A Sermon Based Upon Romans 9: 1-5; 10: 8b-13.
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Sunday, October 18, 2014
“For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated
from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,… (Rom 9:3 NAU).
We live in a secular age. “There
is a widespread sense of loss, if not always of God, then at least of meaning”,
says philosopher Charles Taylor. This is what can happen when sacred and
religious concerns have been pushed to the fringes and margins of public life.
Recently, I’ve been reading a new Biography about Abraham Lincoln, written
by Ronald White, who reports that during Lincoln’s day, religion played a very
important part in politics of this young nation. Even though Lincoln himself did not attend
church regularly (he grew up an
uneducated backwoods Baptist), Lincoln’s own political speech and very
personal faith was filled with references to God, faith, morality and religion.
He could not escape the moral and
religious concerns of faith.
I don’t know if whether it is true that more people are against ‘religion’
these days, but I do know that the voices against it have become stronger, more
aggressive, and sometimes outrageous.
Case in point is the rise a new kind of atheist in American life. In the very popular writings of these “new
atheists” (Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, and others) there is an urgent claim that religion should
no longer be tolerated in America, but that it should be criticized, countered,
and exposed by rational argument, especially when it attempts to influence
national or scientific opinion. In other
words, religion may be understandable for the simple and stupid, but it should
have no place among the smart and informed.
Fueling the fires of this growing negatively toward religion is what
Islamic religious radicals did in America on 9/11. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism).
THE MARK OF A
TRUE RELIGION
As religious people ourselves, we should understand some of this concern
about bad religion. Jesus also had
something against the negative religious practice of his own day. It was both human politics and humanly
organized religion which threatened true faith and was largely responsible for
putting Jesus to death. We cannot and
must not ever deny or forget the fact that some of the harshest words ever
spoken against the religious were spoken by Jesus. He called those teachers of religious law in
his day, “hypocrites” (Matt. 23:
13), “blind guides” (23.16) and even
worst, “sons of hell” (23.15).
But do you know what it was that Jesus was really speaking out against? It was not faith in God, nor was it his own
Jewish faith. In fact, when speaking
out against the religious leaders of his day, he recommended, “Do what they say, but don’t do as they do”
because “they say things, but don’t do
them” (Matt. 23.3). Jesus was not against faith or religious
practice, but Jesus was against the misuse, the abuse, and corruption of religion. Anything that is good in life is corruptible? Someone’s thinking can become
corrupted. A person can become
corrupted in their way of life. A
community can become corrupted. A
church, a mosque, a temple, shrine or synagogue can become corrupted too, just
like any religious faith can be used for an evil purpose. This is exactly what happened on 9/11, when
a way of faith became a way of hate.
That was the day Islam was publically exposed as a faith that can be
easily corrupted and used as tool for evil.
What about Christianity? What
about us? Do you think the faith of
Christians might also so easily be abused and misused? It already has.
It is not often that an Episcopal speaks well of a Baptist minister, but
Fleming Rutledge does. She refers to
young David Gushee, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on “The Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust”,
explaining in detail what happened to the Jews under the Nazis. What is most striking about his short
survey, is how in so called, ‘Christian Europe’ most of the members of all
those Christian churches, “turned away their faces” and failed to oppose Hitler. She also comments how one great Scottish
Bible expositor, Alexander McLaren, wrote on every part of the Bible, except
Romans 9-11, which he ignored. He went
straight from Romans 8 to Romans 12, without giving a single thought God’s plan
for the Jews (See
Fleming Rutledge, Not Ashamed of the Gospel,
Eerdmans, 2007, p. 274).
And, it is not just Jews who have been hated by Christians. Christians have also hated and killed each
other, in the name of God. When I lived
in Europe, I came to know the man who ran a copy shop in my neighborhood. Once I asked him about Church, and he told
me that he loved to study Church History and Church Architecture, but then he
added that he would never, ever, again enter a church to worship. Why I asked him the reason, he told me that
when his Father has opposed Hitler, and
refused to fight in Hitler’s war, that it was the Church members who turned him
in to the authorities. His Father was
sent off to fight in Hitler’s war and was killed. He declared that he would never put any
confidence in any church.
