Have you ever felt "trapped between a rock and a hard place"? Have you ever experienced what we sometimes call "double jeopardy," where regardless of what you choose to do, you are "damned if you do and damned if you don't"? Perhaps you have seen a classic example of "double jeopardy." Someone is trapped high up in a burning building. They can't go back into the building because of the fire. But they can't jump either, because it will be to their certain death. Have you ever been on a frozen pond in the middle of winter when the ice begins to slowly crack under your feet? You can't stay put with the ice slowly caving in under your feet, but if you start to move, the pressure from your steps pressing on the ice will only make the ice crack more quickly. There is no good choice. You are in "double jeopardy." You are "trapped between a rock and a hard place," "damned if you do and damned if you don't."

That is the way Paul describes the experience of his own life in today's reading from the letter to the Romans. In an often-quoted verse, Paul laments his no-win situation: "For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (Romans 7:19).

What Paul is describing is his experience of sin and the hold it has on his life. Our modern, enlightened world doesn't like to talk about sin. It would rather explain it away. Sin is a mistake, an error in judgment, or a bad choice. It is little more than trying to "sneak one on the side." It is nothing more than indulging in a forbidden pleasure or engaging in some naughty indiscretion. As long as you don't get caught, it isn't a sin. Sin is being the victim of an unhealthy social environment created by poverty, poor education, or neglectful parenting. Sin is the result of low self-esteem. A little determination here or moral instruction there (Give 'em the Ten Commandments!) can make everything right.

For Paul, dealing with sin is not quite so easy. It is not even so easily explained. For Paul, sin is captivity to a power from which he cannot escape. Regardless of how hard he tries, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do."

The Bible uses a variety of images to describe the nature of sin. It can be a beast crouching at the door ready to pounce on its victim, you. It can be an error, a mistake, like an archer missing the mark. It can be like a sheep straying from the fold. It can be like being lost in the wilderness. Sin fractures and violates our relationship to God. It can be rebellion against God, distrust of God, and animosity toward God. Whatever sin is, it is not normal. It disrupts our relationship with God, with our neighbors, and with the world around us. Saint Augustine described it as the incurvatus se (curved in on itself) of the human will. In other words, the three favorite words of every sinner are "me, myself, and I." The Augsburg Confession describes sin as being "without fear and love of God and concupiscence." Something is missing and something is present. We are without fear and the love of God. There is an emptiness in our hearts that we can never seem to fill. As a result, something is present in us. We are always restless, always searching and longing for someone or something in whom our hearts can rest.

We are captive to this sin. There is not a moment of our lives, even from the moment of our conception, that we are not captive to the power of this sin. Therefore, the church calls it original sin because it is in us from the moment of our origin. There is no way, short of our deaths, that we can escape the power of this sin on our lives. We are in captivity.

There is a strange irony to this original sin. Even though we are born in sin, we are not just victims only. Original sin is not just another version of the domino theory. It is not just that we are the umpteenth millionth billionth domino in a long line of dominoes that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. It is not just that they pushed over the first domino in a long line of billions of dominoes called human history and we now are simply victims of circumstance, caught up in social, historical, and biological forces beyond our control. No. At the same time this predicament is also our fault. Sin is not just the inevitable consequence of being born a human being but it is also the willful and culpable result of a free choice made by free creatures who could have behaved otherwise but chose not to. In other words, sin and specifically original sin, is always experienced as a kind of "double jeopardy." We are "caught between a rock and hard place." We are free to choose but we always end up making bad choices.

Martin Luther wrestled with this issue in what he called his most important writing, The Bondage of the Will. It was written against the great humanist scholar and devout Christian, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus argued for "free will." God wouldn't have given humans the commandments if we didn't have the freedom and ability to obey or disobey them. In response Luther argued, "Yes" and "No." Yes, we are free to choose to do or not to do certain things. But we are not free to choose to be something that we are not. A pig may want to fly but it can't fly. Pigs just don't fly. Likewise, sinners may choose to do or not to do certain things. But sinners can't choose to not be sinners. We are not free not to sin. We are captive to the power of sin, and yet we must continually make choices. Because of this captivity, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." We are "caught between a rock and a hard place." We continually are trapped in "double jeopardy."

