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Anne and I both turned 50 last year. We’ve had a lot of laughs since then, about how our perspectives change as we get older. Of course, we want to think that we aren't really getting older. And since we have 3 kids between 17 and 23, we sometimes feel like we’re a leg up in knowing how young people think. We always have our ears tuned for ideas. This week, for instance, we found a magazine article, actually an excerpt from a book called “How NOT to Act Old.”
Here were a few of the tips…and I’m thinking if you are 35 and above, you should pay careful attention. Or, if you are younger, just see if these are accurate:
. You no doubt have realized that young people don’t wear watches. They check the time by flipping open their cell phones- with one hand. But the book says if you’re going to try this, you need to make sure you don’t put your glasses on to see the time on your phone.
Everyone knows that nothing important happened before 2001!
Especially on someone’s cellphone who’s younger than 30, because they won’t listen to it. They’ll call you back if they want when they see your name pop up on “missed call.” Messages are futile.
. No index fingers. To dial your cellphone or text. Use the thumbs. Only the thumbs.
, my favorite, dead giveaway as to age: The cellphone was designed to pick up your voice. The other person can hear you. I’ve been driven out of Starbucks by people my age who seem to think their cellphone requires 100 extra decibels for the person on the other end to hear…which means everyone else does too.
But the facts are, our perspectives do change, whether because of experience or age or some other reason. The Apostle Paul is going to challenge us this morning as to how we view what’s going on in life. And how we need to look a harder to find God’s perspective on things.
For the 11 th week, we delve into the book of Romans in this series we’ve called “Thinking Faith.” Now, Paul’s letters make up over 25% of the New Testament. Most of them follow a similar pattern- usually Paul starts out with a bit of history, then some God-talk (theology) and finally some ethics- what does this all mean for life?
Romans is a little different, in that he pretty much plunged right into theology…it’s important how we think about God…and stayed there for eleven chapters before talking about how we live. And mostly he’s talked about grace. The mystery of God loving us. Like if we don’t get this first, then we’ll miss everything.
This morning we’ll read from Romans 11:11-12 and then 25-36, and then fill in some of the gaps.
Reading: Romans 11:11-12, 25-36
If we are going to hear this text well this morning, I need to remind us again- that it’s about God. More than about us, it’s about God.
One of my favorite scholars, Richard Hays, once put a sign up to greet his introductory New Testament class at Duke Divinity School, frustrated that entering divinity students didn’t have a grasp on this. As the students filed into class, the first thing they saw was a sign saying “It’s about God, stupid!”
We could use one of those sometimes. “It’s about God!” First. Maybe our question this morning is simply: what kind of God are we following?
We might summarize these three companion chapters, 9-10-11 in a few simple phrases: God’s mercy is FOR all. God’s gift is DESPITE all. God’s plan ENCOMPASSES all. It’s this last idea that chapter 11 zeroes in on today.
One of the people I quote a lot is Frederick Buechner. Buechner spent many years writing up in Vermont, and for nine years used a room in a tiny rural Episcopal Church to do his writing. When he found out that the priest celebrated morning prayers by himself, Buechner started to join him each morning.
One week Buechner would be the minister and the priest the congregation, and the next week they would switch. Buechner says it became the most important part of his own day. “…and also, as it turned out, of his (the priest’s). One afternoon, apropos of nothing we had been talking about, he told me that my being there with him all those nine years had saved his life, and I realized with a little jolt that he was speaking literally.
Turns out the priest had battled a long and dangerous depression. Something more than simply 9 years of morning prayer ritual was going on. God was doing something, something big, saving someone. But it was only from a larger perspective, and later on, that it made any sense at all. God’s plan was far larger than either of them really knew.
The question about God’s plan for Paul continues to be linked to the two peoples that his world was divided into: Israel and Gentiles. Religious and non-religious. Believers and non-believers. And what Paul has marveled at for the last two chapters is that his own people, the Israelites have mostly rejected Jesus….while the unbelievers, the Gentiles have responded. God’s word in Hosea 2 has come true: “The more I called Israel, the further they went from me.”
