Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
On occasion, preachers find themselves taking issue with editorial divisions of a biblical text, as I do with our chosen text for Trinity Sunday Year B, Romans 8:12-17. Commentators express consternation at the “awkward transition” from v 13 to v 14, yet take for granted the editors’ paragraphing. An exception is Karl Barth (Epistle to the Romans, Sixth English Edition). Barth treats vv 12-13 as the conclusion of Paul’s discussion of the opposed dynamics of “flesh” and Spirit which began at v 3. This makes sense, thematically and rhetorically. V 13 concludes Paul’s reflection on the consequences of yielding to the appetites and aspirations of “the flesh” (referring to the self-centered “world order”) rather than the freedom of the Spirit. At v 14, Paul’s rhetorical strategy shifts from antithesis (Spirit/flesh) to correlation (witness of the Spirit/adoption as sons or daughters and heirs of God.)
Preachers might focus on either 8:3-13 or 8:14-17. Trinitarian material is prominent in both selections. Verses 3-13 pivot around tightly woven Trinitarian language in vv 9-11. Verses 14-17, where Paul asserts that his Gentile readers are (like Israel) children of God and co-heirs with Christ, are woven together with phrasing that describes the role of each person of the Trinity in our “adoption.”
The premise of Paul’s entire discussion here is his conviction that God raised Jesus Christ from death as Lord and Firstborn of a new creation. Thus, the old order is dying away; the new eschatological re-creation of all things has begun, yet we live in the overlap of old age and new. In baptism, believers pass with Christ through death into new life (Ro 6:2b-11). Now, in ch 8, Paul shows us how the Spirit leads us, adopted children of God, into that new life, even as we struggle against the lure of the old.
The feast of the Trinity is unique in that, unlike Pentecost and others, it is devoted to a doctrine, not an event. Perhaps the most important question we answer in any sermon is, “What does it look like, here and now?” This is especially true for Trinity Sunday. Our challenge is to move beyond cut-and-dried doctrinal exposition and show our listeners the activity of the Three-in-One in our struggle between “flesh” (the old order of this world, which demands that we establish our own worth through appearance, acquisition, and achievement) and the freedom of life in the Spirit. In the new life (won by Christ, granted by the Creator to whom we cry “Abba, Father!” and driven by the Spirit), our worth is established by sheer grace. A sermon might describe the human toll of ruthlessly competitive systems—social, economic, vocational—that confer or withhold status according to fickle, ever-shifting norms and then show how, in the Spirit, their deadly grip on us is broken.
Exemplars of Spirit-infused freedom from the brittle honors, corrosive gluttonies, and toxic shame-systems of this world shine brightly throughout history. Some are called saints; many are saints without title. Let their stories suggest what the freedom of the Spirit can look like! How have the free children of God down the centuries invited others into the Spirit’s freedom? What might it look like to act as the free children of God we already are, here and now? What sorts of self-absorbed anxieties can we shake off? How can we raise children in the Spirit’s freedom? An African American spiritual chants, “O freedom, O freedom, O freedom over me! Before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave; I’ll go home to my Lord and be free.” Spiritually, we needn’t wait until life’s end. Such “dying” into freedom happens here and now, as God’s children yield to the Spirit’s invitation.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 