Concluding Romans Rewrite

Dear Siblings in Christ,

         This shall be the final letter I, Paul, write to you all.

         I blush, just thinking of how to sum it all up.

         I guess, if I had to sum it all up, it would be with the single word—reconciliation.

         In Rome, the divisions between Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian came out most fully at mealtime.

The Traditionalist Jewish Christians—I will call them the Weak—refused to eat Meat, because it had been sacrificed to Idols.

The Liberated Gentile Christians—I will call them the Strong—went ahead and ate this meat, assured that if there is only one God, then the Idols are nothing.

        

         These divisions may sound silly to you today—but I assure you these were issues that could make or break the Christian community in Rome—or anywhere else. Issues of Traditionalism and Liberty at tension in community—that’s nothing new, nor I would add, something old.

         The revelation that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed of God

-turns everything upside down,

-it shakes the whole world and reshapes the universe.

         Every division is fractured, every signal of separation is split!

…But then what?

How do we all live together after this earthquake-level shift?

This spiritual flood that transforms the landscape of life, forever?

         You Traditionalist, you Weak Ones!

Everything you held dear, every way of measuring things—just doesn’t work any more. You lack the vision to value this new world in which you live!

Your ongoing judgment is an attempt to take away God’s job—is it not written, “Judgment is mine says the LORD”?

         You need to go back to the font of faith—recommit to trusting God… that even in the strange new world we find ourselves, God continues to act

yes—even here—God is faithful…trust God, even when it feels like up is down and left is right.

Even in the chaos of the world as it now is, trust that God has not abandoned you—in fact, God goes ahead of you, crossing every boundary you’ve decided is the mark in the sand; decided it is the place you will not cross.

If Christ can cross the boundary of death—I assure you he can cross any barrier you try to put up to uphold your understanding of morality and mortality.

         Those things that your fellow Christians are doing that seem out of bounds—look at them carefully, try, really try, to see how they are honoring and giving thanks to God in a new way.

Accept that they are honoring God differently, and how they are living is a matter between them and God.

         Now… you better wipe that smile off your face, you so called Liberated Ones—you “Strong” Ones!

Sure, you’ve figured out how to ride the chaos of this time period, of all these changes.

In fact, you got it right! You are living faithfully in this new world—you’ve read the Spirit’s calling more faithfully than the Traditionalists, you trust God in the midst of all these things…

         You’ve got it right… so don’t make fools of yourself!

Don’t despise the Traditionalists!

Don’t live in this new way in such a way that their consciences can’t handle it.

Make sure you do things with a good intention, and don’t leave room for people to mimic you in a way that makes a mockery out of your new and faithful way of being Christian.

         You need to know, when I discovered Christian Liberty it was the best thing I’d ever known, if you make it Libertine you debase the most excellent of things!

         Do you hear me? Being right in such a way that you ruin someone else’s ability to trust God is always wrong!

         If your liberation means you no longer love your fellow Christian—then it isn’t really liberation!

        

         To you both, both weak and strong alike—I say by way of prayer: “May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another as Christ Jesus would wish it, so with one voice you might Glorify God!”

         Glorify God; be an offering to God!

         Be an offering to God, by the way you share with one another and with those in need.

         Be an offering to God, by living your whole life as little Christs.

         Be an offering to God, by being reconciled to one another, and in so doing break open the whole world, that it might be knit together again—that the discordant chords sung about the earth might hear your sweet song and become the mightiest melody to ever exist!

         I sing out to God on your behalf, “bring them pardon and peace. Reconcile them all, O’ Lord.”

         The Church, the Body of Christ

-when its divisions end…

-when Christians come together in love…

-when you say “The Peace of Christ be with you. And also with you.” And mean it…

         That reminds the world of what God has done in Jesus… that is, the ultimate victory of Christ over the power of Sin, Death, and the Devil—its there, in your midst!

         It is what makes Jesus known as Christ!

         Reconciliation within Christian community, reveals that Jesus is the Anointed One!

        

         Cling always to Christ Jesus revealed to us by God the All-wise, to whom be the glory forever, through that same Jesus Christ. Amen.

