1. Grace, mercy, and peace to You from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 9th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Romans 9:1-5. It’s entitled, “People of the Promise,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. You may have seen it before, on a laminated card in a Christian bookstore. It’s a listing of passages to look up in the Bible when you are in need of a word from God. On the left-hand side of the card are different situations in life. “When you worry . . . when you feel alone . . . when you struggle with temptation . . . when you have financial trouble.” Then, on the right- hand side of the card are the passages that you should look up for each situation. So, “When you are worried” you are directed to look up 1 Peter 5:7 and there you read, “Cast all your anxieties on God, because he cares for you.” It’s a quick, easy way to find a bible passage that speaks to you. The last thing you want, when a person is worried, is for her to open the Bible and read about God striking Ananias and Sapphira dead in their tracks or God sending bears to kill 42 children for mocking the prophet Elisha. It’s much safer to open the Bible to one single verse and begin reading there. While this listing of passages can be comforting and has brought many people a word from God who otherwise would be lost when they open the Bible, the difficulty is that sometimes people never get beyond this kind of reading of the Bible. They open the pages. They find a comforting word. But then they set the Bible aside and they never find themselves entering through this door into the deeper, richer story of Scriptures.
3. Christianity becomes something it was never intended to be. A private, personal religion. It becomes something you turn to not when you enter the world but when you retreat from it. It’s something you read in your private devotional time and you look forward to that moment when it is “just me and Jesus.” God becomes something like our best friend, a person who supports us when times get tough, and someone who helps us accomplish our plans and fulfill our dreams. The problem, of course, is that we have reversed roles with God. Rather than us being servants in God’s kingdom, God becomes a servant in ours.
4. This Summer, as we have been reading the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, we’ve turned our attention to God’s greater story and we have seen the main actor in that story – not us, but God. God is the one who was there at the beginning, creating this world and all of the cosmos; and God is the one who will be there at the end, bringing about a new creation. In between the beginning and the end, God is here, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working in love and ruling over ruins. Today, we’re going to see how God’s greater story involves a greater people. While God is present for every person, able to be found in a small Bible passage a person reads when lonely, God’s vision is much greater than that. God has come in Jesus Christ not only to save you and each person in the entire creation but also to join you to a people, a people who live by his promise and for his purpose in his kingdom.
5. As you listen to Romans 9:1-5 this morning, you realize that we have come across Paul in a very private moment. Paul is engaged in prayer. His prayer is personal and very, very painful. I don’t know if you’ve ever come before God on behalf of someone you love and yet someone who will have nothing to do with the Christian faith. You love that person. You know that God loves that person. And you know that God would desire that person to be saved and yet that person wants nothing to do with God. And so you stand there, alone, not because you don’t believe in God. You believe in God. But you are alone because you stand there without your friend, your mother, your child who has walked away from the faith. If you’ve ever been there, you have a small clue of what the apostle Paul is experiencing. This is a private moment. A personal and painful prayer. Paul cries out, “I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit – that 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 brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” (Romans 9:1-3)
6. Paul is concerned about his kinsmen, the Jewish people. Five years ago, the Jewish people had been expelled from Rome. The Emperor Claudius was attempting to maintain law and order in the city. There had been civil unrest and so he acted as previous emperors had done (Tiberius in 19 AD) and banished the Jews from Rome. The expulsion was limited to the Jews living in the city of Rome. When Claudius died, his expulsion died with him. The Jewish people were now returning to Rome and yet, the question was, how would the church receive them? What had begun as a movement of faith among the Jews was now mainly Gentile. The Jews had left but the church had remained and grown with Gentile believers. Paul was worried, not only about the Jews who didn’t believe but also about the Gentiles who may not see any reason to care about the Jewish people.
7. Earlier in the letter, Paul asked an important question. As he revealed that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Paul asked, “Then what advantage has the Jew?” We would expect Paul to say, “none.” That is, “all are sinful and all are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.” Therefore, there’s no advantage to being a Jew. But, Paul says something different. “What advantage has the Jew?” Paul asked. His answer was “much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.” That listing that Paul began in Romans 3, he continues now in Romans 9. Listen as Paul reveals the blessings of God upon Israel: “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 their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 9:4-5)
8. Paul is in a moment of personal & private prayer, and yet notice how his prayer is wrapped up in the larger story of God. Paul isn’t praying for himself but for God’s people. He isn’t setting before God his plans and asking for God’s blessing. No, Paul finds God’s greater story set before him and is praying for fulfillment of what God has planned. God has chosen Abraham to be the father of his people and from Abraham God has chosen to bless not only his people but all nations on the face of the earth. From Abraham and his descendents, according to the flesh, comes Jesus and Jesus is the one in whom Israel and all nations of the earth are blessed. Paul knows this greater story of God and this story shapes Paul’s life and prayer.
