Sermon: God’s Irrevocable Gifts and Calling

Text: Romans 11

20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

August 17, 2008

Scripture introduction.  As you may imagine, there are shelves and shelves of commentaries on the book of Romans.  Just when we thought there might be nothing to add to the research on Paul, one scholar recently has come up with a fresh approach.  According to commentator Robert Jewett,[1] Paul’s letter to the Romans is best understood in light of his purpose of extending his missionary activities to Spain.  In contrast to all the other places where Paul preached the gospel, in first-century Spain there were no Jewish communities.  Almost no one in Spain spoke Paul’s languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  Official correspondence was in Latin, and the common people spoke dialects of Celt-Iberian.  In Paul’s day the Old Testament had not yet been translated into Latin, so very few persons in Spain would have been familiar with the Jewish Scriptures, which were central to Paul’s gospel message.  In fact, even the powerful Roman Empire had only a tenuous hold on the countryside of Spain.  In order to be successful in a Spanish mission, Paul would require help from those in the official Roman establishment there, as well as persons who had contacts among the common people of Spain.  For the first time in his missionary activities, he would need translators and persons to facilitate his travel; but he didn’t know any such persons.  In Rome, which was the hub of the empire, there were Spanish natives and persons connected with the Roman government in Spain.  Members of the churches in Rome, if they chose to, could introduce him to such persons—and lend their financial support.

But the Roman churches did not know Paul.  They were founded by other missionaries.  Meeting in different houses or apartment buildings in the city, these churches themselves appear to have been divided, some being comprised mainly of Jewish Christians and others of Gentile Christians.  Some churches had wealthy members, and others poor.  And they all looked down on the residents of Spain as barbarians.  If Paul’s mission to Spain were to be successful, he somehow had to unify the Roman churches, convincing them that no person or group—neither Jew nor Gentile, neither rich nor poor, neither Roman nor barbarian—was inherently better than any other group in the Kingdom of God.  As I read portions of Romans 11, see if you can’t hear Paul telling both Jews and Gentiles that neither has any justification for being “uppity.” 

Sermon.  In earlier parts of Romans, Paul seems to be addressing the Jewish Christians of Rome; and he minces no words in telling them that neither their law nor their ancestry gives them any special status within the Christian church.  In chapter 3, he makes the point that no one is righteous before God and that each of us—no matter what our ancestry or character—relies for justification solely upon the grace of God.

Especially if Professor Jewett is correct about there being divisions in Rome between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, we can easily see that in chapters 9 through 11 Paul is shifting his focus to the Gentile Christians.  The passage we just read is filled with language cautioning the Gentiles that they owe much to the Jewish people and that God has not finished the plan yet.  Let me just lift up a few of Paul’s points. 

First, he says explicitly that God has not rejected the Jews.  He is bold to list himself as the prime example, one who is Jewish and has become a believer.  “Hey, I’m a Jew and a Christian; and there are many others like me, many of them in Rome.  God has not abandoned us!”  Citing previous examples from Old Testament history, Paul understands that Jewish Christians are a “remnant” from the Jewish people whom God has preserved and accepted, even when the rest of the Jews have gone astray.  Then what about the rest of the Jews—the ones who have not become believers in Jesus as the Messiah?  Paul acknowledges that by not believing, his fellow Jews have stumbled.  However, they have not fully fallen.  They have tripped but have not hit the ground. 

Second, Paul writes that God is using Jewish unbelief as an opportunity to bring Gentiles into faith.  As a practical matter, if all the Jews immediately had become Christians in the first century, then Christianity might have remained ethnically confined to the Jewish people.  The fact that Jewish Christians were sometimes rejected by their fellow Jews virtually forced them to evangelize other, non-Jewish populations.  And thus, the gospel spread throughout the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world and, Paul hopes, might extend westward to Spain.  However, according to Paul’s inspiration, even the salvation of Gentiles eventually will benefit the Jews.  Paul believes that in some way Gentile Christians will provoke the Jews to good imitation. 

Third, according to Paul Gentile Christians should not consider themselves better than the Jews—even unbelieving Jews.  After all, everything that Christians believe has its roots in Jewish history and tradition.  Paul actually uses the metaphor of the olive tree to illustrate his point.  “Gentiles were wild olive trees,” he wrote, “and now some of you branches from the wild trees have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree of Israel.”  Even the non-agriculturally gifted among us know that the grafted branches could never survive without the strong trunk and root system.  “And so,” Paul says, “you Gentiles depend upon Jewish history and tradition.”  Furthermore, Paul reminds the Gentiles that if God could graft wild olive branches onto the trunk of the cultivated tree, God can even more easily graft the original branches—the Jews—back in.

