First Presbyterian Church
Atonement Discord II
Sermon for February 20, 2005
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's time:

I showed the children a picture I had made from two pictures. I sliced a picture of a cat and a picture of a dog. On accordion-folded paper, I put strips from the cat picture on the even folds, and the strips from the dog picture on the odd folds. I invited them to sit on either side of me in a straight line.

I told them it will be a little hard to see, so they will have to work at it. I asked them what they saw. We talked about how what you saw depended on where you sat. We prayed for God to help us look at things from different positions, and being open to the truth God has to tell us.

Listen for the word of God as it if found in Genesis 12:1-4.

Genesis 12:1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed ."

4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran .

This ends our reading from Genesis. This seems like a pretty exclusive blessing: Abraham will be blessed and made great. But the blessing of Abraham is supposed to spread to all the families of earth.

Our psalm reading is on page 571. In biblical times, the hills were places that could be defended, and a place where defenders could hide until help was needed. In our reading, the psalmist looks to a different source of help. Listen for the word of God as we read it together in Psalm 121.

1 A Song of Ascents.

I lift up my eyes to the hills-- from where will my help come?

2 My help comes from the LORD , who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

4 He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand.

6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

This ends our reading from the psalm. The choir interprets God's care and protection.

Anthem

Our reading from Romans is on page 154. Paul explains how Abraham's blessing can be extended to the Gentiles, who did not participate in the covenant of circumcision, nor practiced the law given to the Hebrews. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Romans 4:1-5, 13-17.

1What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?

2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” (1) 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

This ends our reading of God's word.

As I said last Sunday, there are several theologies of atonement in the new testament. Atonement means making something ‘at one.' What was estranged comes together in atonement. We use that word to describe what happened at the crucifixion. This Lent I will be talking about theories of atonement, or what it means to say “Christ died for us.”

One of the reasons we have trouble with the idea of atonement is that we have trouble admitting our sin. We try to be good people. We want our efforts noticed. We are doing the best we can. We aren't estranged from God. What after all, do we have to be forgiven for? Do we really need Jesus to die for us?

I thought about this sermon, and what I was going to say while the youth were still doing the 30 hour famine. As they discover more about world hunger, I expect some of them are wondering how the world could end up in such a mess.

We Christians have a lot to confess. Much evil has been done in the name of Christianity. We Americans have a lot to confess. Much evil has been done in the name of the United States , in the name of manifest destiny, in the name of progress, in the name of political expedience and economic interests. Some of us belong to organizations that have perpetrated racism, or classicism, or sexism, and maybe still do. No company is perfect; we have to strive to prevent corruption, but we don't always succeed, and much of the time, we feel powerless to stop it. Sometimes all we can do is lament and pray.

The psalm tells us that God keeps us from every evil. Unfortunately, God cannot keep us from doing evil, but offers us protection and hope that ultimately our lives are in God's hands.

Our weekly prayers of confession remind us how far we have to go. I hope the prayer of confession keeps us all from complacency. It prevents us from pretending we do not need saving. Prayers of confession tell God and tell us that we want to be ready to do the right thing. After praying that prayer, I hope I have become more ready to recognize the right way to behave, so that I am living in God's will.

I talked with a friend of mine who was unhappy about all the suffering and evil she saw in the world, and Christians seeming not to care, or even notice. I said “What do you think the prayer of confession is about on Sunday mornings? Don't you think when we confess our sins, we confess our sins of pollution and greed ?” She said, “Do you think they really think that?” I said, “Yes I do.” She thought the prayer of confession was only for personal private sins. She didn't know it included public corporate sins as well.

We have the long Great Prayer of Thanksgiving each time we have communion, which rehearses our history as God's people. It reminds us that we are not sinless perfect beings, but that we are a people in need of salvation, and God meets that need .

Lent is the time in the church calendar where we focus on repentance and salvation. So I wanted to talk about atonement. But that's not as easy as I expected. Part of the problem is there are several ways of organizing atonement theories; some say there's four main theories, or three, or nine. They blend into each other and contradict each other. I'm going to separate them out as best I can.

