Saturday, August 20, Romans ends Amen

Some manuscripts end with the disputed verse 24, others with 27 after more or less of chapters 15 and 16. In any event, they seem to and, as we will, with ‘Amen’. ‘So be it’. Period. Stop. That’s all she wrote. When can you say ‘Amen’?

Before you close the book, how would you sum up ‘the gospel according to Paul’ after ‘Reading Romans’ this summer? What does Paul say about sin and saved, Jews and Gentiles – and what do people say he says? Just as we read Paul, people ‘read’ us:

You’re writing a gospel, a page each day
With all that you do, and all that you say
People hear what you say, and see what you do,
So - what is the gospel, according to you?
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Friday August 19, Romans 16:24-27

The NRSV omits verse 24 altogether, just as it put a note on the end of verse 20. We love ‘The grace of our Lore Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all’. We just don’t think that it, or parts of it, were original to Romans, but rather were added to garnish later manuscripts.

The rest of the doxology, 25-27, shows up in most manuscripts, though often at the end of chapter 14 or 15. There is a hint of an appeal here not only to echo the opening verses of Romans, but to anticipate or amplify either an emerging Gnostic type appeal to the Spirit, or a crystallizing appeal to scriptural authority.

What’s missing in this final flurry? There is a reference to ‘my gospel and proclamation of Jesus Christ’, but not to the life and teachings of Jesus. What is the obedience of faithfulness brought about by the revelation of secret mysteries? Is it just belief triggering salvation, or something else?
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Thursday, August 18, Romans 16:17-23

There is never diversity without conflict. Paul is warning now about those who cause dissensions and offences. It is always easier to preach a sectarian gospel of ‘us against them’, and Romans so far has tried to present a different vision. Whose are you, and what god do you serve? Leave winning up to God.

The next flurry of names is about the company Paul is keeping, rather than those who are in Rome. These are presumably models of leadership that does not cause dissent. Tertius writes the letter – as a copyist, amanuensis, editor, or what? Erastus and Quartus appear to be high status imperial officers, perhaps to balance Roman fears of rabble-rousing sectarian Jesus people.

Could we list as reassuring a list of the company we keep, representing an ethos of spiritual maturity – or just factional sectarian demagogues of left or right wing religion?

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Wednesday, August 17, Romans 16:1-16

Today we begin the list of personal greetings. Notice how many of the names are women, and the importance of their roles in the early church. Prisca is mentioned in Acts, Corinthians and 2 Timothy – we might call her Priscilla. Junia is another name masculinized by scribes in variant manuscripts – we’d call her Julia. These are households of faith, not yet institutions.

The names convey not only gender balance, but ethnic diversity, if we have eyes to see the Greek, Latin, and other cultural markers. Rome was a multicultural metropolis, centre of a global or at least international empire. This list implicitly claims that Paul’s Gentiles are a varied group, not all Palestinian diaspora. Could we list as balanced and varied a list of church friends in communities in today’s imperial ‘world-class’ cities?


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Tuesday, August 16, Romans 15:22 - 33

Here’s another non-sequitor, reframing the letter as preparing for a trip to Spain with a visit to Rome en route. ‘Itineracy’ is the term for a vocation that keeps moving from place to place. Our Methodist forebears moved each 2 years as itinerants, Presbyterians stayed ‘called and settled’ in one place indefinitely. Which is better for the clergy – and which for the congregation?

The other narrative here is of financial support by one congregation for another, from Macedonia and Asia Minor for Jerusalem. What do strong and affluent congregations owe the sisters and brothers in weaker and poorer communities? There are risks in delivering the aid – what are the risks of declining to provide or deliver it this directly? It’s an old set of aid issues!
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Monday, August 15 - Romans 15:14 - 21

The oldest manuscripts we have differ in endings, some excluding part or all of chapter 15 and 16 before the closing doxology. Does anything about the tone, style, or content of this bit differ from the rest of the letter you’ve read so far? I think so.

I read a tone of clericalism, claiming the authority of an office of ministry, rather than God’s faithfulness in Christ. There’s a defensive tone, piling up proofs of successful signs and wonders and church growth. There’s a denial of other’s gifts to him.

