No Distinctions

This is a sermon you should have heard before. Maybe from me, maybe from someone else. It’s one we all need to hear over and over again, because it is very important, but it is also very difficult to really accept. Which may be why St. Paul preached it over and over and over again. This morning’s version from Romans goes like this: "There is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift."

There are three important parts to Paul’s message. First, he says there is no distinction. No distinction between people. Elsewhere Paul says the same thing with different words, "God shows no partiality." In God’s eyes, there is no distinction among people, Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female… No one is inherently more distinctive than any other before God. Part two of Paul’s sermon is that all have sinned and fallen short. Everyone. No one is sin free. Third, it is God’s grace, given as a gift that brings faith and righteousness. There isn’t any other way to find justification or redemption except by accepting this gift from God.

This idea that God shows no partiality is a difficult one for many of us to really accept. We hear the words; we understand the words; we may even think we agree with them; but we don’t really accept them. There is no distinction, Paul says in this morning’s passage from Romans. There is no distinction in God’s eyes between Jew and Gentile. That assertion by Paul would have generated an argument from many of the Jews of his day. We are the people of the covenant, they would have said. God has led us, helped us, taught us, formed us as his people. We have a prior relationship with God that the Greeks, the Gentiles do not have. We have a heritage as God’s people. As we stand before God, there is a distinction between Jew and Gentile. There must be. Paul, a Jew, said no. Ancestry does not grant you special distinction before God. There are no distinctions.

We live in a world today that notices and measures distinction at every turn. We live in a world where achievement and standing are based upon distinctiveness. Distinctiveness, distinction make a difference. We have all known a world where bearing a distinctive skin color makes a difference. We live in that world. Usually, of course, at least in this country, having distinctively white skin has made a difference for the better. Yet even as we seek to overcome racial inequality, we still expect distinctiveness to make a difference. We just want to change what sort of distinctiveness matters.

All of us, I pray, seek to live in a world where things like achievement and standing should not be contingent upon a distinctive skin color or a distinctive gender or any other accidental distinction of birth. We would rather measure status by more appropriate forms of distinction. We strive to help shape a world where achievement can be gained by anyone who is distinctively hard working, where the best jobs go to the individual who shows the most distinction in creativity or intellect regardless of race or sex or age. Standing out from the crowd is a positive thing.

The admission rate at one particular college this year was 8.3%. Approximately 1 out of every 12 students who applied was offered admission. Having interviewed some of those students in the past, I know hard they work in the application process to be distinctive.

We expect distinctiveness to make a difference.

This is the only world we know. How can we help but think of God in the same way we think of an employer hiring an employee or an admission committee assessing applicants or a recruiter evaluating an athlete or a widow writing her husband’s obituary to highlight the measure of his distinction? Surely being chosen by God, being valued by God, depends upon showing some sort of special distinction… outstanding holiness, noteworthy devotion in prayer… faithfulness in worship… extraordinary compassion or humility. This is the only world we know, where personal value is measured by our level of distinction.

And the church sometimes helps to perpetuate this world view. I wonder what St. Paul would have said about the Roman Catholic beatification process by which sainthood is conferred. I can just imagine him stamping his feet. There is no distinction! There is no distinction! There are no special saints, distinctive from everyone else. Romans is addressed "To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints." All God’s beloved. All who are called to be saints. (The Episcopal Church is better, but we’re on shaky ground, too. Have you ever seen a stained glass window portraying an everyday person in the pew?) We live in a world where we expect distinctiveness to make a difference. And most of us probably think that’s how it should be. It’s only fair that standing and reward be earned by those who have most distinguished themselves.

But God’s world is different. In God’s world there are no distinctions between people. Being God’s beloved, even becoming a saint, is not an application or selection process; it is not an election; it is not a competition; it is not a goal that can be achieved only by those of distinction. In God’s eyes there are no distinctions. God shows no partiality. We’ve been admitted to the company of God’s beloved. We’ve been offered the job of saint. All of us, without distinction.

It comes as a result of God’s grace, God’s goodness.

There is no distinction based upon who we are or who we aren’t or what we’ve done or left undone. You are not distinctively worthy or distinctively unworthy of God’s love. God’s goodness is infinite, limitless and it flows out enveloping us all without distinction. And even if that doesn’t seem fair or right, it is very good news.

God looks upon us all and sees beloved children.

God also looks upon us all and sees sinners. Without distinction. A person’s relative degree of sinfulness doesn’t mean much. In the end, the magnitude or number of an individual’s sin doesn’t matter. You can’t be slightly sinful. No distinctions. All of us are lost without God. All of us depend upon God alone to make us whole.

Paul’s argument in this particular passage from Romans was with Jews who felt sure that they had a distinctive status with God because of their heritage, because they had Abraham as their ancestor. Paul says to them: Not only can you not boast of a special inheritance of God’s glory, the only thing you can really be absolutely sure of is that you have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. Every one of you. But Christ’s sacrifice atones for your shortcomings. God’s love fills up all the empty spaces in all of your hearts, bridges the fissures between you and God, reconciles your souls to God in peace. Whatever your sin, Christ’s righteousness heals it. No sin is too large or too small that God’s love cannot redeem it.

There is no distinction. All are sinners. All are beloved. You’ve heard the words before. Can you really take in their meaning? Can you acknowledge your own sinfulness and accept the unqualified gift of God’s love?

One result of this acceptance is a sense of freedom. If each of us can accept our own unmitigated sinfulness, our dependence upon God to heal that open wound, and God’s unqualified, unrestrained, loving desire to do just that for us… if we can accept that about ourselves it frees us up from worrying about everyone else. So much contention in the church results from one group or one person trying to be distinctive. Trying to identify themselves as special or distinctive in contrast to others within the parish, within the denomination, within Christendom. It’s hard to put that paradigm aside; everything else in life works that way. But God sees no distinction. All are beloved. All are sinners.

What we need to work on is not trying to make ourselves distinctive in God’s eyes so that we will be chosen or beloved. We are already loved beyond measure without distinction. Our call is to live as God’s beloved, to live with awesome gratitude as sinners made whole by God’s love. We’ve been admitted. We’ve been offered the job. God’s admission rate is 100%.

We do have a choice on whether or not we accept this calling. We can turn away from God’s love. Or we can accept the position among God’s beloved disciples with our lips, saying "Lord, lord", but just go through the motions in our lives without any real commitment, squandering the opportunity to truly share in God’s life. This is what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel. If you want to really share in God’s life then you need to really share in God’s life… involved, active, passionate with heart and mind and soul and hands, walking side by side with Jesus to do God’s will in the world.

But no matter what, always remember Paul’s beginning: To all God’s beloved. To all God’s beloved who are in Rome, Corinth, Jerusalem, Hyde Park, Utica, Ford Heights, Flossmoor, Homewood… To all who are God’s beloved. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.