As I said last week, our Book of Confessions tell us that Jesus' sacrifice can be understood variously as the sacrifice of a lamb, a shepherd's life given for his sheep, atonement by a priest; again it is ransom of a slave, payment of a debt, vicarious satisfaction of a legal penalty, and victory over the power of evil.

Today I'll be looking at the Bible verses that speak of the ransom of a slave. It's helpfully called the “Ransom Theory” of atonement. The theologian Origen popularized this in the third century ce. To appreciate the ransom theory, first we need to know about slavery during new testament times.

Slavery in the Roman empire was different from slavery in the United States two hundred years ago. Slaves in the first centuries were able to own property, travel freely, run businesses of their own, work in professions, and even have their own slaves. But still, slaves had a lower status than citizens or freed men and women.

You couldn't tell by looking if a person was a slave or not. The Roman Senate once considered a plan to have slaves wear special clothing, but decided against it; if slaves saw how many slaves there were, they might be encouraged to rebel. (2) Slaves were about a third of the population in the Roman empire.

How did one get to be a slave? If you had a debt you couldn't pay, you could sell your wife or your children, or, as a last resort, yourself into debt slavery. Prisoners of war were sold into slavery. But most of the slave population came from children abandoned as infants (3) – they grew up knowing they were slaves, that their lives depended on the good will of their master.

Freed men and freed women were slaves that had been ransomed from their masters, or had bought their freedom themselves. Even though they were free, they did not have as many rights as citizens who were born free. We can tell from tombstone inscriptions that freed men and women felt great pride in buying their freedom, called manumission. Another word for it is redemption. Sometimes a relative could redeem you, and pay your ransom so you could be free.

The early Christians were made up of masters, slaves, and freed men and women. Members of the early church had to try to figure out how to survive in the Roman empire, with its emphasis on class and status, while living in Christian community with one another, hearing theology like Paul's words: “ There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (4)

Now that you have this background, imagine being a slave in the first, second or third century in the Roman empire, and hearing these verses:

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:45

For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:20

You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters. 1 Corinthians 7:23

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 1 Peter 1:18-19

He … gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds. Titus 2:14

…they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Romans 3:24

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"-- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Galatians 3:13-14

So these verses all speak of Jesus ransoming us. It's a powerful metaphor.

We were slaves to sin, and Christ bought us back, so that we no longer have to serve sin, but are free to serve God. Christ ransomed us. And so we are to act like we are free, not captive. We are free to serve God, rather than sin. We are freed from slavery to sin. But who are we freed from?

For a third century theologian named Origen, we're freed from the devil. Christ's ransom was paid to Satan. How can one person pay the ransom for all people? A later theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, tried to explain it by saying God lured the Devil into taking Christ by hiding divinity inside Jesus' humanity, and the devil responded like a fish biting a fishhook. Since the power opposing God cannot survive contact with “the undiluted presence of God” the devil was undone. Since the person paying the ransom was also divine, one person's sacrifice was enough for all. I think that just opens up another can of worms for us.

This ransom theology leaves us with a few questions. Is Jesus God's payment to the devil to buy human beings' freedom? Who is the devil to set the price? Does the devil have to be tricked in order to be defeated ? Isn't he smarter than that? If atonement is all God's doing, does humanity bear any responsibility? You probably have your own questions.

That's why I'm glad that the Bible gives us other ways of understanding the atonement to fill in those gaps. Knowing those questions are answered with other metaphors leaves us free to appreciate our ransom, given by Christ. We know from the ransom Christ paid that we are free to live as Christ lived. When we know we are not slaves to sin we can act, not as children abandoned to slavery, or mere freed women and freed men but as citizens in God's empire. We are not slaves at the master's table, but guests invited to Christ's feast. Amen.

(1) Quoted from Gen 15: 6 And he believed the L ORD ; and the L ORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.

(2) http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/social/social5.html

(3) http://www.ucd.ie/classics/96/Madden96.html

(4) Galatians 3: 28