In today's short reading from chapter 9 of his letter to the Romans, Paul writes with great passion about his kinsfolk, the people of Israel. He speaks of the 'great sorrow and unceasing anguish' (9:2) that he feels because most of his fellow-Jews have not believed in Jesus. God has called Paul to proclaim that the crucified Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, has been raised from the dead and is both the long-awaited Messiah of Israel and the Saviour of the whole world. But while growing numbers of Gentiles have believed in Jesus, the response of Jews to Paul's message has mainly been negative: some Jews have believed, but most have not.
In Romans chapters 9-11, one of the most complicated and argued-over sections of the New Testament, Paul wrestles with this painful situation. Perhaps over-ambitiously, I'm going to try to offer a brief overview of these chapters. If I can only scratch their surface, I hope this might at least prompt you to reflect on them yourselves.
But first some thoughts about Romans as a whole. What's it fundamentally about? Why did Paul write this letter? One view is that Paul wanted to expound the doctrine of justification by faith: i.e. although we are all sinners, we can be made right with God, or 'justified'; however, this cannot be achieved through our own efforts to keep God's law, but only through God's grace, which we receive only by faith in Jesus. This way of reading Romans is especially associated with Martin Luther, and it is indeed true that in Romans Paul emphasizes justification by faith, which is a liberating message for us all to absorb.
But Paul wrote to communities, groups of actual people with particular issues to address, so with Romans, as with all his letters, we must ask what is going on in the church in Rome. Paul clearly writes with its realities and challenges in mind. And the biggest issue among the Christians in Rome was the tension between two groups: Jews and Gentiles. All of them were Christians, believers in Jesus, but there were serious differences between them (chapter 14). And if Paul has one key practical message for them, it is that they are to welcome one another as equal members of the Body of Christ. Near the end of the letter, his take-home point for the Jews and Gentiles in the church, who were at odds with each other on various matters, was simply this: 'Welcome one another ... just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God' (15:7).
Paul's doctrine of justification by faith is not just a way of persuading different kinds of people to be nicer to each other (to make their vicar's job easier...). It goes far deeper than that. But it is vital to grasp the practical, communal implications of this doctrine. Through it, Paul tells the Jews and Gentiles at Rome that in the Body of Christ they stand on equal ground before God (3:28-30). Yes, the Jews in one sense come first; they were always the covenant people of God and the Gentiles have only come in just recently. But they are all sinners, unable to stand in their own righteousness before God, and reconciled to God only through Christ crucified and risen – and so also reconciled to each other. 'Welcome one another [Jew and Gentile]... as Christ has welcomed you.'
For Paul, the Church is to be a community of Jews and Gentiles, together praising God for his grace lavished upon them all in Christ (15:7-13). But it's important for Paul that although they are all equally welcome in the Body of Christ, they should not be dissolved into each other. Jewish identity still matters, even after the coming of Christ. The Jewish story may be fulfilled in Christ but it isn't finished. Paul himself remains proud to be a Jew (11:1). The presence of Jewish believers in the Church is a reminder that the Church is built on God's history with Israel. Paul will not let this be forgotten.
That, then, is the wider context of Romans 9-11, where Paul wrestles with the painful question of why only a small minority of Jews, like him, believe in Jesus. Here are some of the main points Paul makes.
First, 'twas always thus. Paul reminds us that even within Israel, God's covenant people, faithfulness had normally been the minority option. The overwhelming majority of the people often drifted away from God. Those who remained truly faithful and obedient were a remnant, persecuted, struggling against the odds, like Elijah in his day (11:2-5). So if God had always worked his purpose out through the faithful remnant in Israel (chapter 9), struggling minorities should not give up hope: a consoling thought for Paul – and very relevant for many Christians living in difficult minority situations today.