And so, Paul wonders and fears:
Has God rejected Israel? And the answer given emphatically twice in this chapter is that same Greek phrase, me genoito, that we talked about a couple weeks ago, meaning - absolutely not! God forbid! Or as my professor Christian Beker taught us, Hell no! Has God rejected Israel? No. Because God’s plan is way bigger than that.
Yes, God’s very own Israel rejected God’s salvation in Jesus. But then a couple things happen. First…the gospel of Jesus is then offered to those outside, to the non-religious, the Gentiles and guess what?
They respond! Who would’ve thought that? No one would have drawn it up that way! It’s really the story of the book of Acts, much of it the narrative of Paul’s missionary journeys around the Mediterranean. In each town, Paul would go to the Jewish synagogue first, usually get tossed out, laughed at…set up shop somewhere else, share the gospel with the Gentiles…and many would believe.
Who would’ve thought? Who could’ve guessed God’s plan could be that big?! Who would’ve guessed that Israel’s rejection of Christ would have been instrumental in others coming to faith?
For you Old Testament scholars, this may send bells ringing in your head from the story of Joseph in Genesis 50. Remember Joseph, with his coat of many colors, so irritating his brothers that they sold him into Egypt as a slave. But as things turned out, Joseph climbed the ladder in Egyptian administration until he was second in command only to Pharaoh, and in charge of the distribution of food during a regional famine.
His brothers had no idea who he was, until finally he told them. They were terrified he would seek revenge, but Joseph two times said to them: “You thought you sent me here, but it was God who brought me, for a purpose. You meant to do me harm, but God intended it for good, to save many people.”
You see, Joseph had received a whole ‘nother perspective. I’m sure when he was sitting as a captive down a well, or taken as a slave, or was sitting in prison, he couldn’t have seen that God might be up to something. Yet God was working, to save people. God’s plan was way bigger than anyone thought.
So Israel rejects God, and the Gentiles receive grace. Good for the Gentiles. But bad for Israel, right? God will now reject them, right? Wrong! Dead wrong, says Paul. God’s plan is way bigger than that. Because God is way bigger. “God does not have to reject those who reject him (Jim Edwards)!”
And so another layer of God’s plan unfolds. The Gentiles, some of them now living out faith in Jesus, will be used by God to bring Israel back to God! It’s like a ricochet, a boomarang. Paul even uses the uncomfortable word jealousy. Some of Israel will become jealous of the Gentiles’ new relationship with God, and it will turn them back towards God.
Now, we may think this is bad theology on God’s part. Jealousy is a sin, right? Something to avoid. Why would God use such a thing to work his purpose?
Actually, there is a jealousy that is bad. But there is also a good kind of jealousy, an identification and a longing to have good things in our lives.
I get to hear many, many stories of how people came to faith in Jesus, it’s one of the best parts of my job. A friend of mine met Christ because he was around, for the first time, a group of people who were following Jesus. And he would look at his life…and he would look at theirs, and finally he said: “I want that. Whatever that person has, I have this longing in my soul to experience that.” Maybe it was identified as joy, or peace, or confidence, or purpose. But it cultivated a desire for God.
What if, Paul says, Jews look at what the Gentiles have found, and want it? What if that very thing, held out to Gentiles because the Israelites had rejected it…comes back around to them when they see it in someone else? Then God’s plan, God’s purpose was far bigger, far broader than anyone imagined.
Okay, you say. So salvation actually isn’t for the Gentiles, it’s for the Israelites after all? No. God’s plan is way bigger than that. It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. Paul uses the image of an olive tree to demonstrate it, which we don’t have time to go into much. But he says, using a picture very very familiar to his readers.