There are numerous examples of this in the New Testament. Jesus continually confronts people with this gruesome reality. One of my favorite examples of this is in Matthew 18 and the parable of the unforgiving servant. In the parable, Jesus speaks of a servant who owed his master a huge debt. Let's say millions of dollars. The time comes for the master to collect what is owed him. The servant is unable to pay. The master is outraged and determines to sell the servant along with his wife, children, and all his possessions in order for him to recoup what was owed him. The servant falls on his knees and begs his master for a second chance. Mercifully, the master grants it to him.

Now there was another servant who owed this first servant a very small debt, let's say 25 cents. The first servant demands immediate payment. But the second servant is unable to pay him back. He pleads for mercy and a second chance. But the first servant will not give it to him and instead throws him in prison. When the other servants saw how cruel this unforgiving servant had been, they report him to the master. The master is ticked! He summons the unforgiving servant and reads him the riot act for not being able to show a little mercy to this servant who owed him only 25 cents after the master had shown him such great mercy by forgiving him a huge debt. He orders the servant thrown into prison. Then Jesus wraps up the story by warning his hearers that this is what God will do to them if they do not forgive as God has forgiven them.

This is a classic story with the prototypical good guy versus bad guy story line, a plot filled with tension and a resolution of the tension with a happy ending. The bad guy, the unforgiving servant, gets what he deserves. And we, the listeners, utter a sigh of relief. All is well as the sun goes down in the west. Good triumphs over evil, and we are confident that we do indeed live in a moral universe where right and wrong matter. This is the normal, typical human reaction to a story like this. It is so normal and so typical that we can't help but react any other way.

Then we realize what Jesus has done to us. As in so many of his parables, Jesus "traps" the listener. He drags us into the story and before we realize it, we discover that the story is about us. Do you see what our natural, human reaction to a story like this reveals about us? We are the unforgiving servant! We, by nature, have unforgiving hearts. We take great satisfaction in settling the score and balancing the scales of justice. We like to see people get what they deserve. We delight in the fact that this unforgiving servant had to pay for his sin. And in that reaction, even though we hardly could have reacted any other way, Jesus exposes our captivity to sin and our unwillingness to forgive even after God has forgiven us. We couldn't help ourselves. We couldn't have responded any other way to this story. We chose but we had no choice. We could not do otherwise. We were trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Jesus does the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount. He cites the Fifth Commandment. "You have heard that it was said, ‘Thou shalt not kill.' " Everyone who hears this knows what Jesus is talking about. Don't kill anyone. We feel good about what Jesus has said because we know that we have not killed or murdered anyone. We fell pretty safe, pretty righteous. Then Jesus upsets the applecart. He says, "But I say to you that if your are angry with someone ... or insult someone ... or call someone a name, you are headed for hell." Oops! Who of us has not done this? We all are guilty. No one has clean hands. Then why does God command us to do something that he knows we cannot do? To expose us to the nature of our captivity? We are captive to the power of sin and there is nothing we can do about it.

Our sin starts with the fact that all of us, by nature (as the Augsburg Confession reminds us), have no fear and love of God. We, by nature, from the moment we come into this world are unable to totally trust God. We need to be constantly assured that we are okay. We need to know what we have to do to get right with God because our sinful nature has convinced us that we are not right with God.

Back to Matthew 18 and Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant. This parable is introduced by a very interesting question from Peter. Peter wants to know how many times he has to forgive another in order to remain in good standing with Jesus. He thought he had all his bases covered by suggesting seventy times seven. Peter's question was just the pious arrogance of an original sinner. It assumes that he has got to do something, forgive so many times, in order to please Jesus, and then everything will be okay. Jesus tells him the parable of the unforgiving servant to show him how wrong his question was to begin with. Only sinners think they can do something to please God. Jesus' answer reveals what a foolish and deadly assumption this is.

In Luke 18, we see Jesus doing the same thing again as he exposes a sinner to the nature of his captivity. He does it by helping him experience "double jeopardy," that he is "trapped between a rock and a hard place," "damned if you do and damned if you don't."

A rich and pious ruler, the ancient version of Billy Graham and Bill Gates combined, wants to become one of Jesus' followers. He wants to show off his credentials. So, he asks Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Already this question exposes his broken and sinful heart. He reflects his lack of faith and trust in God. He can't help but think that he has got to do something to win heavenly brownie points. And worse yet, he assumes that he is capable of doing it. Given his outstanding track record of business success and religious piety, he must have thought that he had a pretty good chance of passing the test.

