Do Not Let Sin Reign

A Sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on June 28, 2026 by Revd Dr Sam Wells

Reading for address: Romans 6: 12-23

I wonder if you’ve ever seen a group of trapeze artists in full swing. The performance is invariably sky-high in the air. You find yourself mesmerised by two things at once: the extraordinary bravery of the artists, taking unimaginable risks, so far above the net, or sometimes with no safety net at all; and the even more awesome trust that evidently exists between those who launch themselves from the trapeze, often doing twists in the air en route, and those who, despite being upside down with their legs bent around a wooden bar, miraculously catch them.

How does such trust emerge? Only by conversation, practice, conditioning, repetition, attention, meticulous feedback and searing honesty. It’s a rarefied form of existence, that takes an intensity most of us can only marvel at. But the whole process of communication, receptivity, concentration, awareness, preparation and mutual reliance is a peak experience of being human. It is being and working utterly with. Why do people do it? Because it gives them a level of joy no ordinary and certainly no solo experience ever could.

What it shows us, not just as a metaphor but as a lived example, is what human beings were made for. We were made to be together like this: not as dramatically perhaps, but with this level of trust, this level of understanding, this level of communication, this level of joy. Together with one another: but also together with God, and with the wider creation. Think of God’s outstretched finger on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican: imagine it as a portrayal of the high trapeze, where God is completely there with us, upholding us like a parent beneath a child taking its tentative and clumsy steps across a climbing frame. The trust isn’t the most important thing: the most important thing is the being-with, the utter reliance on one another. The trust is the necessary requirement for that being-with – the soil out of which true togetherness grows.

How is that trust built? In chapter 6 of his letter to the Romans, Paul refers to four vital ingredients that I want to suggest make up a recipe for trust. I want to look at each one for a moment now.

The first ingredient is a true story. Paul is constantly contrasting the true story he’s advocating with the false stories by which he’s surrounded. His name for the true story is grace. You don’t have to be an etymologist to work out there’s a connection between the words trust and truth. Of all the sinister things happening in the echelons of power around the world right now, the most menacing is the dismantling of any serious relationship with truth. Not only do prominent leaders habitually lie; it seems their many supporters don’t care. Why do we lie? Because we create a story that seems to suit us better than the truthful story. Paul is saying, ‘You have nothing to fear from the truthful story. The truthful story is that you didn’t create yourself: you were created. You don’t have to manufacture your own meaning and purpose: your meaning and purpose is that God wanted to be with you in Jesus Christ. You don’t have to pretend anymore: Christ loves you just as you are. You can’t hide your mistakes and failures: but you don’t need to, because the Spirit turns them into God’s opportunities. You don’t have to suspend death at all costs: because God has prepared for you such things as pass your understanding.’ That’s how truth creates trust. Christ is the trapeze artist whose hands are stretched out for you and will never let you go.

The second ingredient is actions that restore, honour and encourage. Many people think of morality as a list of things you shouldn’t do – lie, cheat, steal, murder, harm, disrespect, fail to show gratitude, lust, be lazy, boast, envy, and consume an excessive number of doughnuts. It can be helpful to have a sense of such things, but it can be better to frame such a list in relation to how much they inhibit better things, notably the building of trust. Paul talks about what it means to be ‘obedient from the heart,’ and about making our limbs ‘instruments of righteousness.’ One theologian says we’re called to be a reconciling presence in the life of our neighbour, which can entail many things, but can scarcely ever involve killing. This way of seeing our actions avoids treating life like a display of glass objects we’re always in danger of knocking over, smashing and having to apologise and pay for. Instead, we approach every interaction in a spirit of seeking to be a blessing. You can be a blessing by listening, by supporting, contributing, complimenting, noticing, understanding and sometimes by challenging. Your life can be full of such things. There are some actions that are almost always good and helpful, regardless of context: they involve truly seeing the other person, really engaging them, and never beginning with your own needs, fears or insecurities. If we go back to the trapeze, we build trust by being a person others can rely on, and by holding others to their promises. That’s how actions cultivate trust. The Spirit calls and inspires us to be trapeze artists whose hands are ready to receive whatever comes our way.

