The Mission Continues Part 3.5
The Jesus Mission Continues • Sermon • Submitted
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Notes
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"Glory be to God for dappled things!" is the opening line of Gerard Hopkins's famous poem called "Pied Beauty." It is a poem that celebrates variation and differences. It praises God who creates skies with variations of color like a box of crayons and fish like trout that are freckled with little pink spots, and my favorite part of the poem:
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; a dazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him
Glory be to God for dappled things and praise God for a dappled congregation. Let’s prepare our hearts to receive God’s word today.
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Ha-Foke-Bah
Ha-Foke-Bah
De-Cola-Bah
Ha-Foke-Bah
Ha-Foke-Bah
Mashiach-Bah
Turn it, and turn it, everything you need is in it.
Reflect on it, grow old and gray with it.
Do not turn from it.
The Messiah is in it.
Please don’t misinterpret my failure to visit you, friends. You have no idea how many times I’ve made plans for Rome. I’ve been determined to get some personal enjoyment out of God’s work among you, as I have in so many other non-Jewish towns and communities. But something has always come up and prevented it.
Everyone I meet—it matters little whether they’re mannered or rude, smart or simple—deepens my sense of interdependence and obligation.
And that’s why I can’t wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.
It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else!
God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: “The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives.”
This is God’s Word for us today!
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The event that split history into "before" and "after" and changed the world took place about thirty years before Paul wrote this letter. The event—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—took place in a remote corner of the extensive Roman Empire: the province of Judea in Israel. Hardly any citizen of the Empire noticed, certainly no one of affluence and power.
And when this letter arrived in Rome, hardly anyone read it, certainly no one of influence. There was much to read in Rome—imperial decrees, exquisite poetry, finely crafted moral philosophy—and much of it was world-class. And yet in no time, as such things go, this letter left all those other writings in the dust. Paul's letter to the Romans has had a far more enormous impact on its readers than the volumes of all those Roman writers put together.
This letter's quick rise to a peak of influence is extraordinary, written as it was by an obscure Roman citizen without connections. But when we read it for ourselves, we realize that the letter itself is truly extraordinary and that it could not be kept obscure for long.
The letter to the Romans displays a mind that is full of exuberant and passionate thinking. Romans is what it looks like when a person's mind is enlisted in the service of God. Paul takes the well-witnessed and devoutly believed fact of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and thinks through its implications. How does it happen that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, world history takes a new direction, the life of every man, woman, and child on the planet was eternally affected? What is God up to? What does it mean that "God" has a "powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts Jesus"? Why would a Jewish Messiah want to rescue enemies from the empires of the world instead of destroying or conquering them? Why would he rescue the Jewish people or Gentiles who by-and-large voted against him and crucified him? What's behind all this, and where is it going?
Our passage in Romans 1:13-17 gives us an introduction to Paul's theological imagination. I hope and pray that it will also shape our imagination so we live out our mission to reach "all people" who will trust Jesus.
Four elements form Paul's theological imagination shape the super-structure that holds all of Paul's thoughts together. These four are fundamental for forming our imagination as followers of Jesus and as a congregation that wants to realize the mission of inspiring "all people" to wholeheartedly follow Jesus.[1]
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First, Paul's theological imagination flows from his submission to the Scripture. Submission is not a popular word anymore but it is the right word to describe how the Scripture entered Paul's thought world. You don' get very far into anything Paul writes or says (cf. Acts) before you encounter the checkpoint: As it is written in the Scriptures. To see God's dappled kingdom, the price of admission is submission to the Scriptures.
Paul is not a textnician smoothing out the rough edges of the Scriptures. Paul never approaches the Scriptures with a high-minded, know-it-all attitude. He seems surprised by each word as it presents itself before his mind. He is not an independent thinker trying to figure it out on his own. He is not a speculative thinker tinkering around with "religious ideas" searching for some universal truth or moral maxim. He is a submissive listener of the text.
The Scriptures for Paul are not read. They are listened to. The contrast between Greek culture and Jewish-Christian culture could not be more instructive. The Jewish people tended to think about understanding as a kind of "hearing" (Hear O Israel…). The Greeks understood learning as a kind of seeing. Northrop Frye has pointed out that the Greek culture revolved around two powerful visual events: the nude in sculpture and the drama in literature. On the other hand, Jewish Christian culture revolved around two audio events: the unseen God speaks cosmos, nation, Torah into existence, and the Word becoming flesh.
Listening and reading are not the same. When we listen we use our ears; in reading, we use our eyes. Listening is interpersonal: the speaker and the one listening. Reading is impersonal: the reader and a text are disconnected from its voice, history, and author. In listening, the speaker is in charge; in reading, the reader is in control. When we listen, we are embracing our Jewish-Christian heritage. When we read, we are embracing the Greek culture.