We all know people who have been hurt by religion, churches and by
Christians. There is no excuse for the
wrong that has been done, the hurt that has been cause, and the evil that has
been allowed to grow within religious communities who claim to do good and
speak truth. All of us should shudder
to think of the abuse of children that has come to surface in the American
Roman Catholic Church, or even to think of all of the negative deeds that have
been done in the name of God throughout history---such as the Crusades, the
Spanish Inquisition, or even in attacking Native Americans. There is simply no excuse for it, and those
who misuse, abuse, and exploit religion, should be exposed and expunged.
How should we expose,
expunge and eradicate bad religion? The
best way is to come to know and experience what healthy and honest religion
means. True religion is exactly what
we see happening in the mind of the great apostle as he deals the struggles of
his own faith. For you see, a faith
that never admits its own doubts, struggles and shortcomings is more easily
corrupted. But a faith that is honest,
truthful and authentic can fight against its own corruptibility, as well as the
evil in the world. Do you know how
Paul is doing that? He is doing it by
his own compassion. His passion for
Jesus does not release him from his compassion
for people---even for his own people who have rejected his new found faith in
Jesus Christ. It is great compassion
that Paul feels when he says, “For I could wish that I myself were
accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen
according to the flesh, who are Israelites (Rom 9:3-4 NAU). Can you feel his pain with him? If you
don’t feel this kind of compassion for people who are separated from Christ, or
separated from your own points of view, there may already be something
corrupted about your faith.
The one thing we can
know about Jesus and about Paul, and about every true Christian, is the mark of
compassion for another. You can’t have
Christian faith without also having a compassionate faith, and you can’t live a
Christian life without living your life with a compassion for others.
Do you recall the
moment when the Rich, Young, Ruler can to Jesus asking “What He should do to inherit Eternal Life?” (Mark 10: 17-22). In the ancient world, you didn’t earn
something valuable, as much as you inherited it. If you didn’t inherit anything, most likely
you would have nothing all of your life, and the same went for religion
too. Do you recall how Jesus responded
to that Young Ruler? After Jesus
reminded him about keeping the commandments, the man answered that he had
always followed them, even since he was a child. Jesus told him there was only one more
thing his religion lacked. It lacked
compassion. What he needed to do what
to sell all he had, and give it to the poor.
This was test of true faith. But
when the Rich Man heard that, he went away with great grief. We really don’t know if he was grieving over
having to give away all his money, or whether he was grieving over not being
able to gain eternal life. One thing
for sure, Jesus made it clear: Without
compassion there is no true religion and no eternal life.
NEVER USE RELIGION AS A
WEAPON
The point Jesus made with his whole ministry on earth, and even made the
same point in his death, is that without compassion for others there is no true
faith in God. What there is only a
concern for yourself, for your own salvation, your own truth, and your own
opinions. “How can you love God, whom you
haven’t seen,” John wrote in a
letter to as church, “when you don’t
love your brothers (and sisters) you do and can see?” This is the direction in which a true,
compassionate religion must be lived---not just for oneself, but for the sake
of others. If the life and death of
Jesus gives us any clue to finding true faith and true life, it is that true
religion means giving your life away and caring for the hurts, needs, and the
struggles of others.
But again, this is not always what we see in religion is it? While I believe that the majority of people
who have faith do care and have compassion, what we most often hear and see
about are the few who get religion wrong.
This is what we hear most about from Islam these days. We see or hear about the few radicals who
use religion as a weapon of hate and evil, instead of focusing upon the many
who are inspired by religious faith to do good, to bring about good, and to
show love in the world.
