What Dwight Schrute Teaches Us About Salvation

Preached at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church on April 14, 2024.

Scripture

Romans 6:3-11

Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Sermon

I want to preface our second Scripture reading before we get into it. And whenever I do so, I always remind the congregation, “don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten,” because there’s no better way to make a bunch of Presbyterians nervous than going off script.

Bad things happen to good people. As proof, there are a little more than a dozen really, really good people in this room who have had the misfortune of being in my confirmation class.

If you’re one of those unfortunate souls, you’ve heard a few phrases repeated throughout our time together. There was a phrase we learned sometime around December. Here’s what it is: “Salvation doesn’t equal the afterlife.” For some folks, that’s a statement that seems second nature. “Of course salvation isn’t the same as the afterlife! The present moment is what matters.” For others, that statement might be a little more provocative. “What do you mean that salvation isn’t the same as the afterlife?! Eternal life is the whole point of Jesus’ death on the cross!”

If you’re in the first camp–where this seems pretty straightforward–I’m going to encourage you to think a little more cosmically today. And if you’re in the second camp–where what I said borders on heresy–then I’m going to encourage you to do what the confirmands do best: humor me.

“‘Salvation doesn’t equal the afterlife.’ For some folks, that’s a statement that seems second nature… For others, that statement might be a little more provocative.”

There are lots and lots of ideas about salvation, especially when it comes to baptism. For highly, highly sacramental traditions–like Roman Catholicism and Orthodox traditions–baptism is usually a prerequisite for personal salvation and making it to eternal paradise. Because of its significance in those traditions, there is jurisprudence that provides guidance on what is a valid and lawful baptism. For instance, in the event of an emergency, any Christian can baptize when a priest or religious authority cannot be present.

On the other end, our good friends the Baptists and Zwinglians, often believe it’s nothing more than a symbol or an outward sign. It’s a nice thing to do.

As Presbyterians, we’re somewhere in the middle. We profess that it’s a sign (like Baptists) but also a seal, an indelible mark of God’s grace upon us. It is not extra grace poured out, but a seal of God’s preexisting grace upon us no matter where we go or who we become.

That’s where we enter this text. From the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 6, verses 3 through 11:

“​​Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

If you’re a Millennial, someone born roughly between 1981 and 1994, it is hard to explain the stranglehold that the television show The Office has on you. (I say you, because I’m actually Gen Z). For those who aren’t obsessed, The Office has a character named Dwight Shrute, a Pennsylvania-Dutch man who operates a several-hundred acre beet farm while working as a paper salesman. And in an episode, Dwight decides that he loves his life so much–he’s just bursting from the gills with contentment–that he joins an online platform called Second Life. Rather than giving himself a new hairstyle or cool job in that virtual game, he decides to recreate everything about his life. He’s still a paper salesman. He’s still a farmer. He’s still a balding man without a girlfriend. It’s a literal Second Life.

As absurd as that image is, it captures a lot of our imagination about the resurrection. So often, in our collective minds, we picture resurrection of the body–and whatever afterlife awaits–as a “second life.” Everything is recreated, from our physical bodies, to the neuroses of our personalities, to the relationships we’ve had. We often think of resurrection and salvation and the afterlife as “another go again” with a few perks. But in today’s text, there’s a phrase that might challenge us in our assumptions. A phrase that changes how we think about baptism and salvation and what resurrected life means.

This is what the Apostle Paul says: “we were buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that… we also might walk in newness of life.” That last phrase, “Newness of life”, is what leaps off the pages of our Bibles.The Greek uses the phrase kainotēti zōēs (καινότητι ζωῆς). It leaps off the page, because both words are infused with meaning, tapping into deeper, larger truths in the message of God’s grace. The latter word, zōē, is what is translated as “life.” But Paul had another word to choose from: bios. As Ken Kovacs at Catonsville Presbyterian put it: “Bios is natural life. Ordinary life. It’s functional life, existing but not really living. The Greek word for really living is zōē (ζωὴ). Zōē refers to vitality, that which animates and calls one to life. Zōē is abundant life.”

We’re tempted to think that Jesus came into this world to bring us access to the afterlife, to “heaven.” But so much of Jesus’ ministry is actually about salvation, that abundant life - Jesus himself says that’s why he came here! For life that stretches beyond our wildest imaginations and into the darkest corners of this world. Life that cannot be strangled by death or buried in the ground, life that bursts into the air, opening its limbs and canopy over our heads, covering us with grace and joy. Not some “second life” after death. No; Jesus came to bring salvation and life that feels vibrant, that sounds vibrant, that captures the present moment so deeply and compellingly that we savor its joy. This zōē is the type of overflowing, abundant life that drives Jesus to ask for some broiled fish in today’s Gospel reading. Life that lights up the room, that surprises even ourselves, and life and that makes us throw a feast with God.