Romans 12

Dear Siblings in Christ,

         It is worth reflecting on what I’ve said up until now, before we move on to a new subject:

         Remember, we are infected and used by that parasite Sin.

         Remember, that we are saved by that unstoppable love and promise of God revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.

         Remember, that we continue to try and clog up God’s mercy, and yet God continues all the more to hold us fast with the mysterious works of His grace.

         I remind you of this, because it speaks to the seriousness of our actions, and also, the gentle / power of God’s actions.

         Just as the cultural and religious practices I wrote to you about can muddy the clear love of God for all people

—our actions may also show God’s love forth more clearly… a mirror can be scuffed or it can be shiny—what it is reflecting doesn’t change.

We’re all made in the image of God, reflecting God’s love

—I hope we as a community might be as reflective of that love as possible.

         Some might jump out of their seats at this statement—they might ask, is that Paul I hear? Because, you see, I often get a bad rap.

         There is a whole genre of screed—a whole way of talking about me—that I find hurtful, and for that matter, only works if you’ve not actually read what I’ve written.

         There are people who point out that I never knew the Christ before the resurrection. This is clearly true, but what follows is less so…

         They then go on to say, okay, maybe Paul’s fine at talking about what Christ has done for us on the cross and in the empty tomb—that he’s saved us.

But, they add, he never knew the Jesus who Mary and Peter and Matthew, and all the Disciples, knew. So, they say with smug satisfaction, he never knew Jesus, his teachings, or his commands, and therefore his witness is invalid and untrue. He doesn’t get to tell people about Christ.

         And to be fair to them, the Creeds of the Church that followed several centuries after me, did focus on death and resurrection, seemingly without a focus on Jesus’ teachings.

         “Born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate”—skips 30 crucial years, right?

That said, if we take seriously our confession “Jesus is our Lord” it seems obvious that we ought to ask, what does my Lord require?

        

-I will admit I am one who was late born, I did not have the opportunity to know Jesus before the resurrection, but I would add that the same can be said of you, yet Jesus still speaks in his Church today!

-I would add, that if you see Christ’s death and resurrection as a small thing, you may need to take time to consider them again.

-I would add, that if you don’t see the freedom won by Christ for us as having ethical implications for your life, you need to look more deeply in your heart and more squarely at your neighbor’s needs.

-Finally, it is worth stating that I did spend time with the disciples. Some even suggest the church of Antioch that produced the Gospel of Matthew was my home congregation—which would explain all the fixation on strained community life in that Gospel—after all, wherever I go, it seems Christian Community gets all stirred up!

But perhaps I need no other defense of my Apostleship and my knowledge of Jesus’ teachings, save my own words to the Romans, and to you today

—if you are feeling ambitious, read Matthew 5-7 and Romans 12-15 together… it will be eye opening.

All I’m saying today, is the same thing Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, my words earnestly expound upon Jesus’ Beatitudes—those blessings he called forth on that majestic mountain!

My words just happen to be pointed to a particular congregation. I’m just helping them, and you, reflect God’s love as a community!

This deep love from God, which you all reflect…

I hope it is genuine. I hope it is as real as the love we see between siblings or best friends or lovers.

         I hope you take yourselves seriously. You bear the image of God—don’t sell yourself short, and don’t let anyone else sell you out either.

         I hope you consider regularly how you can shine that light, which is already there, to the whole world!

         I hope you consider how you can honor that image in others, remind them of how beloved they are, no matter who they are!

         Remind them through hospitality, charity, patience, prayer, and hope—through all these, God’s love might be reflected to the whole world.

        

         What I’m calling you to is a hard thing for all of us, whether we’re beginners in belief or have trusted God for a good long time, yet it helps people see what God is doing in Christ Jesus our Lord!

         You will be persecuted, in those situations do not curse those who persecute you, but bless them—as Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for my name’s sake.”

         You will come across folk in all kinds of moods, rejoice with the joyous, cry with the mourners. Didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”?