Paul listened to prophet Habakkuk (Romans 1:17, HCSB quoting Hab 2:4).
For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
Paul heard Habakkuk’s complaint to God that many devout and Torah observant Jewish people were going to die by the Babylonians' hand. Habakkuk told Paul he positioned himself on the watchtower, confident that God would honor Torah observance and grant salvation. That was not the answer Habakkuk heard from God. Instead, God said that salvation would come from outside of the Torah, by personal faith. Habakkuk told Paul that faith in God's word of salvation was the only hope left for the Jewish people. Paul heard Habakkuk say to him, "It is not faith plus anything else" it from faith to faith. It is faith all the way through.
Paul listened to Habakkuk's message, submitted himself to it, and that opened up the gates of his theological imagination so he could see himself as part of God's ongoing story. Paul would tell the believers in Rome, like Habakkuk, that salvation would come from outside of the Law. Salvation would come through faith in the message about the crucified and risen Galilean Messiah: Jesus.
If Paul had been a Greek, he would have simply just read the text and never heard Habakkuk. He would have admired the beauty of the words, the originality of Habakkuk's ideas, appreciated its aesthetic much like one enjoys a Rembrandt painting. Paul heard it and submitted to the one who was speaking. His heart was stirred like one listening to the beautiful piano piece Nuvole Bianche by Ludovico Einaudi. Nuvole Bianche is a gorgeous (and heartbreaking) piano-solo, and every time I hear it, the hair on my neck stands up. Tears start forming like pools in my eyes. There are no words to read, just the sounds to hear, and all of a sudden, before my mind, the world becomes softer, gentler, kinder, and more open-handed. I am not forced into submission to its notes. I want to submit to its sound.
I wonder what would happen if we started to hear and listen to the Word of God? Heard it like Nuvole Bianche and submitted to it because it moved you by its sound?
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The second characteristic of Paul’s theological imagination is his extravagant embrace of the Gospel proclamation (Romans 1:15))
And that’s why I can’t wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.
Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel – not reading theology – is the vehicle that gives a concrete encounter with God and man today. It is incredible to me that the man who writes 16 chapters of gold-standard theology makes the proclamation of the Gospel and not the written letter the important thing (Romans 1:15, The Message)
And that’s why I can’t wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.
In Paul’s mind, it was more important that he get to Rome to proclaim the Gospel than if his letter about the Gospel was read. Nothing was more important to Paul than the audible proclamation of the Gospel. For Paul, the proclamation was breath, air, for the spiritual lungs of every Jesus follower. Paul boldly positions proclamation later in his letter (Romans 10:14-15, HCSB):
But how can they call on Him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about Him? And how can they hear without a preacher?
And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the gospel of good things!
Karl Barth in his first volume of Church Dogmatics says what few theologians have ever said: The theologian must yield to the Preacher. He is following an older, deeper form of Christian faith that said:
For the very greatest, holiest, most needful, highest service to God, which God demanded in the 1st and 2nd commandment, is to preach God’s Word, for the preacher’s office is the highest office in the churches…how can there be knowledge of God without his preachers, preaching the Gospel. – Barth, I., p. 71.
It is significant that Paul, Barth, and many others never lost faith in the preaching of the Gospel. They never lost faith in God’s sent preachers. The unbreakable message of God in the mouth of broken humans beings. The message that alone could be heard by the ears and transform the hearts of the ones listening.
What takes place today, under the name “preaching,” would cause Paul to scream in agony. The Gospel everywhere in America has been depersonalized. Preachers speak about universal truths. They treat the pulpit like a TED talk. They use short and headline-worthy bullet points filled with trite moralism or psychological meanderings (that they do not understand), self-centered messages that deprive the cross of any real spiritual value, or messages about having faith in faith, just faith it up.
Preachers today look at their congregations the way a CEO looks at a company. Preachers see their flocks as consumers, and each week they try to give their consumers what they want. Two of the most popular messages on YouTube with millions of views understand this very well:
Breathing Room: the space between our current pace and our limits. – Andy Stanley
The Power of “I’am” – Joel Osteen
One message says your problem is busyness, and it promises to give you the keys to a stress-free life with lots of margins and breathing room. The other says your problem is the words you say about yourself, and the solution is to say “I am,” and the “I am’s” will hunt you down. When you don’t have a flock but customers, when you don’t see the Gospel, but you only see a product, this is what you get. The is a consumer Gospel.