This brings me again to a particular part of what Paul is saying in today’s
text. We must notice particularly how
Paul does not use his faith in Christ to accuse others, but rather his faith bears
the burden upon himself, saying, “I wish
myself accursed, separated from Christ, for the sake of my brothers (and
sisters)”. Do you realize what Paul is
doing here? He is not putting the albatross
of his new faith around the neck of the Jewish people, but he is taking the
burden upon himself, wishing that he could do something that could change their
hearts toward Jesus. He does not
condemn them, but he is ready to take the condemnation himself. He does not blame them, but he is trying to
come to grips with what this ‘rejection’ might mean God’s plan.
I wish we could all learn from Paul’s approach. I wish the church could be wiser in its
approach. I wish we could all come to
realize that religion should never be used as a weapon against those who
disagree with us. I wish that
differences in faith could be grounds for dialogue, rather than grounds for
divorce. I wish we could learn how to talk about our
differences rather than take up arms to defend them. Here, I remember what Charles Spurgeon once
said, when someone asked him why he didn’t preach a sermon in defense of the
truth of Bible. He rightly responded
with the question, “How do you defend a lion?”
Then he recommended, “Just turn it loose, and it will take care of
itself.”
I became a Baptist pastor, in a time when my denomination was embroiled in
a so called “Battle for the Bible”.
There were those who said that if we don’t get rid of those who don’t
agree with our own interpretation, they will take our denomination down. Do you realize what happen? Those passionate Baptists got together and
used the Bible as a weapon of “holy war”, instead of a tool for love. And they were indeed able to able to get rid
of all those who disagreed with them, but the question today is this: Are Baptists any better off? What
those passionate Baptists did not realize is that the real enemy is not them,
but ourselves. I would answer that no people are better off
when they turn the tools for love into weapons of war, division, suspicion and
hate. Abraham Lincoln would have
definitely agreed. As I said earlier,
he left the Baptist church, and left church altogether, his biographers said,
because he did not like the divisiveness he saw in the religion of his
times---among Baptists, among Methodists, and even among Presbyterians and
Episcopalians. Lincoln’s favorite quote
against the passionate, emotional, uneducated and divisive religion of his day
was from Jesus, “A house divided against
itself cannot stand.” Such religion
can’t stand and it won’t stand, because any religion that uses its own beliefs and
teachings as weapons of hate instead of tools for love, cannot stand in the
mind and heart of God.
GOD’S DESIRE TO SAVE
EVERYONE
The reason compassionate faith can’t be used as a weapon, is because must
be a religion of love and outreach, or it is no true religion at all. A true religion of love must be filled with
compassion, which is a compassion for everyone, or it fails to be what it says
it is---a faith that desires the
salvation of everyone.
When Paul speaks of his on Jewish family in this text, his “very own kinsmen according to the flesh”
(9.3), for whom his “heart’s desire and
prayer is for their salvation” (10:1) in Jesus Christ. We need to see how Paul speaks about them in
some very particular and affectionate terms calling them “Israelites to whom belongs the adoption of sons, and the glory and the
covenants and the giving of the Law and the temples service and the
promises….from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all….” (9: 4-5).
Pay close attention to what Paul is saying here. All the wonderful spiritual heritage and
blessings Israel received were not intended for Israel alone. The family of Abraham were called to be blessed,
so that they could be a blessing (Gen. 12), which means they were to be a “priesthood” (Ex. 40.15) to bring God’s blessing to the whole
world. But when Israel failed be that ‘light to the nations” (Isa. 42.6) , God
had to send forth His blessing another way, through the coming of the ‘faithful’ and ‘righteous’ Christ (Eph. 1.3), so that through him, everyone can be
blessed (Eph. 3.6). Now,
through Christ Jesus, the message of ‘salvation’
is made accessible and available to all ‘by
faith’ so that, as Paul writes, ‘the
word is near, in your mouth and in your heart…
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised
Him from the dead, you will be saved….for
Whoever will call on the name of the LORD will be saved.” (Rom. 10.9; 13). This word for “whoever” or ‘whosoever’ is a
word that resides at the core of being, and living a compassionate Christian
life. It is the “voice” of those who preach such good news of the God’s salvation
for ‘everyone’ or ‘whoever’ that, as Paul says, has “gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the
world” (10.18).