Whether it’s Paul’s original text, his own or others’ editorial ‘improvements’, or adjustment to match later writings of the ‘early church fathers’, it is still in the received text, the canon, the bible we share with a wider people over a longer time.

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Saturday, August 13 - Romans 15:1-13

Paul reframes the advice of mutual accommodation in matters of piety and practice with the rhetoric of ‘we who are strong’ should not just please ourselves, at the expense of others who are weak. That might be condescending toward those others – yet effective.

How much diversity of practice and piety can we accommodate in any community? How much slack can we cut each other to be a United church, without becoming an ‘Untied’ church? Ours is surely a denomination that pushes a lot toward permissiveness.

Perhaps the argument always has to end, as it began, with doxology, echoing the hymns of the ancients, to remind us of unity and diversity in the context of something that’s older and better than any of us, and promises much more than it delivers.


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Friday, August 12 - Romans 14:1-23

Here’s a whole chapter that turns the focus in toward factions in the community, rather than individual attitudes, interpersonal relations generally, or public and cosmic contexts. What about that other guy in your congregation who bugs you the most?

Paul’s reference point are people whose piety leads them to vegetarian or kosher food choices, or ‘observing the day’ in behaviours such as fasting or prayer that all may not follow. Paul makes us all test such ‘adiaphora’ choices, over which reasonable and faithful people may differ, by a test of ‘honouring the Lord’.

Can you share another’s piety or behaviour choice, without conceding their claim that it is mandatory? Can you do it for their sake, if not for your own soul? Can you empathize with others not risking a breach of their rules themselves? Is it all one Lord?

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Thursday, August 11 - Romans 13:8-14

Beyond obedience to the laws of the state, obedience to the last few of the ten commandments, and Jesus’ ‘Great Commandment’ offer a religious rule-based ethics that demand at least as much of Christians as would obedience to any government.

Beyond even religious laws is the ethical frame of ultimate or ‘eschatological’ expectations. This age of penultimate mortal fallible rulers and creatures will be fulfilled in light and justice. We can live in anticipation, tolerating current evils in perspective.

Paul concludes the argument with a string of references of moral debauchery and licentiousness, in some echo of the sins he listed in the opening chapter of Romans. He thinks that this is what follows if you don’t hold to his ethical standards. Is he right?

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Wednesday, August 10 - Romans 13:1-7

Today’s brief text has been pivotal in European church history of the relations of church and state. What is a Christian response to rulers and their laws and demands? Do we obey, as this text suggests, and preach that any ruler must be in office by the will of God? Are we ever called to resist the powers that be?

This is a favorite text of law-and-order Christians. This is why we provide chaplains to parliaments and armies. This is why we are given privileges like tax breaks by governments, and why Marxists call us ‘the opiate of the people’.

This is a problematic text for Christians living under tyranny. It seems to limit the options of legitimate expression of dissent, or civil disobedience, by Christians. It qualifies our approach to alliances with rebels and reformers. Which way to you lean?

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Tuesday, August 9 - Romans 12:9-21

Attitudes are now encouraged, in addition to all the ideas and actions Paul recommends. This is the exhortation people expect to find in the bible, and to hear in sermons. This is a sweet spot for North American Protestant preaching, telling us to get a better attitude reflected in the way we participate in ministry. Like it?

Interpersonal relationships advice flows from attitude adjustment. There’s a run of empathy and mercy talk, about cutting others some slack. I hear an undercurrent, though – ‘take thought for what is noble in the sight of all’, and ‘heap coals on their heads’. God may be as impatient with idiots as you are – leave it to God.

The NRSV translation adds a heading to this section, ‘marks of a true Christian’. I usually ignore headings as interpretation of the text – but can you imagine why folks might want some ways to recognize the ‘marks of a true Christian’ in themselves or others?
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Monday, August 8 - Romans 12:1-8

The ‘paraenetic’ or moral advice and exhortation, now follows from all that theological reflection. Paul starts with a couple of classic summaries: ‘present your bodies as a living sacrifice’, and ‘do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds’. Have you ever heard either?

Those open challenges are then framed in context of community, Paul’s familiar ‘body of Christ’ metaphor we know better from Corinthians 12, and from Ephesians 4. (Try comparing the lists!) We are not omni-competent, but rely on the complementary gifts of others in the church. What’s your gift and calling? His? Hers?