         Live together in harmony, don’t be haughty, know the limits of your wisdom and make your home with the lowly—after all didn’t Jesus says, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”?

         Do not repay evil with evil—that just makes more evil, our Lord did instruct us, “if you are struck, turn the other cheek.”

         Live peacefully with everyone, for Jesus said, “blessed are the peacemakers.”

         Love not only each other, not only the stranger, but even those who hate you and spitefully misuse you.

         Love as completely as God loves—for in so doing, God’s love, mercy, and grace might be known to all.

         Live with the assumption that the goal of life is the redemption of all of us—after all, evil isn’t to be destroyed, it is to be redeemed!

Our Faithful Best Guess

         I’ve been struck this last week by the enormities of what so many of us are dealing with, either directly or, more often, in the faces of our friends, family, and neighbors.
Sickness and declining health,
depression,
accidents,
desperate financial straits,
being stuck in bureaucracies that crinkle the soul,
and on and on. 

         I wonder, what can we do? The only answer I can come up with is:
Our faithful best guess.

Prayer

Our faithful best guess.

         It would be easy to give up in the face of all these things.

 In fact, I think there is a story being told by the World that claims:

         For anything to really change, for anything to really matter, it has to be done by big and important people and institutions with grand designs and buckets of influence and a slick logo. 

         That, however, is not the Christian story
—a babe in a manger,
a woman returning from a tomb with some news,
a dozen or so people huddled together in an upper room,
they each transform the world for the good… 

         That’s our story, and it is a true one.
We each, and even more we together, have a grand power. We also, as Christians, have a calling. We’ve been adopted into God’s family at our baptism, and so we follow in Jesus’ footsteps in order to become more like him, more like the one who is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…

         More like him,
-loving and joyous in the face of sorrow and hate,
-peaceful and patient as war and haste rule the day,
-kind and good and faithful and gentle and self-controlled, while their opposites pile up in so many ways. 

         This is no small thing, to be a small Christ to our neighbors.
         No small thing, for entropy is the rule… what do I mean by Entropy? Simply this, left to their own devices, things fall apart; if no one expends the energy to maintain and care, there will be neither maintenance nor care.
         No small thing, for those to whom we extend tender care and kind interest are fellow human beings,
not some nebulous other;
they are marked with the image of God.

         It is for that reason we ought to be profligate,
wasteful and reckless,
with our generosity.
         Yes, our generosity will be abused at times, but in the face of a world poorly abused, people so often cast aside like trash,
so be it—better ten fake beggars receive bread than a truly needy one starve or be forced into sin,
better to lend a listening ear to an ungrateful gabber than withdraw that ear and the desperate go unheard and despair. 

Yes, there is risk in the Christian life
—we’ll make mistakes,
we’ll embarrass ourselves in failed attempts at faithfulness, but keep on, continue the race dear siblings in the Spirit.
         Keep on, because it is all a best guess! We walk a path with only modest lighting, but that’s okay
—we know the path ends where it began, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

         And if it is a best guess, destined for occasional failure and misunderstanding,
then we ought to follow Luther’s understanding of the 8^th commandment by giving everyone’s words and actions the benefit of the doubt. 

Hope that everyone is doing the best they can…
Not everyone is, I will openly admit that,
but act as if they are for, who knows, maybe by your example, you will convert them to kindness.

…      This best guess of ours, and believing that other people are doing the same,
it is so freeing!

—do the best you can, and then let it be.
You did what you could, you acted as faithfully as you could with the information you had at hand, don’t lose sleep over the rest. 

         Remember the promise of Sabbath! The world is capable of turning without you for a day, there are other faithful folk doing their faithful best as you rest.

         Our faithful best guess! For through Christ and in the Spirit, God has:
-forgiven us and freed us from overwork, faultfinding and anxiety,
-been generous with us so that we too may be generous beyond expectation,
-empowered us to be Spirit People in the face of Fleshy indifference and decay,
-and made us Children of God and followers of Christ, so that we might find power in weakness.