Again, don’t miss Paul’s point. The
Christian faith, faith in Jesus Christ, should never be considered a faith for
some, for few, nor a faith for the most righteous or most privileged, or even
only personal and private, but the Christian faith is a faith that should
display public compassion for anyone and everyone. This great desire for the message of God’s
saving power in Jesus to reach out to everyone, to whosoever, and to all is the
foundation for a compassionate Christian life.
If we do not have such compassion, as Paul had, not just for his own
people, but for the world, and for all those who need God’s saving, healing,
and redemptive word, then we don’t have true faith.
Unfortunately, a lot of Christianity, a lot of religion, and a many
well-meaning religious people, need to be reminded, as Paul’s heartbreak
reminds us, that the religious life is a religious concern that is also a compassionate concern. World religion
authority Karen Armstrong writes that from Confucius to Christ and even now to Oprah,
religions of the world have preached compassion at their spiritual center. One thinks here of one truth that is at the
center of most every religious belief in the world: “The Golden Rule: Do
unto others as you’d have them do unto you.” The problem is that while we may say we
believe this, we don’t always live it, show it, make it our priority, and instead,
in some strange attempt to defend our own religion, we become part of the
problem, rather than part of the solution.
As Armstrong goes on to say, “People
often prefer to be right”, than to have compassion.” (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132809627/concrete-ways-to-live-a-compassionate-life).
I’m glad, however, that sometimes Christians get it right. A
good example something that recently happened in Texas. Patrick Greene was, what we could call, a
militant atheist. He threatened to file lawsuits against the courthouse in
Henderson County, Texas, if they didn’t remove a nativity scene from the public
property. It wasn’t just that he didn’t
believe in God; he fought publicly against the expression of Christianity
wherever he deemed it inappropriate.
Greene, who had been a taxi driver for 33 years, was diagnosed with
cataracts. He didn’t have insurance or the cash needed for necessary surgery,
and so he was at risk of losing his license and his only stream of income along
with it. Upon reading about his
situation, Jessica Crye mobilized people at her Christian church to donate to a
fund to help Greene pay for his surgery. The small community of faith collected $400,
and their generosity inspired others to join in. Atheists and Christians came together to add
to the fund until there was enough for Greene to cover his medical bills.
Patrick Greene was dumbfounded. He could hardly conceive of a Christian
woman, whose faith had been the object of his attacks for years, would respond
his disdain with compassionate generosity. Most
important is Crye’s response to Greene’s need. In looking past their differences, and even
his own disregard for her closely-held faith, she found her sense of
compassion. It was this Christlike act
that moved Greene to reevaluate his position on faith. Crye and her church did not hold the gift over
his head, requiring him to renounce his atheism in order to receive it. They
didn’t crow about a sense of moral superiority. They just gave because they
believed it was the right thing to do. This
is why Patrick Greene, a lifelong atheist known for his public stands against
Christianity, recently announced that he has become a Christian.
Compassion has no agenda. It has no
goal, but to do good and to show love. If
it does have another agenda, it’s no longer compassion. But if we give without expectation of a
result, we leave room for Love to inspire.
Paul wants desperately to bring a very different kind of faith into the world
which focuses upon God’s loving kindness and mercy to the world. There will always be those who will not
accept or receive that message. But
Paul still has great compassion, even if they have rejected God’s message. Paul does not make them his enemy. Paul does not condemn them to Hell. Paul still has great appreciation, great
respect, and great heart-felt concern even though they disagree with him about
Jesus. How can Paul be so
compassionate? How can Paul continue to
pray for them, have concern, and show love them? If you recall, it was Jesus, the
compassionate and forgiving voice, who saved Paul from his own religious
snobbery and stubbornness on the Damascus Road. Now, Paul has a new Lord, a new master, and
he has a new way of living his faith.
He lives for the loving Christ, who once had compassion and showed mercy
to him. When you meet that kind of
Jesus, you will live a life of compassion too.
Amen.
No comments :
Post a Comment