Thomas J Parlette
“Wanted: Dead and Alive”
Romans 6: 1b-11
6/25/23
If you caught what you think is a typo in the sermon title today, please don’t leave any notes on Cindy’s desk. Wanted: Dead and Alive is indeed the title, no mistakes there.
Of course, our first thought is Wanted: Dead or Alive – that’s the phrase we’re used to, especially if you grew up watching old westerns on TV, like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. In fact, from 1958-1961, Steve McQueen starred in a TV show called “Wanted: Dead or Alive” before he got his big break in the movies. McQueen played the role of Josh Randall, a Confederate veteran and bounty hunter. He carried a shortened Winchester Model 1892 rifle called “Mare’s Leg,” and while galloping on his horse, Ringo, he could draw and fire his rifle with blazing speed. But he had a soft spot. He not only caught bad guys dead or alive, but he often turned over his earnings to the needy and advocated for his prisoners – if he believed they had been falsely accused.(1)
Or, maybe the first thing that pops into your head when you hear “Wanted: Dead or Alive” is that Bon Jovi song from the 80’s.
Today, those post-Civil War posters featuring a rough-looking character, and the words “Wanted: Dead or Alive” have been replaced by the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Time was, you could stop by the post office and see if the list had changed – I’m not sure that’s still true, it’s been so long since I’ve actually gone to the Post Office.
In a way, Paul has a similar poster on display here in Romans 6. We are wanted people!
For the early church, that was often true in a literal sense. Earl believers were followed, harassed, imprisoned and even executed. Some of their adventures are recorded in the Book of Acts and in occasional references made by Paul in his letters. If you were a “follower of the Way” in those days, you become a wanted man or woman. It was risky business.
But Paul also wants to say that we’re wanted in another sense. God wants us to walk in the Spirit, to be unceasing in our prayer life, to be holy and to enshrine in our daily lives all of the fruit of the Spirit.
Paul, however, focuses on one aspect of the “wanted” nature of our lives as followers of Jesus. He explains that we’re wanted – dead AND alive. Then he explains what he means.
He doesn’t say we’re wanted dead OR alive. The root of this distinction is embedded in the great Pauline metaphor articulated here in Chapters 5-8, that begins with the crucifixion of Jesus and ends with his resurrection – and a burial in between. Paul says that when Jesus was crucified, it’s like we were crucified with him. Thus – we are dead.
But when Jesus was raised from the dead, we were raised with him. So, we’re also alive. Dead – to sin and our fallen, human nature, and alive to new life in Christ. Dead AND Alive. In between, there’s a burial, the symbol of which is baptism. We go down into the waters, symbolizing death, and come back up again revived in new resurrection life.
So why is this so important? Paul gives his answer in verse 11: “So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” In the ebb and flow of our daily lives, we must consider ourselves to be dead AND alive.
This is a truth we must reaffirm every day. In 1st Corithians, Paul says, “I die every day! That is certain my brothers and sisters.” He meant it – and we must never forget it. It is the heart of how to walk in the Spirit and be a follower of Jesus. Who is Jesus looking for? He is looking for disciples who are dead AND alive.
I realize that all this talk about being dead might be a little hard to listen to. We don’t like to talk about death, especially our own. We often have warped or conflicting emotions about death. Margaret Stohl, the author of Beautiful Creatures says, “When you’re alive, you don’t dwell on how you are going to spend your time once you’re dead. You just figure you’re gone, and the rest will pretty much take care of itself. Or, you think you’re not really going to die. You’re going to be the first person in history who doesn’t have to. Maybe that’s some kind of lie our brains tell us to keep us from going crazy while we’re alive.”(2)
Maybe so. But Paul says we’re already dead – to sin, to self and to death itself. We just need to act like it.
To be clear, the death Paul talks about is a vicarious death. We are dead because we have died in Christ. When Christ died, he conquered sin, self, and the forces of evil. Even our most feared enemy, death, was vanquished.
So, Paul argues, we should start acting like we are dead to sin, and not alive to it. We should remember that sinful practices and habits no longer have a hold over us. We should not forget that Christ has broken the chains that bound us to our former life. We are dead to the past. It is gone.
And in Christ, we are also dead to self. We are dead to that fallen part of our human nature. We no longer need to act like the old version of ourselves. We have evolved; we have grown; we have matured. We are in other words, a new creation in Christ.
But, the title of this sermon is dead AND alive. God wants both, at the same time. In Ephesians, Paul writes, “God, who is rich in mercy… even when we were dead through our trespasses… God made you alive together with him. Clearly this dead AND alive idea is very important to Paul.
But there is a problem. If we are alive to God, we may be dead to sin, but we might be dead in another way too. We might find ourselves spiritually dead if we are not alive to God.
Christians who are not alive to God are often the walking embodiment of negativity. They seem to be against change and opposed to many positive things. To adapt a biblical saying – it’s easier for a camel to slip through the eye of a needle than for negative people to slip a positive thought past the teeth and gums of their mouths.
Christians who are not alive to God have zero interest in helping others. In that sense, they’re narcissistic, and in the ancient mythology of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Narcissus dies slowly of malnutrition, after he realizes that the one person in the world he loves cannot love him back.
Spiritually dead Christians don’t react to external stimuli. They just don’t seem responsive to the spiritual side of their nature. They just seem to go through the motions. They live their lives by checking off the boxes, doing just what is required and nothing more. They embody what Henry David Thoreau described as “lives of quiet desperation.”
Finally, spiritually dead people seem to resent the obligations of the spiritual life. Theirs is a childish and immature approach to the Christian life. For instance, when you ask the kids to do chores around the house, how often do they respond, “Do I have to?”, with a high pitched whining quality to their voice. Spiritually dead people have that same kind of whine. They have little appreciation for the joy and privilege of serving the Lord.
But thankfully, they are ways to flip or reverse the symptoms of being spiritually dead and become alive in Christ.
Those who are alive in Christ are generally positive, and unafraid of change. In that sense, many would say they’re progressive and dynamic, not static.
Rather than just loving themselves, they love others.
Rather than promoting their self-interest, they lift up the concerns of others.
Alive-in-Christ people are highly sensitive to their spiritual nature and are intentional about study and prayer time. They talk to God and spend time listening.
Alive-in-Christ people don’t hold grudges and are hard to offend.
Alive –in-Christ people are filled with hope, faith and love.
Alive-in-Christ people are dead to anything that is not life giving.
The writer and theologian Robert Farrar Capon once wrote “The only qualification for the gift of the Gospel is to be dead. You don’t have to be smart… You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to be wise. You don’t have to be wonderful. You don’t have to be anything. You just have to be dead. That’s it. You see the whole problem with the church is that the church does not want to die. None of us want to die. But that is the one qualification and that is what is outrageous. There can be only one requirement and it’s got to be low enough to include all of us. And it is. All you have to do is die.”(3)
And as Paul assures us today, Jesus has already done that for us.
The Good News is that God wants us: Dead AND Alive.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Homileticsonline, retrieved 6/5/23.
2. Ibid…
3. Ibid…