A+A

Romans 6:1b-11 for today

Dear Sibblings in Christ,

         I hear that some of you wonder at the Grace you’ve received from God through Jesus Christ. But, you wonder in a strange direction, perhaps even you wander, more than wonder—it is as if you are children seeking boundaries, participants in a new game wondering about breaking the rules, or explorers looking for the edge of the map, instead of paying attention to your footing.

         You ask of this Grace, if it is a great thing, because it overcomes Sin, how much greater would it be if we sinned a whole bunch more, so that it could overcome more Sin still?

You may not ask the question exactly like that of course, but you do ask questions like:

-If we’re saved by grace, what’s the point of doing good things?

-If God saves us despite ourselves, why does any of this matter?

-If it’s all about the love of God, why even talk about Sin?

         And when I hear these questions, I wonder at you all. It’s like you’ve waited your whole life for the woman of your dreams, you meet her, and the first question out of your mouth is, “I can cheat on her, right?”

         Dear Lord, what’s wrong with you people?

         Don’t you know you’ve been fused to Jesus?

         It’s like a marriage, all his stuff is yours and all your stuff is his.

         It’s like that famous exchange between Ruth and Naomi, where Ruth refuses to abandon Naomi, but instead says, “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

         It’s like the poor disciples in Matthew’s Gospel, “the disciple is like the teacher”... when they say he’s of the Devil, they’ll say that about you too—guilt by association—in this case association with Jesus.

         You’ve been buried with him, you share a grave. His resurrection is your new life, you share life!

         Don’t you get it?

         -Sin and Death made you their slave.

         -You were indebted to Sin and Death.

         … okay, maybe those metaphors don’t work with you all… a couple millennia have passed since I wrote Romans, after all…

Let’s try this one, I’ve watched your “TV” and have seen those ads that make cell phone plans out to be the worst thing ever to happen to humanity… You are so put upon by a wireless contract that you just don’t know what to do with yourself.

Well, you have just such a contract with Sin and Death, there is no way out!

Yet, such contracts only work if you’re alive,

-dead people don’t have cell phone plans

—the contract is considered terminated, when you are.

For that matter, going back to my original metaphors…

-Debts can’t be collected from the dead.

-Slaves can’t be ordered around, if they’ve slipped this mortal coil…

        

         Still not getting it? Need me to connect the dots for you… okay.

         Have you heard of Jujitsu?

It is a Japanese martial art started during the Samurai era—there was no way for a common person to defeat a heavily armored Samurai by force—the armored combatant always had the advantage as long as it was a question of force.

—but counterforce easily disables the much heavier opponent.

Jujitsu uses an opponent’s momentum and weight against them.

Why rush at an opponent rushing at you, when you can simply step out of the way and they fall down a hole or trip into a wall?

         So too, Jesus uses that inevitable crushing weight and momentum of Death, to nullify this contract Sin and Death has on you!

         In Christ’s death, Death kills all who are found on the side of Christ. And in so doing, they are all freed from the clutches of Sin and Death—the contract is null and void.

         Yes, we lose our life through this baptism into Christ, yet we find it in his resurrection. He has died to sin and now lives to God—and so do you.

         So, to answer your question, “Why not sin more so that there is more grace?”

I say: It is the same reason you don’t talk on the MaBell network, you don’t have a contract with MaBell anymore!

You don’t go around sinning, because you’ve been freed from that relationship with Sin—you are Christ’s disciple now, not a Disciple of Sin!

Q: If it’s all about the love of God, why even talk about Sin?

A: We talk about Sin, because it is worth remembering what you are freed from… just as we Jews, remember I Paul am a Jew among Jews, recount the Passover—we’ve been freed from slavery in Egypt—so too do we Christians tell our story of captivity and liberation.

Q: If God saves us despite ourselves, why does any of this matter?

A: It all matters deeply, because you live in the deep life of God, now. We’re infused with the unending love of God–and it means everything!

Q: If we’re saved by grace, what’s the point of doing good things?

A: You do good because you’re freed for that very task. We have to be slaves to something, let’s be slaves to doing good… It’s in our contract.

         Therefore, siblings in the faith, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Amen!