The Supreme Court and the Wages of Sin
Romans 6:12-23 and Matthew 10:40-42
(Manuscript of a sermon given on July 2nd, 2023)
Rom. 6:12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instrumentsa of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instrumentsb of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Rom. 6:15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.a For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
Rom. 6:20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Matt. 10:40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
I wasn’t sure what to preach on this week concerning the passages in the liturgical calendar as Friday came around. It’s kind of my process. I tend to study the passage as much as I can on Tuesday. Then, I let it sit in me for most of the week until Friday or Saturday. If I’m lucky, by Wednesday, the Spirit leads me to the heart of a Gospel message to share. But sometimes I don’t know what I will preach on until I sit down to write it Friday or Saturday. I thought maybe this was one of those weeks, then the Supreme Court of our country instilled fear into the hearts of historically marginalized and oppressed people groups. The the Spirit called.
The Supreme Court sided with a graphic designer that it is legal to refuse service to LGBTQ+ folks based on religious beliefs. Does this mean doctors can legally refuse service to LGBTQ+ folks because of the same reason? Why is it illegal for businesses to refuse services based on race? How is this not the same thing?
That wasn’t all of course. The Supreme Court also stroke down Affirmative Action. They said students of color shouldn’t be given help based on their race, although, in a place like Harvard University, the acceptance rate of legacy students was 33% while the overall acceptance rate was 6%. According to Vox news, in a study in 2019, 70% of legacy admissions were white students. This stat is in an article titled, “Affirmative Action for White College Applicants is Still Here.”: “One study found that these preferences give an edge to white applicants. Among white students admitted to Harvard, 43 percent received a preference for athletics, legacy status, being on the dean’s interest list, or for being the child of a faculty or staff member, and without those advantages, three-quarters would have been rejected.” They talk about Black students being there because they are unqualified, well, some white kids are definitely admitted even though they are unqualified. This isn’t about qualification or fairness, it’s about a narrative concerning Black people.
Besides the racism, worse of all for me who is proud of his Asian face, the plaintiffs were Asian American of the case leading to the court’s decision. Some self-centered, ignorant, or willfully ignorant, took a white man’s racist money to help them claim Affirmative Action led to their rejections when applying to Harvard. This despite Asian Americans benefitting from Affirmative Action. This despite Asian Americans benefitting from the blood, sweat, and tears, of other people of color and Asian Americans of previous generations like Grace Lee Boggs, who helped us have the kind of progress we’ve made.
As if that wasn’t enough, the courts delivered more damage. Someone in our government finally acted to give relief to many people who had no choice but to take on loans in our immoral higher educational system. And, it wasn’t even total debt relief, it was 10,000 to 20,000 dollars. That’s equivalent to a third of one year’s tuition to a year’s worth, maybe. People who were angry at the government’s forgiveness program said “hey! I paid for my loans! Why do others deserve debt relief? What about me???” “Yeah, I know the auto industry...the air travel industry...the banks...the PPP loans...all got relief...but this is different!”
When Paul talks about being “slaves” to sin, these kinds of perspectives are what he is talking about: “what about me?”; “my religion tells me I can exclude based on who you naturally love”; “we don’t want to repent and make reparations for the wrong we’ve done”; and other similar types of sinful reactions towards equity and justice in whatever form it takes. In this time in history, our society becoming more equitable and just was trying to bring relief and security to young college graduates victimized by the average price of going to college in our dumb country, $27,000 to $55,800; it was ensuring that historically disenfranchised populations by state design were given help in the college admissions process which ensures growing equity and wealth for families of color (look at household incomes with those with college degrees, and stats about parents with college degrees as related to their children’s future); just as we had to do and say, “oh, not allowing Black folks to eat at restaurants because the owner doesn’t want to serve Black folks is evil”, which took way too long in our dumb country, it’s making it illegal to refuse service to people due to their God-given and God-beautified LGBTQ+ orientation. But, the courts, made up of folks who claim to be God fearing Christians, claiming to be freed of the power of sin in their baptism, proved that they are actually still chained and slaves to sin. They don’t even know what Matthew 10:40-42 means.
Matt. 10:40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
Who are the little ones? It’s not kids. Although it always includes kids.
The little ones are those the systems of our world deem insignificant and not worthy of even a cup of water. They sided with people who think certain people don’t deserve their time because of their sexual orientation. We’re okay that little Johnny whose father went to Harvard, whose father went to Harvard, with less than competitive marks, was admitted to Harvard, but you students of color, you need to know your place or work harder! You don’t deserve help! Oh, and you indebted folks who are just following the playbook given to you for the good life in the USA, pay your debts like I did! You can work 2 jobs while you study can’t you?
Let’s talk about the model minority myth. Some Asian Americans are also slaves to sinful thinking. We need to be reborn and take off our shackles of sin and death.