Paul also tells us to beware of our tendency to think only from a human angle. He is struggling with the question of why some believe and some don't. If God has done this wonderful thing in sending Jesus to be the Messiah, why don't the people of Israel believe? If God is sovereign, why does he allow so much unbelief, so much resistance to his purposes? Paul uses an image that some find difficult: God is like a potter and we are like clay; and should the clay tell the potter how to do his job? (9:19-24) That image can feel very bleak, and dismissive of our human dignity, but its purpose is really to shock us into accepting the limits of our human perspective and trusting that God is God and we are not, and that God is at work for good. This is not a blind trust in God. We can trust that God is at work for good, even in a world where it's often hard to believe this, or in the midst of suffering in our own lives, because of what the story of Jesus tells us about God. If Jesus is God in the flesh, God present in our world, then in the cross of Jesus God has gone into the deepest darkness of the world and come through it in resurrection.
That is why Paul believes that all things work together for good for those who love God (8:28); he trusts that even with the rejection of the Messiah by most of Israel, God was not defeated but was still working out his merciful purposes. So Paul points out that God has done something creative even with the unbelief of Israel, turning it into the occasion to bring the Gentiles into his people. Paul also believes that the Jews will become jealous as they see Gentiles turning to the God of Israel through faith in Jesus, which will in turn prompt the Jews to believe in Jesus themselves. (11:11-14)
So Paul believes that God has not finished with his people, the Jews (11:1). Even if they have not recognized the coming of God among them in Jesus, God remains faithful to them; God's calling of Israel is irrevocable (11.29). And on this point, Paul has challenging words for the Gentile Christians at Rome. They must not be arrogant in their attitude to the Jews, as if the torch has now passed to them and the time of the Jews is over. Paul speaks of the Gentiles as branches recently grafted into a tree, the olive tree that symbolizes Israel. (11:17-24) They should have the humility of new arrivals in the household of God and not strut around as if they own the place. In particular, they should have a humble and hopeful attitude to Jews who do not believe in Jesus, because God's loving purposes for them are not finished. God's mercy holds the future open. (11:25-36)
I feel as if I have bitten off more than I can chew this morning, opening up a subject perhaps better suited to a discussion group than a sermon. But I hope I have at least flagged up the importance of these chapters of Paul. They are probably the most significant chapters of the Bible for the contemporary discussion of relations between Christians and Jews; they have particularly come to the fore in the period since the Second World War, as the churches reflected on the Holocaust and recognized that over the centuries Christians had drastically failed to approach Jews in the spirit of humility for which Paul calls. If you'd like to reflect more about these matters, let me point you to a report published last year by the Church of England, God's Unfailing Word, which you can download from the internet. As well as these chapters of Romans, it discusses much else, including antisemitism and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
For many Christians around the world it may feel difficult to see the relevance today of what Paul writes about relations between Jews and Christians in Romans. Especially if we never, or hardly ever, have any contact with Jewish people, we may feel that the issues Paul discusses do not concern us. But that would be a mistake. Gentile Christians have come into the long sacred story in which the calling of Israel is foundational. As Paul puts it, we have been grafted into Israel. Christians have sometimes been inclined to do without the Old Testament and the story of Israel, as if Christianity is a freestanding development that starts with Jesus. But the New Testament, and perhaps especially these chapters of Romans, simply will not let us do that.
A final thought. Paul's vision of the Church is of a fellowship of Jews and Gentiles united in Christ. I do not actually know if there are any Jewish Christians in our community here at St Ursula's. Quite likely not, as the Church around the world today consists overwhelmingly of Gentiles. But whether or not there are any Jewish Christians among us here in Bern, or in any particular congregation, the Church of Jesus Christ in fact never loses its essential character as a Jewish-Gentile fellowship. And that is quite simply because of our Jewish Lord, Jesus himself. Whenever any Christian congregation gathers together, it is convened by a Jewish host: 'the presence of the church's living Lord, the Jew Jesus Christ, ensures that the church remains essentially a table fellowship of Jews and Gentiles' (Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, 173). That's worth reflecting on this morning as we celebrate Christ's presence with us in the Eucharist.
Revd David Marshall