Proper 6 Sunday Year A 6/14/2026
Genesis 18:1-15; Psalm 116:1, 10-17; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
Last week I talked about the doctrine of Justification by faith.
In our reading from Romans today…
St. Paul picks up right where he left off…
He begins our reading with…
Since we are justified by faith,
You see, a sinner is justified…
That is pardoned from (or forgiven) the punishment and condemnation of sin and brought into relationship with God by faith in God’s grace alone.
Justification is the work of God to make us righteous.
To give us a clean slate.
To acquit us from all wrongdoing.
And in our reading today he moves from justification by faith into the life of the believer.
He advances the thought down the road…
Paul writes:
Since we are justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand…
We have peace with God.
Peace – such an important word.
Bumper stickers aren’t as common as they used to be…
Perhaps we decided they weren’t so helpful when you tried to peel them off the vehicle.
But sometimes they can be thought provoking…
Although, I don’t recommend you gather up your theology and ethics based on bumper stickers alone.
We used to have bumper sticker wars, right? …
Someone would put a Christian fish symbol on their vehicle…
Then another person would spell out Darwin in a similar looking fish and give it legs.
Someone would put a bumper sticker on their vehicle saying:
Proud Parent of an Honor Student…
Then another person would have a sticker that says:
My Dog is Smarter than your Honor Student.
Today we don’t battle out ideas through bumper stickers so much…
Today, we are much more sophisticated…
In our time, we just post pointed memes on social media.
I also don’t recommend you gather up your theology and ethics based on internet memes alone.
Anyways…
There is this one sticker I remember on the back of a vehicle…
It read: No Christ, No Peace. Know Christ, Know Peace
I think that is pretty good…
As it sort of spells out our verse.
Peace with God comes through Jesus Christ…
It does not come through other means…
Or other people…
It comes in being justified by God through faith by his grace.
But what is peace?
We certainly can understand peace in different ways in our culture.
But what does Paul mean by peace?
In our world, we often think of peace in two ways:
First, the absence of violence or struggle.
We hope for peace in our world…
We pray for peace among the nations…
Hoping wars and violence will be stopped or restrained.
We can also mean this sense of peace in a personal way…
We suggest this when we go through trying times (whether physically or emotionally) and say: I just want some peace.
We also use peace to mean something like inner peace.
A feeling of peace and contentment.
A sensation of peace within our heart and mind.
These are important ways of understanding peace in our world and in our personhood…
But Paul has a different nuance here with the word peace…
It has an eschatological meaning…
That is a peace for now (today) and in the glory to come in the resurrection of the people of God.
New Testament Scholar, James Edwards writes:
The expressions “peaceful coexistence,” or “peace and quiet,” connote absence of conflict, whereas “peace of mind” implies contentment.
In the Bible, however, peace is neither the absence of adversity nor a sensation of euphoria.
It is more of a condition in which life can best be lived.
Romans 5:1 claims that the long-awaited peace of the future has dawned in Jesus Christ.
It is closer to the idea of a “new creation.”[1]
Again, our verse says:
Since we are justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…
Peace comes when we are justified by faith…
And this justification comes through Jesus Christ…
Through his death on the cross for our sins…
Through his resurrection which promises our eternal life…
Through the presence of the Spirit of God in our life that is the guarantee of our eternal life and the empowerment to live in Christ even now.
Paul does not mean the absence of violence and struggle.
Jesus said that we would be persecuted in this world.
It is a peace to continue forward in the call of Christ Jesus because we have been justified by God.
It is a peace that sustains our life because we know that in Christ Jesus we have been made righteous…
Our sins are forgiven.
It is a peace to live through the trials of this world because we know that this world is yet a small vapor compared to the eternity to come.
This peace…
Is how we live in this world.
The peace of Christ Jesus.
There is an important person in our history…
Our history as Anglicans…
His name is Nicholas Ridley.
Ridley was born at about the year 1500…
He was ordained a priest in 1525…
Nicholas Ridley became an adherent of the Protestant cause while a student at Cambridge.
He was a friend of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and became a private chaplain first to Cranmer and then to King Henry.
After King Henry…
Under the reign of King Edward, he became bishop of Rochester,
and was part of the committee that drew up the first English Book of Common Prayer in 1549.
He was eventually appointed Bishop of London and Westminster in 1550.
On July 6, 1553, King Edward died…
And shortly thereafter, the Catholic Mary Tudor became Queen Mary I.
She had decided to shut down all protestant reforms…
To squash the English Reformation and return England to the Roman Catholic Church.
And after her ascent to the throne…
Ridley and other Protestant leaders were placed in prison in the Tower of London.
In March of 1554, Ridley was sent to Oxford with Thomas Cranmer and Bishop Hugh Latimer for a disputation with Catholic theologians on the presence of Christ’s body in holy communion.
Ridley and the others refused to give up their faith, despite numerous attempts to convert them.
They knew their fate would be to die for their faith.
After being ceremonially degraded from their clerical status, Ridley and Latimer were burned together on October 16, 1555.
They were led in chains outside what was then the city wall and were martyred on a spot that today is on Oxford’s Broad Street.
As the fire was lit, Latimer said to his friend and colleague Ridley:
Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man;
we shall this day by God’s grace light such a candle in England,
as I trust shall never be put out.
In 1555, Nicholas Ridley was burned at the stake because of his witness for Christ.
But before his execution…
On the night before…
His brother offered to remain with him in the prison chamber to be of assistance and comfort.
Nicholas declined the offer and replied that he meant
to go to bed and sleep as quietly as ever he did in his life.
Because he knew the peace of God, he could rest in the strength of the everlasting arms of his Lord to meet his need.
The Protestant reforms for which Ridley worked and died were soon restored when Elizabeth I became queen in 1558.
The spot where Ridley died is marked today in the road with a black cross and a wall plaque nearby…
I was able to pay my respects at this spot when I was in Oxford during my sabbatical.
Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer and Thomas Cranmer were martyrs of the faith…
Of our Anglican tradition…
They died as followers of Jesus Christ…
But they stood tall…
Because they knew the peace that comes from God through Jesus Christ.
This is the peace that we have obtained in God through Jesus Christ.
That no matter what happens in our world…
Our faith, our hope, our lives…
Are hidden in Christ Jesus and we will be with him forever.
We live in a world that has its difficulties…
And in our information age…
There are many channels that are reaching out to us…
To say that this is peace…
Do this for peace…
Practice this ritual for daily peace…
Elect me the leader for peace…
Follow this and obtain peace…
And all of these fall short of the peace that we have in Jesus.
Let these words of Holy Scripture shape your heart…
Shape your soul…
Shape your mind…
And may they be on your lips:
Since we are justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…
Amen.
[1] James R. Edwards, Romans, NIBC (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1992), 134.