“We’re tempted to think that Jesus came into this world to bring us access to the afterlife, to ‘heaven.’ But so much of Jesus’ ministry is actually about salvation… For life that stretches beyond our wildest imaginations and into the darkest corners of this world…Not some ‘second life’ after death.”

But that’s only one part of newness of life. The other word in this phrase is kainos (καινός). Kainos takes this to the next level, because for the Greeks, this word doesn’t refer to restoration or renewal. Instead, it points us to what is brand new, something that has been created from nothing, that freshness of something we haven’t seen before. Kainos also describes something novel and strange, something that is foreign and undiscovered thus far. It is the “new creation” in Christ, the “new wine” in fresh wineskins, and the new covenant in Christ’s blood. This strange, undiscovered newness is what we find flowing from the font - abundant life that is otherworldly, sourced from the realm of God and all that is good. It is a life in Christ that is full of new connections and new ways of relating, a life in Christ that has new economics and new politics; a life in Christ with new ways of caring for the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the imprisoned. That is the newness of life that Paul is describing - not some abstract ethereal realm or abstract feeling. Not some second life or ethereal afterlife. Newness of life! Kainotēti zōēs that is far greater, far realer, far more brilliant and beautiful than we could ever imagine.

So what is stirred up in this baptismal font is not a second birth nor is it a promise of an afterlife. It is a covenant: a covenant of salvation; of new and fresh and abundant and unyielding life, a covenant that so deeply entangles us with God that the divides of sin and the flesh are immaterial. In baptism, God places a seal upon us that is so loving, so gracious, so otherworldly that Paul cannot conceive of any life apart from it. As written in this scripture, there is no life outside of this baptism, this grace, this holy sacrament; there is no more Michael or Emma or Gretchen or any one of us who lives beyond or outside that great covenant in Christ. There is only a new way forward; a new abundance; a new way of existence and relating. There is only life within and among and around and surrounded by Christ, signed and sealed at this font once and for all.

The early church radicalized around this grace and abundant life sealed in baptism. As the Acts of the Apostles recounts, Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. And after he preaches, the writers of Luke-Acts recount that “three thousand persons” were baptized. And immediately, upon their baptisms, they “devoted themselves” to “fellowship,” communion, “prayers,” and most powerfully, gave up their own property, “sell[ing] their possessions and goods, distributing the proceeds to all.”

That newness of life–freshness and strangeness of life–wasn’t life 2.0. It wasn’t “second life” where everything was just as it was before. It wasn’t about the afterlife. It was about salvation. This early community instead devoted themselves to that freedom and liberation of their baptisms; to the new commandments and the new mandate of Christ Jesus to love one another as God has loved us. They committed themselves to living out the covenant sealed in their baptisms and working to bring the salvation of God into this world day after day after day.

So that is what happens here. Not a magical afterlife, but rather a sign and seal that brings newness of life. Freedom from boring, tired narratives about the world. Liberation from our pride and posturing. A way in Christ that is far greater, far better, far more hope-filled and grace-filled than any other way.

“[The early Church’s] newness of life—‘freshness and strangeness of life’–wasn’t life 2.0. It wasn’t ‘second life’ where everything was just as it was before. It wasn’t about the afterlife. It was about salvation. This early community instead devoted themselves to the freedom and liberation of their baptisms.”

In a world that is so deeply entrenched in pain, this baptism is all the more important. Paul writes that “We have been united with Christ in a death like his… and death no longer has dominion over him.” It’s hard to believe that our little baptismal recipient will ever do anything wrong, or ever face the difficulties of the world. And though Paul didn’t write it down, rest assured, diaper blowouts happen. Zits will happen. Adolescence will happen. But even in those moments, and in the painful moments of this world, God has already written the ending, and invited us into it. Spoiler alert: sin, depravity, pain, suffering - none of it sticks around; and all of it is supplanted by the great love, and grace, and new life of Christ. Whatever we think about the afterlife is beside the point, because this font fixes our eyes on salvation. New ways of relating and existing; new economies and politics; new ways of caring for the sick and poor and imprisoned; unexpected friendships; uncomfortable and important conversations; churches that confront racism and unequal wealth and disparities in housing. That’s what’s at the very heart of this font. This child of God–and all of us children of God–are brought into that great, beautiful, good ending. We’re brought into that covenant of grace and salvation. We’re brought, either by blood or water, into a family of a different kind that is committed to a different way of life in Christ. It is sealed upon us, every one of us–mysteriously and miraculously–at this font.

No matter how many baptisms we see, no matter how many baptismal vows we make with the recipient, this is where we are jolted awake by newness of life, that kainotēti zōēs. So when we come to this font, when we splash around in its waters, be changed by what we receive at it. Freshness, newness, strangeness, otherworldliness. Let the afterlife worry about itself. Because today, from this well of grace and joy and love and truth, we are not called to a second life where everything is the same. We are called to a new life in Christ, where nothing will ever be the same.

Amen.

Sources

Ken Kovacs, Thirst, 2023 March 12, https://catonsvillepres.org/sermons/thirst/