Romans 1:26 - 2:11

Romans 1:26 - 27
For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of women, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

As I wrote at length about homosexuality in a previous post, I'll be brief on this. Homosexual union robs marriage of the iconic husband-wife = Christ-Church image. The Church, since its sacraments are all icons (giving windows into heaven and making the Kingdom manifest on earth) cannot marry people of the same gender. Since sex outside of marriage is a passion, it is a sin.

In keeping with the theme of the previous passage, though, this is less about homosexuality than it is about the results and consequences of a damaged nous-heart-intuition. Sin, having blackened our internal ability to know God, leaves us with only our physical senses and our responses to those senses (thoughts and emotions). Given this, it makes perfect sense why something like homosexuality would be appealing and appear ethical. There are no clear victims (since we can only evaluate victimhood in terms of sense-input, thoughts, or emotion). In fact, both consenting adults gain much in the way of positive emotions (feeling loved, pleasure, etc) - just like a heterosexual relationship (which, aside from the child bearing capabilities, isn't all that different from a sensory-input level).

Typically, when the Bible says "God gave them up" it means "God stopped holding them back." Specifically, God allowed their sin to do its damage to their heart (and this reveals what may be known of God - that He is not present in sin). This damage limited their (our) observations to the subjective ones of our senses, and this, in turn, makes it nearly impossible to deny temptations like idolatry or pleasure-seeking. Indeed, it makes tempting all things that are harmful to us spiritually, though often useful to us if we limit ourselves to a materialistic perspective, as St. Paul continues:

Romans 1:28 - 32
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

This should sound familiar to any student of history. We should never let it be forgotten that the Church has as often been filled by these things as have human institutions of all sorts. In so much as we are an institution of people on earth, and people are victims of these temptations, we will see them in the Church. But we must never allow that to discourage us; the only way a Christian fights evil is to continue hope. Hope - optimistic expectation of God's salvation - is the only lense through which we can see the world in all its sin, call it out as such, and continue to refuse to respond to that evil with more evil.

We are as much victims of sin as we are perpetrators of it. How often does one sin cause another? If a person cuts me off on the road, and I get angry, and that anger sours my attitude and prevents me from showing kindness to someone selling me coffee, and that person in turn is upset by my rudeness and takes that emotional stress home... you get the idea. Imagine all the murder, all the rape, all the betrayal, all the lies, all the selfishness in the world; imagine how much of it is caused by pain those same people experienced. How much of it is sin causing sin? How else can we fight this except by hope? How else can we fight this except by, having sin done to us, we refuse in any way to let sin be our response? That is the only way the cycle can be broken.

The key verse of the above passage is "those who practice such things are deserving of death." Not only does sin darken our heart-intuition, deadening our ability to percieve and know God, but it also, by removing us from the source of life (God), makes us subject to death. The moment we sin we are deserving of death - not because of some legal code written into the universe (like a cosmic speeding ticket), but because when we sin we change the ontological condition of our very self from "in communion with Life" to "out of communion with Life." God is still Life. God is still Love. It is WE who change. It is WE, who by leaving God, earn our own deaths and the loneliness of eternal spiritual isolation which follows and is called the "2nd death."

Romans 2:1 - 3
Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know the judgment of God is according to Truth against those who practice such things. And od you think this O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?

Now St. Paul begins to tie this back into the theme of Romans. The sinfulness of the pagans (which is where he started this), is not something the Jews can judge, for the Jews (just like the Church through history) are full of this same sinfulness. It is the blind mocking the blind. Membership in a group does not make one holy. Sin will kill us, regardless of who we are. Indeed, if we judge another, we double our sin, for by doing this we not only have committed the same sins as them, but we have added another by our judgmentalism. We have enough sin in ourselves to concern us for a lifetime - that should be our attention.

Furthermore, we cannot even judge others accurately. Notice St. Paul says that God's judgment is according to truth. We don't have the truth!! If we are in our sins, our ability to know God is dead and we have nothing on which to judge except our subjective senses and thoughts. These limited and finite tools cannot EVER know the heart of another human being - we can never know their history, their pain, the reasons for their actions. It is impossible. Perhaps if we knew she had been raped, we'd have been less judgmental of the girl who was rude to us at the store. Perhaps if we knew his wife had left him, we'd not have sworn at the man who cut us off on the highway. Perhaps if we knew he had been neglected as a child, or worse abused, we'd have forgiven (and not judged), the friend who just couldn't open up to us or who couldn't be emotionally available in our time of need. Sin breeds sin, and our culture is saturated in it. We contribute to that culture, and we are victims of it. How dare we judge so complex a thing! We have no grounds on which to do so. What we DO know is our own contributions to that culture. What we can judge is what we chose and don't chose - we know our own decisions. So in ourselves, we are aware of what we ought to do, and in so much as we don't we know what we are accountable for.

How stupid a thing it is, then, for us to judge others (for which we have no cause and which further harms us spiritually) and yet not ourselves.

Romans 2:4 - 11
Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who "will render to each one according to his deeds": eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness - indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

This is the thesis of Romans. There is no partiality with God. Judgment is not according to one's ethnicity, nor (more relevant to us) one's membership in a group (i.e. the Church, or "Christians"). Rather, one is saved by being holy. It is according to our deeds that we are judged. And how else could it be? If sin destroys our ability to percieve and know the presence and love of God, and this spiritual isolation (made eternal in death) is hell, how can we be called saved unless that intuition of our heart is restored? Sin must be removed - it must be killed. This doesn't mean that we earn salvation (neither St. Paul nor I have said the means by which this healing occurs) - but we should recognize what St. Paul does say here: God will judge us for our deeds.

In case there isn't clarity on this, St. Paul goes on to say how we will be judged for our deeds. Those who by patient continuance seek for glory, honor and immortality... Patience and seeking. We are not told to achieve perfection (though by the grace of God such a thing is possible, for all things are possible with God and we should never lose hope), but rather to be patient and to seek. Our will must cooperate with the grace of God. We must hope. We must have faith. We must seek. We must change. And this change comes from the good will of God through that hope and that faith and that patience and that seeking. This is why, as is said over and over again in Revelations and elsewhere in the Scriptures, "Those who endure to the end shall be saved." God is faithful. It is only if we remove ourselves from God that we, by our unfaithfulness, endanger our souls.

And what is this goodness of God that calls us to repentance? It is precisely HIS patience and love. We ought to die as soon as we sin, but God immediately shows His mercy and grace by granting us continuing life that we may repent. Even in this - even before discussing how it is Christ who saves us - we see that we cannot save ourselves. We cannot merit salvation because we cannot even merit the continuation of our lives by which we repent and are saved. That is a gift of God and a gift of His mercy. Therefore every moment of every day it is appropriate for us to pray "Lord, have mercy." As often as we pray that - as fast as we spit it out - God grants us mercy even faster. His mercy is in the moments between our breaths - in the smallest unit of time and in between the smallest units of time. Creation itself is the spontaneous gift of God's continuing creative act. We have nothing apart from God. To pray "Lord, have mercy" (meaning both Lord, forgive me and Lord, have compassion) - this is the least we can do!

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

In Christ,
Macarius