Handsome is as handsome does

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6.2

“Your mother wouldn’t like it.” That was an advertising slogan for something in the nineteen-seventies, but can you remember what it was? That is a rather tricky question, because your mother probably didn’t like anything to do with the nineteen-seventies, “the decade that style forgot”, as it was known.

Well, it was an advertisement for a car that was pictured parked in the grey light of dawn by a burger van on the Embankment in London with a young chap and his girl stood by it, drinking an early morning cup of coffee. The other, alternative advertising slogan for the car was, “You can do it in an M.G.”, but as I owned one at the time, I can assure you that you can’t. M.G. Midgets used to take fourteen and a half seconds to reach sixty miles per hour, and in today’s terms that sort of acceleration is measured not with a stopwatch but with a calendar.

“Your mother wouldn’t like it.” What a brilliant advertising slogan for the young, who would be disposed to do almost anything just because it was disapproved of by the older generation. Mind you, I could never make my mind up whether the slogan referred to the man’s mother, who might not like her son speeding in a nippy little sports car, or whether it referred to the girl’s mother, who feared that a sports car might lure her daughter to a fate worse that a bacon roll.

God wouldn’t like it. I guess that is as good a shorthand definition of what Christians call “sin” as you are likely to get. God wouldn’t like it… conduct, behaviour, life-choices, actions, values, words, opinions, relationships… all these things that might be revealed as contrary to the nature and will of God as described in the bible.

So what wouldn’t God like? What is considered to be sinful these days? Ooo-er! Trying to answer that question in the twenty-first century is even more difficult that trying to do it in an M.G. Ask most representatives of the Methodist Church what is considered sinful these days and they will probably tell you that they will need a committee meeting or a focus group to discuss it, and when you ask what the committee’s conclusions were, despite their asking the Holy Spirit to guide them, they will tell you that they couldn’t come to a common mind on the matter and that they are going to refer it to another study group which might report back to the Methodist Conference next year… or the year after that.

On the other hand, scriptural fundamentalists will tell you that the answer is simple and will use the bible as a handbook of rigid rules like the Pharisees used the Old Testament, a practice which Jesus himself roundly condemned, even though elsewhere he said that he had not come to abolish the Jewish Law.

Can you wonder that people generally do not come into a Christian church these days to find values for modern living? Either they will be fobbed off by a bickering, liberal discussion group, or they will be harangued with unthinking, simplistic prohibitions by fundamentalists, it seems.

And yet, the substance of our text must still be addressed: How can we who died to sin still live in it? Why should we spend time thinking about such a text, when for most people, “sin” is not even a word in their vocabulary any more? What God may or may not approve of doesn’t even figure in their thinking, even if they may still suspect that he exists.

What does the text imply? What does it mean? In terms of the Christian scriptures, Saint Paul is writing to Christians in Rome who once lived in a particular way, with a particular set of beliefs and practices, but who then found in the faith of Jesus Christ a better way of living. They left their old ways behind, but when they found that Christian ways of doing things were quite difficult and often contrary to their customary opinions and desires, they went back to their old ways of doing things, even though they maintained that they still practised their new faith. They were not conforming to the old saying, “Handsome is as handsome does.” So, Saint Paul gives them a reality check: How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Does that concept make any sense to modern secular society? No, probably not, but modern secular society will talk about “broken Britain”. It will bemoan the conduct of its youth, the fecklessness of its young parents, the duplicity of its bankers and politicians, the dumbing-down of its alleged culture, the venality of its public media, and the shallowness of its celebrity culture. All these things suggest that people think that there almost certainly is a better way of doing things and of living life generally.

Christians will stand up and say, “Well, there is, and we have been doing it for two thousand years.” And there is the rub. Have we, and do we? If people come into the church to find these better ways, but find only poor conduct, prejudice, argument, and hypocrisy, then what difference is there between these things and the old unsatisfactory circumstances they would like to leave behind? How can we who died to sin still live in it? Quite! We must demonstrate, not just speak about, a better way. We must live the better way. We must not say that we believe in the new way, but still live in the old way.

The Church must not preach signposts that point in opposite directions at the same time, but whilst enquirers after truth want one sure way, we who have been Christians for a long time know that there are genuine disagreements over the interpretation of scripture and the immutability of tradition.

So, how are you to advise people about the better way? How are you to live in a way that is not, in Christian terms, sinful? Well, let us not initially confuse visitors to the church, enquirers after truth, or newcomers to the faith with the minutiae of scriptural interpretation or the convolutions of formal ethical arguments. Let us start somewhere simple, yet without resorting to brainless scriptural fundamentalism. Can that be done? I think that it can.

Start where the service of Holy Communion ends. The closing prayer in that service describes what the Christian community has just done together in worship as “a foretaste of the heavenly banquet prepared for all people”. If, in Christian terms, all earthly life is seen as a preparation for heavenly joy and companionship, analyse your everyday actions and decisions in terms of eternity. Would I wish to inflict jealousy or bitterness on somebody else for all eternity? Would I want somebody else to do that to me? Would I wish to deceive somebody for all eternity? Would I wish them thus to deceive me? Would I wish to be spiteful to somebody for all eternity? Would I wish them to be spiteful to me indefinitely?

Measure all your thoughts, decisions, and actions thus. If the answers you get are, “No”, then at least you have an initial signpost to what the Christian faith may count as sinful. Then consider how Jesus Christ dealt with the decisions and temptations of life. Think of all the questions and life situations to which he reached the answer, “No”, and all the patterns of living to which he gave the answer, “Yes”. For the Christian, the deeds and the decisions to which you gave the honest answer, “No”, are likely to suggest the sins to which you claim to have died. The deeds and the decisions to which you gave the honest answer, “Yes” – for all eternity – almost certainly indicate the life of Christ to which you aspire and which you intend to attempt to live… as a preparation for eternity.

Handsome is as handsome does… How can we who died to sin still live in it? Live by the decisions and the actions which your heart and conscience tell you to say “Yes” to – for all eternity – because the God whose will you seek to do may be he who is giving your heart the knowledge of the difference between the “Yes” and the “No”.