle.
It’s not complicated. It’s the little things you do to care for people, and make connections with the great diversity of people in the world, because of your love for Jesus, and because of Jesus’ love for them. And that’s where true life begins. Then, from those little steps of offering mercy, you can go on to ask bigger questions of justice and injustice—like, why are there people lacking cold clean water in the first place? What are the root problems that need to be addressed? One little step at a time gives you the change of scenery you need to start seeing God more clearly in the world. Amen.