Jesus knows that all is not well. He knows that this man's heart is not right with God. He may have a pretty good record of humanitarian kindness, but when it comes to his relationship with God, he is more in love with himself than with God. What Jesus does next exposes that. He tells him to sell all that he has, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus. Of course, he can't do it. He is unable to trust God that much! He walks away sulking. Jesus then drops the punch line: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

The crowd that had been standing around watching this exchange got it. They realized how impossible it is to trust God like this, about as possible as a camel passing through the eye of a needle. In their frustration and despair they cry out, "Then who can be saved?" implying that no one could ever do what Jesus had demanded of this man.

Jesus has got them just where he wants them. He has trapped them, just like he trapped the rich ruler and us, the readers of this story. Jesus exposes to us all just how captive to the power of sin we are. It is impossible to escape its hold on us regardless of how hard we try.

It is no wonder then that Paul in today's reading cries, "Wretched man that I am! Who is able to rescue me from this body of death?" Paul obviously can't do it. We can't do it, either. We are trapped and yet it is our fault. We are caught between a rock and hard place. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. We are captive to sin and can't escape. We are inevitably caught and yet morally culpable. It just isn't fair!

But in the very last line of today's reading Paul cries out the good news: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Likewise, Jesus says to the confused and bewildered crowd in Luke 18, "What is impossible for man is possible for God! ... And that will be accomplished in me!" And that is what Jesus did. He joined us in our captivity. He became one of the wretched of this world. He took our sin with him to the cross and there suffered the fate that every human captive to the power of sin must suffer: death. God loves us so much that God is willing to take upon himself the very death sentence that every captive sinner deserves.

God's love is determined to do more than to just join us in our captivity. God's love is more than "misery loves company." Jesus is raised. The strangle hold that sin has held upon humanity is broken. The double jeopardy, the "damned if you do and damned if you don't" predicament that we find ourselves in has come to an end. God has set the captive free!

The God who would do this for us is certainly worthy of our faith and trust. Unlike the pushy Peter and unlike the pesky rich ruler, we no longer have to run around wondering what we have to do to win heavenly brownie points. No, God has forgiven us. The captives are free. We are now free to be what God has created us to be. We get to believe that.

For the last several years, we have been blessed with visits by one of the musical groups from Youth Encounter. Our middle school youth especially enjoy their visit. The personnel in the group change every year, but the name stays the same. Every year the group that visits is called Captive Free. I don't know if Youth Encounter had this in mind for the name of the group, but I think it is an excellent name for a Christian "rock group." The name wonderfully reflects the struggle, the tension, the conflict, that is at the heart and center of the Christian life. That name describes what we all are in Christ. We are captive to the power of sin in our lives and everyday struggle against it. At the same time in Christ we are free from the power of sin to serve our neighbors and care for the world around us. That tension can be expressed in a variety of ways. Not only captive and free but also lost and found, dead and alive, repentant and faithful, ... sinner and saint.

Little Johnny was a disobedient child, always trying to get away with something. One afternoon his hand got caught in the proverbial cookie jar.

"Johnny, I told you not to!"

"But I was hungry and there was no way I could wait for supper."

"No excuses, Johnny."

"But there are still over two hours until supper!"

"You were told, Johnny. No exceptions."

"But my stomach hurt. It was growling."

"Johnny, you need to accept responsibility for your actions."

"Mom, you know how I love chocolate!"

"Will you ever change?"

Johnny was sure that he was going to have to pay big time for his sin. Surely there would be no television tonight. He was going to have to go to bed early.

"Johnny, come here."

He cowered in fear. All he could see were the laces on his shoes.

"Okay, Mom, I was just trying to get away with one, hoping that I wouldn't get caught. But I still couldn't help myself."

"I know."

"You knew this all along ... and still...."

"Yes, Johnny, I love you anyway!"

And Johnny never had a hug feel so good. It felt like a burden had been lifted, like the chains had been cut loose, like the captive had been set free.

That is surely our plight. We are captive, trapped, caught in double jeopardy, damned if we do and damned if we don't. But Jesus says to folks just like us, "Come to me, all you that are weary and heavy laden ... all you who are in captivity, and I will give you rest — and I will set you free."

That is exactly what he does every time you come to this place to hear the words of comfort and to eat and drink at his table. I am sure that is why you came here this morning. You will not be disappointed. With Paul you can rejoice, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Amen.