By The Rev. Marek Zabriskie
Have you ever felt like you have two figures perched on your shoulders – an angel on one side nudging you to do good things and to be your best self and a little demon on the other side who would gladly lead you astray?
St. Paul knew what this was like. He famously wrote, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19). He was a torn, conflicted soul at times.
Paul was also the Church’s first theologian, a self-proclaimed apostle, a mystic, a church planter, and an evangelist to the Gentiles. Reimarus in the 18th century called Paul “the “inventor” of Christianity.
Paul’s most important writing was his Letter to the Romans, which the Episcopal preacher, theologian, and Christ Church Greenwich member the Rev. Fleming Rutledge calls “theological dynamite.”
Romans was theological dynamite in that it blew open the mind of St. Augustine, Christianity’s greatest theologian. Romans lit the fuse for the Protestant Reformation and dramatically influenced Martin Luther and John Calvin. John Wesley felt his “heart strangely warmed,” while reading aloud from a commentary on Romans with group of friends. That moment led to the conversion of Wesley, who went on to start what is now the Methodist Church.
It is hard to understand what it means to be a Christian and understand what God was doing in Jesus without reading Romans. If you have not selected a spiritual discipline for Lent, read Romans and also Fleming Rutledge’s collected sermons on Romans called “Not Ashamed of the Gospel,” which is available in the Dogwood Bookstore at Christ Church. Both will guide you deeper on your spiritual journey.
In several places in his Letter to the Romans, Paul speaks to the inevitable situation where we are torn between listening to a good angel on one shoulder or a demon on the other. He makes it clear that open warfare takes place within us. The world is like enemy territory, and we need Jesus to help us navigate and overcome the forces working against us.
Fourteen times in one short passage in chapter five Paul speaks of “sin” or “trespasses.” He knows that our lives can become a mess. Paul rarely spoke about “sins” – our little failings here and there. Instead, Paul spoke instead about “Sin” – that singular state where we turned away from our creator and created separation with others.
Paul spoke of “Sin,” as if it were an annihilating army. Sin is insidious and often goes undetected. In his book “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis wrote, “All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred.”
Lewis was equally torn between the good angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other. He wrote, “For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worst of these two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.”
When we hear the word “sin,” we are apt to think of a preacher wagging his finger at us, but the word most often used for “sin” in the Bible is “harmartia,” which is an archery term. It means to “miss the target.”
Perhaps you recall being on an archery range in summer camp and a mischievous camper with a bow and arrow in hand pointed his arrow and another camper’s derriere. The counselor in charge would quickly take hold of the mischievous camper and turn his shoulders toward the target. Real problems occur when we launch our arrows in the wrong direction. God’s concern about our sinning is to keep us from hurting ourselves or others.
We all encounter a spiritual battlefield. We are seduced to use money, social media, food, pain meds, drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling, shopping, work, sports, or travel to fill that God-shaped hole within us which only God can truly fill. We use these as rewards and bow before counterfeit gods.
Tim Keller writes, an idol is “anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” These things grip on our soul and undermine true love. For Paul, sin robs us of relationship with God and of our real potential in life. Sin leads ultimately to Death with a capital “D.”
I knew a very successful businessman. Each night he came home from work and drank several martinis. His family had to carry him upstairs and tuck him into bed. That experience scarred each of them in different ways.
Eventually, he swore off drinking, or so he said. But after he died, his family found empty liquor bottles hidden throughout the house. He had struggled to follow the angel perched on one shoulder and listened too often to the demon perched on the other shoulder.
This is the battleground that Paul is trying to help us navigate and win. As we journey through Lent, the Church reminds us that this is the perfect time to engage in spiritual warfare. The Enemy wants to own the battlefield and force us to surrender, but Paul says there is hope.
Paul notes that Just as “sin came into the world through one man” called Adam (whether you believe that Adam was a real person or a symbol of the human condition matters little), Paul reassures us that Jesus, who he calls the Second Adam, who wipes the slate clean for us.
Jesus gives us a fresh start with God. Jesus, our Second Adam, triumphs on the cross over sin and conquers death. Paul wrote, “While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die even for a righteous man [let alone an unrighteous one!]. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…” (Romans 5:6-8) This is the Good News of Lent – our season of spring cleaning for the soul.
The Rev. Marek P. Zabriskie is the Rector of Christ Church Greenwich and is a passionate writer, teacher and preacher of the Bible.