Fourth, the unbelief of the Jewish people is only temporary.  Paul says very clearly in verse 26 that “all Israel will be saved.”  It may not happen until the day when the reign of God arrives in its fullest, but, Paul says, one day it will happen.  The Jewish unbelievers may have made themselves opponents of the gospel, but they remain beloved by God.  Their gifts and their calling, Paul says, are irrevocable.  Their disobedience will not block God’s plan nor God’s mercy.  Paul reminds the Gentile Christians that everyone is disobedient—Gentiles, too—and God is in the business of showing mercy to the disobedient. 

Finally—and perhaps Paul should have made this point first—God has revealed only some of God’s plan for dealing with the Jewish people.  We do not know the mind of God, so there is a limit to how many of our questions will be answered on this side of the Jordan.

When we Christians make statements about how God has dealt or will deal with the Jews, we had better be very careful.  Our record in this area is not too good.  From the time of Constantine, Christians have been guilty of persecuting Jews.[2]  Some of the greatest theologians of the Christian church—persons like Augustine, Justin,[3] and Luther[4]—have written very embarrassing and unbiblical criticisms of the Jews. In the Middle Ages Good Friday often became an excuse for frenzied Christian hoodlums to prowl the Jewish ghettos, abusing the Jews and destroying their property, all based on the ridiculous allegation that these Jews had “killed Christ.”  We know all too well what some Christians did to the Jews during World War II.  And anti-Semitism has not gone away.  Graffiti swastikas appeared in Terre Haute as late as this summer.[5]  Admittedly, they were directed at Asians and African-Americans; but the vandals’ choice of the Nazi swastika leaves little doubt that their hatred extends also to the Jews.  Even among polite society and some church folks, we still occasionally hear a Jewish joke.  In an age when the Jewish population of the world is declining rapidly, even a call to Christian evangelism of the Jews can sound to them a lot like a call for their extinction.  So, we should be very cautious when we interpret what Paul has to say about the Jews.

Fully realizing the sensitivity of the issue, let me offer some guidelines that I try to use when interacting with my Jewish friends and acquaintances[6]:

·         I want my interactions with Jews to be characterized by humility and a constant recognition of how much we Christians—at the very heart of our gospel—depend upon Jewish scripture and tradition.

·         I want never to never forget that modern Judaism and Christianity have common origins and that we worship and pray to the same God.

·         I strive to be very circumspect in any attempt to evangelize the Jews, remembering that God’s covenant with them is not broken and that God’s calling of them as a people is irrevocable.  Especially with the Jews my evangelism should be through action, rather than words.  Perhaps, as Paul suggests, God will use our good Christian example to attract some Jews.  (In this I am humbled because, quite frankly, many Jews outdo me in works that benefit our fellow humans and that give glory to God.)

·         If Jewish persons should ask me about my faith, that is, if they should take the initiative, I should not hesitate—gently and reverently and with an emphasis not on doctrine but on my own personal experience—to give an account of my Christian hope.[7]  If they describe their own faith as Jews, I should listen appreciatively, seeking to find commonality between our experiences.

·         I should never forget that, although the details of God’s plan for the Jews remain a mystery, God in some way will bring them all to salvation.  Beyond the modest measures I have outlined above, I am content to leave that in God’s hands.

·         I hope that I will have the courage to defend Jews against discrimination and abuse and to place myself in solidarity alongside them when they become targets.  This does not require a slavish agreement with everything the modern state of Israel might do.  Indeed, many Jews disagree with some policies of the Israeli government.  However, any disagreement I might express should begin with a recognition of the Christian persecution that led to the creation of that state.

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In point of fact, the apostle Paul never made it to Spain, and his only journey to Rome was as a prisoner.  But the gospel he preached and wrote about—decades before Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written—requires that we consider all persons worthy of God’s love and that we recognize God’s calling in other groups, although they may be very different from us.  It is this gospel that was so attractive to the frontier farmers, the urban factory workers, and the African-Americans who—each in their own way—shaped the gospel music tradition that we celebrate in our service today.  Every time we hear a gospel hymn, may it remind us that in God’s plan everyone has a place.