Clean Your Filter - A Sermon for Sunday July 2, 2023

SECOND READING: Romans 6:12-23

Sin is an enslaving power that motivates us to live self-serving, disobedient lives. Sin’s final payoff is death. We, however, have been set free from sin’s slavery to live obediently under God’s grace, whose end is the free gift of eternal life.

12Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

  15What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Do 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? 17But 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, 18and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. 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.

  20When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

GOSPEL: Matthew 10:40-42

When Jesus sends his disciples out as missionaries, he warns them of persecution and hardships they will face. He also promises to reward any who aid his followers and support their ministry.

[Jesus said to the twelve:] 40“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41Whoever 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; 42and 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.”

There are so many things you should be doing.

You should floss your teeth once a day.

You should change your oil every 5000 kilometres.

You should go for an annual eye exam

and yearly physical.

And, obviously,

You should go to church every Sunday.

There are so many “shoulds”

that it is too many to keep track of.

Here’s another should for you:

you should change your furnace filter every 3 months.

It’s true.

If you don’t change or clean your furnace filter regularly,

it could start a fire

or cause your furnace to stop working.

I always put off changing the furnace filter though,

because I don’t really notice a difference

at 3 months compared to 6 months.

But, When you do, finally,

replace the filter,

you can sure see the colour difference.

Who knew there was so much dust and dirt

and pollens

and dog hair

and sparkles in the air.

The furnace filter,

when regularly changed,

helps keep the air in your home clean.

If COVID has taught us anything,

it is that air quality is pretty important.

Part of air quality is humidity,

and many furnaces have a built-in humidifier,

so don’t forget to clean those filters too,

or it might leave and leave a mouldy mess.

Yet Another should to add to the list of shoulds.

The humidifier filter should be changed regularly

to help keep mould and mildew out of the air.

If you wait too long to change your air filter,

if you wait too long to change your humidifier filter,

the build-up can get so intense

that there just is no cleaning it,

and it can cause irreparable damage.

Without regular filter cleaning or replacement,

it doesn’t take much for the mould and mildew

and dust and pollen and toxins and sparkles

to find their way into the air we breathe.

Just as pollen and dust

and mould and mildew

need to be filtered,

so does sin.

We heard the apostle Paul talk about sin

in the second reading.

“Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies,

to make you obey their passions.”

Our society isn’t so concerned with sin,

and I am convinced that part of the reason

is that the definition of sin seems to be changing.

There have been blurred lines

between moral behaviour and sin

as long as I’ve been around.

For some, alcohol is sinful,

and for others it is poured out in abundance

for the forgiveness of sins.

It used to be sinful to use colourful language,

but now you’ll even hear the odd Christian preacher

use the same colourful language

in literature or sermons,

rare as that might be.

It wasn’t that long ago that a certain skunky, green plant

was considered illegal,

and though it has been legalized,

it’s use is still stigmatized as sin by many.

Morality is changing,

and so does the the world’s understanding

of sin change.

For Martin Luther,

sin is being curved in on yourself.

Sin can be understood as anything

that puts “I” in the middle,

Anything that is focused on the lesser trinity

of me, myself and I,

rather than upon the goodness

of the Blessed and Holy Trinity.

Being self-interested is not sinful:

you’ve gotta take care of yourself.

It is not a sin to love yourself.

We are called to love all God’s children,

and that includes yourself.

But selfishness on the other hand, I would argue, is sin:

oppression, greed, envy,

rage, hatred, war,

discrimination, apathy:

all rooted in selfishness.

Sin is thought, word, and deed

that does not love God and neighbour

with our whole hearts.

Sin is that which is opposed to God and God’s work.

Sin is anything that tries to make

God less than God

and anything that tries to make our neighbours

more than human or less than human.

If it is truly life-giving,

it is not sin.

If it causes unnecessary pain and suffering,

it’s likely sin.

Sin can be found both our action and inaction.

Sin is also a condition that we live in.

Sin is in the air;

like pollen and dust

and mould and mildew.

We are a fallen and broken people,

slaves to sin,

captives to sin

and unable to free ourselves.

We can’t not sin.