As a devotional exercise, you might pause to figure which of the two challenges you take too much to heart, and which too little. Are you too busy sacrificing your body in busyness? Are you too little transformed or too much conformed? Would you agree that these are the tendencies of our community of faith?

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Saturday August 6 – Romans 11:25-36

Finally, Paul frames the story this way: some hearts are hardened among the Jews, till more Gentiles have been chosen and in turn have chosen in response to belong to Christ. They may be anti-gospel, but they are still beloved of God.

God’s choice is irrevocable – it’s our choice in response that can mess up and delay or even frustrate the promise God extends. In fact, we all mess up, and God shows mercy to us all, so don’t judge. God’s the giver – you’re just offering thanks, not initiating the relationship of faithfulness with God and others.

The chapter ends with a doxology praising God, and an Amen. Paul thinks he has clinched his point, by the closing admission that none of us understands the inscrutable ways of God. Is this mystery, or mystification?


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Friday August 5 – Romans11:11-24

It ain’t over till it’s over. Those who have chosen wrongly still have choices to make, and meanwhile provide cautionary tales for Gentiles about what not to do with our own choice or chance. The object lesson is meant to teach, change, not simply punish.

Try a couple of metaphors about the relationship of Jews and Gentile Christian. Imagine part of a leavened dough offered to God, blessing the whole. Imagine roots and branches of an olive tree – with some pruned, others grafted.

The promise – and the threat – is that God’s not finished pruning or grafting. Some may yet be cut, and others may yet be grafted back. That is intended to apply to Jews and to Gentiles in Paul’s view – and there is no ground for us to get uppity toward Jews!

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Thursday August 4 – Romans 11:1-10

We’re walking slowly through Romans 11 now for 3 days. This is pretty crucial text in our history of crusades, pogroms and general genocide against Jews by Christians. Can we read Paul differently – or do we give up on Romans, after the Holocaust?

God has not rejected this people. Paul is (not was) a Jew. There remains a chosen remnant – not by their own works, but by the grace of God. The credit goes to God’s faithfulness, not the right belief or right action of people in their choices of response.

So the people as a whole did not realize their wishes. Some got it, but just like Pharaoh, many had hardened hearts, deaf and blind, and falling over the consequences of their own choices. Scripture had anticipated the possibility, now realized.
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Wednesday August 3 – Romans 10:1-21

Paul takes the next chapter to reinforce the hope that anybody, Jew or Gentile, can choose better in response to God’s choices. He says somebody has to be sent, proclaim, be heard and believed, so that people can choose better.

Our Presbyterian forebears preferred chapter 9 election by God, and our Methodist elders emphasized chapter 10 believing once hearing once proclaimed having been sent. These positions still seem unreconcilable to me – yet here we still are.

There’s also a note here of God shaming Israel by showing favour to a new bunch of people, to rouse them to jealousy, anger – and changed choices. God is still holding out hands to Israel and inviting them home.

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Tuesday August 2 – Romans 9:19-33

Why then find fault with people, who are simply chosen or not before they ever do or say anything good or bad? We’d say people were victims of circumstance, products of their environment, not responsible for their failings.

What if God puts up with bad actors to demonstrate mercy to those who are chosen and choose in response faithfulness, either to Torah or to Christ? If nobody is unchosen, and none are able to refuse to choose in response – then the terms are empty.

It is possible for God to choose an additional and new people, as in Hosea. It is possible for a chosen people to choose wrongly in response, as in Sodom and Gomorrah. Without choice and consequences, ‘jews and gentiles’, ‘us and them’ – it’s tyranny. Must this argument be anti-Semitic and supercessionist? No.
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Monday August 1 - Romans 9:1-18

After such glowing assurances to those inseparable from the love of God in Christ Jesus, what about Paul’s birth community? He affirms that the Jews have adoption, glory, covenants, Torah, worship, patriarchs – and the honour of producing the Messiah.

However, Paul goes on to argue that some Israelites don’t ‘truly belong’ to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s biological offspring are his ‘true descendants’. If some are elect, chosen – some are not. God is free to choose and to not choose.

Paul reviews Torah stories of a chosen son and other children not chosen, of a favoured younger brother and rejected elder, and even the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Paul’s OK with such apparently arbitrary favouritism. Are you?

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