Today’s author is Prince of Peace member Paul Sponheim.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1
Romans has been tough going for a lot of Lutheran preachers and for the standing of the human person is plenty of rough going also. We may come out of a tussle with Romans muttering, “The good that I would do I do not and the evil that I would not do that is what I do.” (Romans 7:14-16) But it will help us to recognize that these convictions come to Paul “by” the mercies of God. This is Paul’s reference to the otherness of God, or we could call it his affirmation of the finite.
The otherness of God sounds clearest in the moral struggle but the clearest affirmation of the finite is in our knowing. (verse 1). Did you notice that the finite giving of the body “is celebrated in the receptivity of the spiritual”?
There is an old fight between Luther and Zwingli about what happens in the sacrament of the altar. Zwingli’s phrase is finitum non capax infiniti (the finite bread and wine are not capable of holding Christ’s real presence). Luther and his partisans at the Marburg Colloquy argue for finitum capax infiniti– the finite bread and wine do bestow the real Christ. Our challenge is to follow Luther and to recognize the finite bearing the infinite in more and more realms of our lives.
So Luther knows that a second imperative follows the first. “Present your body…” The earthen body sets the stage for the experience of the infinite. How does this happen? Paul tells us in verse two that it happens as our lives are not conformed with the world but rather the finite rises up to claim the infinite. The finite bears the infinite by the renewal of our knowing, as we claim once more truly to know the true God. We know finitum capax infiniti through the renewing of our minds. What does that mean? Do we become children again? Tune in on Friday: we will focus on the renewal of our minds.
Prayer of Good Courage
Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Eric Milner-White, Daily Prayer)