Imagine that some of the branches of the tree are broken off…that is, Israelites rejecting God. Imagine that God is capable of then grafting onto the tree...some wild new shoots, new branches- that’s the former unbelievers, the Gentiles. And then imagine even further that God is perfectly capable of re-grafting in some of those who were broken. They may have looked dead and gone, yet in God’s plan they can be re-grafted, and the new tree is filled with new and old, grafts and re-grafts, and this new tree will be a blessing to the whole earth. That’s a big plan.
It’s also a picture of the church of Jesus. A tree. Branches sticking out all over. Some people have followed Christ a long time. Some only recently. Some had gone away from faith and God has drawn them back in. Economics, nationalities, race, tradition…doesn’t matter. There’s room for them all on Jesus’ tree.
But still, I’m not sure I’m explaining this well yet. What Paul is saying is this: in this book of Romans, we’ve seen that God has already defeated sin, setting things right through forgiveness of cross. He’s already defeated death, by raising Jesus from dead. Now the last obstacle to be defeated is the opposition of his own people. How can that possibly happen? Grace.
If the blessing of Outsiders is a result of Grace and, the judgment of rejecting Israel leads them to grace…then grace wins. Period. It’s all grace.
Let me try once more: If God can use even the rebellion of his people…to grow his people. If God can somehow, in some mind-boggling, mind-bending way, use the very worst thing that human beings could do- reject God, reject his very Son Jesus Christ- reject by crucifying him dead.
If God can take that very worst possible thing…and turn it to the best thing ever, re-claiming his people. If the sin can’t defeat God, and death can’t defeat God, and the opposition of people not only doesn’t defeat God but is turned instead into a means to draw people, then what is left that God cannot do? Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!
What have you done that could keep you from God’s grace? Nothing. Not because of you, but because of God. God’s plan is proven to be so big, Paul can barely comprehend it. It’s like he’s climbing up a ladder, step by step and when he gets to the top…he jumps off! He bursts into worship...he’s singing, he’s praising God, he’s quoting the Old Testament. He’s worshipping!
One of the old sayings of the Orthodox Church is that “worship begins where theology ends.” Paul is out of breath. There is nothing God cannot do. It may look different, we may need perspective, we may not know how this fits in or that fits in, but this whole thing depends on God, a gracious, merciful, loving God who is for us. It is about God. Not me.
So how do we respond?
We worship.
So Paul breaks into song- he has caught a glimpse of how big God’s plan is…and therefore how big God is, how much he cares, how deep his love. His perspective, at least in this moment has totally shifted.
If we are going to follow God, we’ll need to get some different perspective. Most of it boils down to this: am I willing to trust that God knows what He is doing?
One quick thought: We need to think bigger about God’s plan.
Usually when we use the words “God’s Plan,” we’re talking about “blueprint theology.” That God has an exact blueprint for what my life is to be like, and I need to find out what that is, and make sure I don’t miss it and if I do, God is there waiting to drop the other shoe.
But what if, as Ann LaMott says, “God only has one shoe?” What if God’s plan is way, way bigger than a small map for my life? What if God’s purpose is to save the world, his desire is for all people to come to know him? What if my story fits into that story instead of the other way around? What if God is or could or will use me in ways I can neither see nor imagine. Can I trust that He’s at work?
If so…than at any particular point, I’m choosing to lean into God. Even when things are difficult, they are hard in my life, or they don’t all seem to be lining up…it does not mean God is not with me or is not working. Like Frederick Buechner, like biblical Joseph…God is working no matter what it looks like.
And to those of us who are far off today, or who feel like we are.
What an amazing thing to think that God may be using all sorts of things in your life, good and bad…to draw you to himself, or to re-draw you, to graft or re-graft. Do you matter that much? Yes. Could it really happen? Yes. God’s plan is way bigger than you think. God’s mercy is for all. God’s gift is despite all. God’s plan encompasses all. That means you.
Let’s pray.
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BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
