Getting It Right

(sermon 8/2/20)

Romans 9:1-5

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever.

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A number of years back, when I was in seminary and studying for the battery of ordination exams, I was preparing for the Bible Exegesis exam. This was the exam where you dissected a particular portion of scripture, analyzing it within its original language and cultural/historical context, and interpreting its meaning. I don’t remember all of the details of the exam, but I do remember that in advance, they told all the applicants that it would be based on one of two or three different specific texts, and to be ready to analyze any one of the three. This particular year, one of the possible texts was Romans 9-11, the section of the apostle Paul’s letter that contains today’s second reading. And I really hoped that they were going to select one of the other texts, because I really hated Romans 9-11 – not because I couldn’t analyze or understand it, but because I could. This section of Romans is a summary of Paul’s thoughts regarding why the vast majority of his fellow Jews hadn’t accepted the claim that Jesus was the Messiah; and what their fate in the ultimate history of salvation would be as a result of that rejection. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t anything good in Paul’s estimation. From his own first-century vantage point, honestly maybe a bit too close to the situation to be objective, Paul didn’t paint a very positive picture of the Jews, and his words here set the stage for all the subsequent anti-Jewish sentiment that would plague the Christian Church and European – and American cultures ever since. Theologians have wrestled with Paul’s writing and thoughts here about the Jews for two thousand years. As far as I’m concerned, the best, simplest theological commentary on this section of Romans was offered by Ken Wilkinson, a retired Presbyterian minister in my home congregation in Columbus, who once summarized this passage by saying simply  that “Sometimes, Paul just got it wrong.” Back then, it shocked me to hear a minister say something like that, but after that time, when I started pursuing the ministry and I began to study the scriptures more deeply, I eventually came to realize that Ken was right about Paul sometimes getting it wrong.

So I hated Romans 9-11 because of all the harm that it’s caused – and I still do, for that matter – and because I didn’t want to open up that whole can of worms as part of an ordination exam, I hoped and certainly prayed that it wouldn’t be the text for the exam.

So of course, you know what text the exam was based on… Apparently, it turned out OK, since I passed and I’m here today, but still, it was a pretty stressful experience.

The little snippet of this text that we heard today is a fairly mild part of the whole section of chapters 9 through 11. At very least, in its own way it indicates that while Paul thought his countrymen were all wrong and all ultimately doomed to hell, he still had compassion for them – so much so that he says here that he would be willing to give up his own salvation; he himself would be willing to be cursed by God, if in some way it would result in the salvation of his fellow Jews.

Now again, even while I believe that Paul was wrong in his assessment of the Jewish people, his comment here is an impressive thing. It’s a remarkable illustration of the type and extent of compassion and care that he had for them, and by extension that Christ calls all of his followers to have for others. To be willing to put yourself out, to inconvenience yourself, to bear a cost yourself, in order to extend compassion and to help others. To not demand what you might otherwise be entitled to, or have a right to, in order to benefit others.

I’m going to be honest, even in the face of today’s other wonderful Lectionary texts that would have been fun to preach about this morning, it was this snippet from a larger, particularly troubling part of the Letter to the Romans, that most caught my attention. Not because it caused any great new revelation; we all know that what Paul is describing is the kind of self-giving, even costly love that we’re called to as followers of Christ. What caught my attention was the disconnect between being reminded of this radical kind of compassion we Christians are supposed to have for others; and the way so many Christians today are screaming bloody murder about being deprived of their right to assemble in large gatherings to worship, in order to be compassionate to others and not help spread a potentially deadly virus in the midst of a global pandemic. In a time when, as Lora C. pointed out earlier today, we’ve gone back to having a full page of obituaries in the Sunday Courier-Journal.

Think about that contrast: In order to help save others, Paul was willing to give up his salvation for all eternity; a lot of modern-day Christians aren’t willing to put themselves out for a few months.  

Don’t get me wrong. I get the discomfort that these Christians feel. I share their discomfort. I really miss our communal worship, our fellowship, our music, our togetherness. It all nourishes and restores my soul, and I’m definitely feeling the effects of missing that. And I know you are, too. I know it’s hard for you; it’s hard for me, too. But still, we need to stay committed to waiting for just a while longer – truly no time at all in the grand scheme of things – in order to have that kind of compassion, concern, consideration for others. The time will come when we’ll all be ale to gather together again, I promise.

Until then, how can we stay strong? How do we keep our spirits lifted? How do we restore our souls and live with peace and joy? I think we do that by hearing the words from God found in Isaiah – Ho, come to the water, the life-giving water, all you who are thirsty. By holding fast to God’s goodness and wisdom and mercy. By knowing and feeling the joy that comes from Christ dwelling within us, through good times and bad.

We can have that joy, and we can stand strong in that kind of costly compassion, because we know that the eternal, loving God of all creation loves us, knows us by name, considers us precious. Dwells within us, and strengthens us in love. Because this same God doesn’t just call us to those living waters that sustain us; God actively pursues us and leads us and draws us to those waters.

This past week, J. Herbert Nelson, our Stated Clerk, issued a video encouraging all Presbyterian congregations to continue showing compassion and concern for others by continuing to worship online, and continuing social distancing policies as the pandemic continues to harm and kill people across the country. Together, with God’s help, we can and we must continue to express this kind of costly, self-giving, inconveniencing love and compassion to others until it’s safe to be together again.

There’s no doubt in my mind that in Romans 9-11, and in a few other places as well, Paul just got it wrong. The good news for us is that God loves us, and enables us, and empowers us, to do better than Paul where he got it wrong, and to emulate him where he got it right.

Thanks be to God.