This quote is from a book titled, “Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism” by Jonathon Tran. He talked about how the model minority did not start with Asian Americans. It was used against Chinese bodies as white society held up Black Americans as model minorities at one point in our country’s history. He talks about the activities of a former Confederate General W.R. Miles:
Miles began by acknowledging that Chinese labor represents a concession, saying, “I prefer black labor to any other. I know them to be better educated to our peculiar agriculture, and believe them to be altogether better suited to it than any other race of people.” But given reduced circumstances, lesser options had to be considered. He reminded his audience, “Less than one-half the annual crop made in the South before the war is now produced. Nearly all the black people of the country are tilling the soil. There is no more home labor to be had.” Black labor is preferable to Chinese labor, but black labor is no longer what it once was. “A chance is now offered to get this labor from Asia, and when the effort is made, not with a view of injuring anybody, but of benefiting everybody.” Responding to “the foolish assertion that we are trying to injure the black man,” Miles offered stirring personal testimony: “During the late war they behaved for the most part with great fidelity and affection. During my four years absence from home whether I was front with the colors or in prison they furnished support for and gave protection to those I left behind. And when, during my imprisonment, my children were left motherless in a land of strangers, these black people were as true to them as the needle to the pole. These people are now on my plantations, working industriously, doing well for me, and well for themselves. I would not put them aside for any other laborer on earth.” Miles portrayed the scheme as win-win, especially for African Americans whom he claimed to speak for. Not only would the Chinese scheme not harm them, but, as he explained, “The black man is quite as much interested in the introduction of Asiatic labor as the white man. The black man is now free. He is a citizen of the country. He is interested in its progress, both as a matter of pride, and as a matter of interest. In proportion as population shall grow dense, and wealth increases, taxes will diminish. As the black man increases in means and gets lands, either for a term of years or in fee, he will want to hire labor, and he will want to hire the cheapest labor he can get.” (Tran, Jonathan. Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism). Tran would note that journalists reported this kind of speech was addressed to Black crowds. Here Miles is trying to sell to white and Black Americans that we can use these Chinese folks as cheap labor to benefit all. White politicians also used Black people to wedge others against inclusion of Chinese people as Americans:
Nevada Senator William Stewart vehemently opposed the proviso, arguing that citizenship and suffrage belonged as “an act of justice” to African Americans, a rationale which could not and should not be extended to the Chinese: “The negro was among us. This was his native land. He was born here. He had a right to protection here. He had a right to the ballot here. He was an American and a Christian, as much so as any of the rest of the people of the country. He loved the American flag. Although he was ignorant, although he had been a slave, it became important that he should be enfranchised, so that he might protect himself in this great strife that we always have and always must have in a free government, where every man must take care of himself”... The freedman was “an American and a Christian,” precisely those things that the Chinaman categorically could not be: “They are pagans in religion, monarchists in theory and practice, and believe in their form of government, and no other . . . who will commit suicide for their devotion to their Government and to their religion. (Tran, Jonathan. Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism).
Here white politicians and white people of power and affluence are holding up the Black Americans on a pedestal against the inclusion to Chinese bodies in this country. Should we give the Chinese the power of citizenship? No, because they are not like Black people, who are at least Christian and speak English. Do you see this game that white people of power, wealth, and affluence play with non-white human lives here?
We are still slaves to this kind of manipulation by the white class with power and wealth who want to keep the system as it is, to keep the rules the same so that their white children can have an advantage as they’ve always had. Free the slaves? But, we make so much money off free labor. Allow Chinese folks to become Americans? But, they take jobs away from our white siblings. Also, we can’t have too many non-white people in this country. Oh no, labor is getting pricy and these freed Black people are expecting more pay. Let’s let the Chinese in now. Oh no, Black people know what’s going to happen, that we don’t want to pay their higher wages, so let’s make sure that Black folks know they are our special non-white humans and they’ll need cheap labor as freed people like us white land owners; although they shouldn’t trust us because we broke our promise of forty acres and a mule, Special Field Orders No. 15, a wartime order proclaimed on January 16, 1865, during the Civil War, promising land to some Black families. And, now in the modern era, Black Lives Matter! Affirmative Action still needs to exist! Black families need help due to systemic racism and racialized capitalism! Well, look at the Asian Americans, they’re people of color, and look how high their household incomes are in our great country! You need to work harder like them. Maybe it’s something about Black parenting or families that is the problem.
Unfortunately, this game has worked on many Asian Americans. I’ve heard Chinese Americans who grew up in “progressive and forward thinking” San Francisco, whose families are victims of the city’s long history of anti-Asian violence and policy, who claim progressive values and vote democratic, say this to me: “Black families should learn from us about getting ahead in this country.”
These folks were people who claimed to be baptized, dead to sin, reborn as “slaves” of Christ. But, this far from the truth. They are still chained to the powers of sin and death.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Lots of Christians grow up learning to memorize this verse. They are taught that this is about the life after death. About heaven. Heaven somewhere out there or up there. But, this death is not about your reward after a life of being a nice person whatever this means. You’re not nice to somebody. We’re all doomed if that’s the case. Rather, the systemically racist history and present of our society, the immoral cost of college/education/progress, the total lack of wisdom according to a remembrance of history, our “what about me?” spirit, are the wages of sin. This is death.
Remember Jesus said, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28a). These Supreme Court justices and the folks in power empowering them are playing with fire. A fire from the One that can “destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28b).
Here at YVPC, let us not just sit on our laurels in that single baptism event. Let us live into our baptism in thought and action, every day. Let us every day commit to understanding we are liberated from wages of sin, the chains of sin. Let us say “we are glad folks don’t have to suffer and be anxious like I was to be educated, give people all the debt forgiveness!”; “our country owes so much to our Black people, giving some of their young people a little extra attention and care is a drop in a bucket to make things right if that’s even possible”; “I as an Asian American Christian will not be a pawn and willing participant in the game of white supremacy”; “as a Christian I can’t stand for any business refusing service to someone based on their LGBTQ+ orientation!”; all of this freedom I pray we can live, by the power of Christ, who sent us the Spirit to help us. Amen.