Nevertheless, Paul urges the church in Rome:

Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies,

to make you obey their passions.

I’d argue that,

as society’s understanding of sin

and morality is shifting,

so is the average person’s.

I’d argue that people in general

are less concerned with sin that in generations past.

But sin is just as real now as it ever has been.

Evil is as prevalent as ever.

Our hearts and minds,

bodies and souls

operate like filters.

As we live and move and have our very being in and with God,

we are continually infected by sin,

like dirt or dust in a filter.

We might not notice the impact of our sin day by day,

but like a furnace filter,

it doesn’t take long for sins to add up

and clog our filters.

Sin can cause irreparable damage.

Sin damages you.

The end of sin is death.

So what does your filter look like?

Any sin, big or small,

will imprint itself on your filter.

It will mark you.

It will weigh you down.

It will clog your filter,

not allowing you to function efficiently,

not allowing the air to move through properly.

It is very easy for filters to become dirty,

and allow dirt and dust

and pollen and mildew and mould

to flow out of you.

The wages of sin is death, Paul tells us.

But the free gift of God

is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Only our God can free you from your bondage to sin.

You can’t clean out or replace your own sin filter.

You need God for that.

And that happens here, at church.

As we worship our God,

we hear God pronounce

that you are forgiven of your sins.

We remember the waters of our baptism:

daily we are washed clean.

Daily, our God offers us a new filter

to combat the sin and evil that we receive and inflict.

That’s one of the reasons why we worship,

to receive the promise,

and to then welcome others

into this life-giving, abundant life.

Thus we seek to be a welcoming church,

not so much for our reward,

but for the reward of those who meet Christ here.

But to be a welcoming church,

we need to acknowledge that, sometimes, 

the church isn’t so good at welcoming people.

There are expectations put on people.

Sometimes the church is viewed like a dentist’s office:

you need to floss your teeth

and clean them real well

before you go to the dentist

or they’ll judge you.

But you don’t need perfect teeth to see the dentist.

The dentist wants to help everyone

improve their quality of life one tooth at a time.

They help you keep your teeth clean.

Similarly, most people don’t call in the furnace cleaners

or repair person when your furnace is running well.

You call them in when the vents are dirty

and need a good cleaning.

You call them when the furnace breaks down.

Yet replacing the filter regularly,

helps keep the furnace running.

The church is the place where all are welcome,

whether you are clean or dirty,

whether you are well perfumed

or smell like a gutter,

whether you are male or female

or somewhere in between,

whether you are Jew or Greek,

slave or free,

Christian or not,

or somewhere in between.

All are welcome in this place

because God’s love and God’s care

extend to all creation:

not just the people we think might deserve it.

This isn’t the place for the best of the best.

The church is the place for the broken.

If we are honest with ourselves and our God,

we are all alike:

the filters in all our hearts and minds

are moldy and cloudy,

scared and scarred,

bruised and dirty

from all the negativity and sin

and hopelessness and brokenness

that we have faced.

We all need our God’s love and mercy

and grace and forgiveness:

and the good news is that

God does love you,

God does have mercy on you,

God’s grace is for you

and God forgives you.

We are like furnaces.

We exist, not merely for our own existence,

but for the good of others.

Furnaces need new filters to work properly,

or they’ll spit out toxins that they ought to filter.

Furnaces don’t operate well when they are

bogged down in dirt and dust

and pollen and mould and mildew.

Sometimes all a furnace needs is a good cleaning.

Today God is cleaning you.

Every day, God’s Spirit gives us faith

to live by grace,

to love God and neighbour.

Every day,

God’s Spirit breathes new air in your lungs,

enabling you to warm others around you

with the fruits of the Spirit:

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control.

So it’s not so much about what you should

or should not do.

Rather it is about who you are made to be.

You are made to love and to be loved.

May we keep a check on our filters,

and get them cleaned regularly,

so that sin, whose end is death,

does not take hold of our lives.

May we be slaves to Christ,

who washes us clean,

who frees us from sin

and whose end is eternal life.

And may we welcome all:

in our church and in our lives,

as Christ has first welcomed us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.