9. What is amazing is that Paul in prayer is caught up in the heart of God’s story. Notice how Paul is willing to die for the sake of the Jews. Paul knows that not all of his Jewish brothers and sisters have believed in Jesus. Because of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, it would be very easy for the Christian church to become a Gentile church, that doesn’t see or value or care about Israel. And so Paul finds himself overwhelmed with pain and love and he wishes that he himself could be cut off from Christ, if that could save the Jewish people. Here, Paul’s heart is filled with the love of Jesus. Jesus is the very one who was willing to be cut off from God, who was willing to drink the cup of his Father’s wrath, who was willing to be forsaken by God and condemned to hell, that the kingdom of God might be opened to all people who trust in him. In him is forgiveness, life, and everlasting salvation. In him is the promise that your sins are forgiven and that you are now part of the people of God, people who live by that promise as part of God’s greater story.
10. How does this relate to us today? Consider how Paul reminds us that we are part of a greater people brought into the greater story of God. Sometimes we lose sight of this larger story. Faith can become a personal matter, something that we reduce to a private experience to help us get through the week. Paul awakens us this morning to the fact that we are part of a much greater people, who live by the promises of God.
11. Consider the Old Testament reading this morning. God’s call to his people to come and eat. This is more than a foretaste of the feeding of the 5,000. This is part of God’s vision of a banquet for all peoples. God speaks of an eternal covenant made with David. He’s a leader and commander for the peoples. Through him, Israel will call nations they know not and nations that didn’t know them will run to them. Suddenly, we begin to see a much larger table and a much greater feast for all people and all time. We begin to overhear God’s promises throughout the Old Testament to feed and care for his people. From the manna that falls from heaven to the rocks the flow with water in the wilderness, from the table that the Lord our shepherd prepares to the teaching that “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Matt. 4:4) to the table that wisdom sets for her people. This banquet lies behind the banquet parables of Jesus and this banquet, this eschatological feast in the kingdom of God, lies ahead of all of us, as part of God’s people, gathered from all nations, who live by the promises of God. Rather than open the Bible and try to use God in our lives, we find that God opens the Scriptures and brings us into his story and the life of his people in this world.
12. There’s a painting that captures what this looks like. It used to be there on an altar in Sienna. It was one of five small paintings at the very bottom of the altarpiece. You wouldn’t see it if you were seated further back in the church. But, if you came forward, for the Lord’s Supper, you could see this small painting of a moment in the work of God for this world. The painting was of the Annunciation. That moment when Mary received word from the angel Gabriel that she was chosen to bear the Savior. Mary is seated, alone. There’s nothing in that room to distract her. In fact, she could easily have been at prayer. Before her stands an angel, Gabriel, bearing a message from God. But, when you look at the painting closely you’ll notice that the artist has taken this story and placed it in a much larger story of God’s work in the world. As you look outside the house where Mary is sitting, you see a garden. This is not any garden. It’s the Garden of Eden. The artist has taken Mary and this house where she is praying and placed it on the edge of the Garden of Eden. There are Adam and Eve. The scene is a sad one. You see God the Father banishing Adam and Eve out of the Garden. They have sinned against God and brought his wrath upon all of creation and now they are subject to death and must live in a fallen world. But, as God the Father extends his arm to banish them from the garden, something beautiful happens. If you follow God’s arm, you see that God is pointing from that Garden to the Virgin Mary sitting in this room. God sends Adam and Eve out of the Garden but he does so with a promise – that there will come a day when the woman will have an offspring who will bruise the head of Satan and rescue his people from sin (Gen. 3:15).
13. Adam and Eve and all of those who lived after them, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David, Solomon, Isaiah and Malachi, were people of this promise. And now, here in this room, in this private moment of prayer, God brings Mary into this story and in her words of love and self-sacrifice, “Behold I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” (Luke 1:38) God continues his greater story of bringing about salvation in this world. Mary in that moment of prayer didn’t try to use God as a servant in her plans. No, she humbly offered herself as a servant in his. Her prayer was a moment when God brought her into the story of his people. It was true for Mary. It was true for the apostle Paul in Romans. And it’s true for you, this day. As you come to this altar to receive a foretaste of God’s eternal feast, come rejoicing that God has chosen to bring you into his larger story, to be part of a people who live by his promise and, with sacrificial love, seek to serve him in the world. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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