The third ingredient I’m going to call acceptance. Paul talks about being aware of our limitations. The sixteenth-century reformer John Calvin begins his magisterial Institutes of the Christian Religion by saying we can’t understand God without understanding ourselves, and vice versa. My early ministry was in settings where it was common to hear confessions. One thing I learned was that a lot of people feel guilty when actually they’re coming to terms with the fact that they’re human beings. Just because you’re not perfect, that doesn’t make you a terrible person. Realising we’ve got it wrong has the silver lining that it delivers us from the fantasy and idol that we can ever get it right. Hearing confessions made me realise my attitude to the vast majority of the human race is compassion rather than condemnation. Remember, when Jesus has a woman brought before him accused of sleeping with another woman’s husband, Jesus calls on anyone with an unblemished life to throw the first stone; and no one does. There’s a Mark Twain story in which someone sends a note to a raft of prominent local citizens with the anonymous message, ‘Flee! All is discovered.’ Every recipient had left town by the end of the weekend. Acceptance means knowing where you’re subject to almost irresistible temptation. If you’re obsessed with money, don’t become a treasurer; if you’re a glutton, don’t become a chef; if you’re too partial to drink, don’t run a brewery. Every time someone says, ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ there’s a person who knows them well, who’s thinking, ‘I know exactly what came over you: it’s come over you 73 times before.’ Trust with others is built by being honest with ourselves. Christ is the trapeze artist who never lets us go, but there’s no point wanting Christ to catch us if we’re masquerading as someone else.

Here are the three core constituents of trust: a true story, healthy actions, and self-acceptance. Look at them closely and you see a true story is about trusting God; healthy actions are about fostering trust with other people; and acceptance is about building trust with oneself. Underlying all three is a vital and often overlooked fourth ingredient. And that’s restoration. There’s a tragedy about Christianity. That tragedy is that Christians have been so keen on the second of these dimensions – so keen on right and noble actions, so eager to be praised for good works, and of unblemished character – that they’ve forgotten the heart of the gospel. The heart of the gospel is that we get it wrong, over and over and over, and that forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration are the closest things in this life we get to resurrection. But we constantly forget this, even though in the process we forget the first dimension, God’s truthful story, and the third dimension, our true selves. The result is, when we forget the first dimension, we become judgemental, and when we forget the third dimension, we become hypocritical. And a judgemental and hypocritical church is a horrible, ugly and unworthy thing.

You may think it’s strange that this is a sermon about Romans chapter 6 and I’m yet to use the word ‘sin,’ even though it occurs 17 times in this chapter. I’ll tell you why. If we start with sin, we turn God into an insecure detective who’s obsessed with observing our shortcomings – and as guilty of undermining our relationship as we are. So instead, we start with what we were created for, which is to be with God, one another and the wider creation. And being with is founded on trust, because trust ensures every facet of being with is truly being enjoyed, rather than used for some ulterior purpose. And trust has three dimensions: trusting in the truthful story of God, trusting in the honourable actions of one another, and trusting in our healthy knowledge of ourselves.

The mistake we make about sin is to fixate on the second dimension, right actions, and to obscure the other three dimensions. We obscure the truthful story, because we forget the whole story is about grace, and so become judgemental. Yes, there must be justice: but for Christians, justice is always in service to mercy. We obscure the self-acceptance story, because we forget we ourselves are limited, fragile, yet forgivable people, and so we become hypocritical. We obscure the restoration story because we become so fixated on phrases like zero tolerance that we create a world where, when we realise they’re not perfect, everyone and everything are ultimately and finally rejected – including every part of ourselves. The gospel is that the moment you realise others and yourself are not perfect is not the end of the story – but the beginning.

The Christian life is not a board game we win if we get through life without sinning. If we treat it like that, we assume it’s a competition and we judge people to ensure they finish below us, and we pretend we’re better than we are in the hope we finish the game before anyone rumbles us. Our good and healthy actions are not a bargaining chip to get us to heaven, a cash transfer to offset the deficit of our shortcomings, or a proud display to convince others even if we can’t fool God. Instead, our healthy actions are a token of inexpressible gratitude for the immeasurable gift of life and the indescribable wonder of grace, and our attempt to inhabit and anticipate the utter being-with that God has prepared for us.

In the end, we’re not isolated beings, suspended in mid-universe for an idle moment, without meaning or purpose. We’re created to be with God, one another and the creation. Sometimes we forget that – the trust it requires, and the actions that foster it. At such moments we stumble and fall. But at precisely such moments, however far we fall, Christ, the great trapeze artist, whose dexterity was stretched when his limbs were spreadeagled on the cross, reaches out those same everlasting arms, and clasps us fast, and holds our gaze, and says, ‘I will never let you go.’