But it is not the Gospel that Paul preached. It might be helpful, and some people I know need to plan their days better, but it’s not the proclamation of the Gospel. Rather than the foundational problem with humanity being our sin and the very real presence of evil, one message teaches that our foundational problem is self-esteem, the other teaches that our foundation problem is scheduling. We don’t think highly enough of ourselves, and we need a better daily planner, BUT we don’t need a Savior, don’t need a cross, don’t need spiritual direction from a Sermon, don’t need your mother tongue of prayer, a new identity in baptism, or the communion of the Saints. Nope, get a daily planner and schedule a time to speak your best self into existence. Paul would vomit.
The indignity and lack of respect for the Preachers who proclaim the Word of God would have driven Karl Barth into a fetal position in tears. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle invited the Rev. Michael Curry to give the royal wedding sermon, no one thought his sermon would have any relevance, nor did they expect it to spark a conversation about race in our culture today. One opinion writer, Diana Evans, for The Guardian noted quite frankly, “I had not expected to be moved.”[4]
Curry’s proclamation to a flock of high-browed British elites did what a sermon should do:
The expressions on the faces of the congregation around the church were also something to behold, ranging from empathy to bemusement to confusion to downright scorn.[5]
This is the proclaimed Gospel, the message that comes from a preacher's mouth who sees a flock, who sees a people and dares to speak the message of truth to a flock. He does not care to sell them a product. He wants only to speak the words that God speaks and to proclaim the will of God. He wants to lead a flock through deep valleys and high mountains BUT always trusting that the Lord's rod and staff to bring comfort on the dangerous journey. He always preaches a message for the flock right in front of him, not the congregation down the street. He preaches to their problems. It is personal and specific, not impersonal and universal.
And that’s why I can’t wait to get to you in Rome, preaching this wonderful good news of God.
When Paul says, he was eager to preach the Gospel to those in Rome, what excited him was the spoken word that would shape their faith. I imagine that many in Rome were not as excited to hear Paul as much as to read Paul. Just like today, many people would rather watch a preacher than hear a preacher. Depersonalize the message because it is easier to judge and ignore the message when you can remove the preacher.
Beth El Shalom, I am eager every week to proclaim the Word of God to you. You are not my customers. I am not selling you a product. You are God's flock that He has given for me to shepherd and preach His message to. The people who come in these doors are not future customers or consumers. They are men, women, children, young and old made in the image of God, who need a preacher to proclaim this message of faith about Jesus to them.
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Third, Paul’s theological imagination is shaped by his understanding of a new identity given through baptism. Identity is both lost and found, remembered but made new, universal but also particular, privileged but not exclusively; and only first-class citizens. I need to give you a Michael Vowell translation of the Greek text. Otherwise, you might be confused about what you hear:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also [first] to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16, Rabbi Vowell Translation)
Too many times, this text wrongly has been used to give tribal priority to the Jewish people. You must hear me when I tell you that the Bible says that because of God’s covenants with Abraham, Moses, David, and the New Covenant, the Jewish people have prerogative but not privilege. Paul dedicates a full-frontal assault on Jewish privilege in Romans 2-3, but he never denies that the Jewish people have a prerogative with God (Romans 9:4-5):
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises.
The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Messiah, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.
And even though it may look like God has revoked Jewish prerogative, Paul answers (Romans 11:25):
So that you will not be conceited, brothers, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery: A partial hardening has come to Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
Paul’s theological imagination always holds in tension Jewish prerogative and Jewish and Gentile equal priority status. Paul does not believe you have to speak the Gospel to a Jewish person before doing so to a Greek. And please do not cite the book of Acts where Paul goes to a synagogue before he goes to the gentiles because that pattern is inconsistent in Acts and starts to fall apart by his second and third missionary journey.
Paul’s use of Greek is precise and excellent. He says that Jews and Gentiles have equal priority status, “first to the Jew, and also [first] to the Greek.” But that does mean both groups have priority status and not one group or the other nor one group over the other.
Both groups equally need a preacher, a Christian, a follower of Jesus to unashamedly proclaim the message about Jesus.
We must be careful to not tribalize nor prioritize the Gospel to any ethnic group, demography, or otherwise. It is repulsive to say, “Our congregation is primarily concerned about reaching millennials, gen-x, or gen-z.” The Gospel will not allow us to prioritize according to demographic lines. Still, the Gospel will also not let us ignore any group. It is equally repulsive to say that our church only ministers to this demographic or this ethnic group. This cannot be the case. It is antithetical to the Gospel that wants to minister to All People, All Ages, in All Situations.
If you have been at Beth El Shalom long enough, then you understand this is the whole reason why we started this new congregation. I have been plagued by the messianic movement that builds up the notion of Jewish privilege that Paul argues against. I have been equally plagued by churches that give credence to Gentile privilege. And I am equally tired of the hearing “we have to reach the millennials.” WE must reach All People. The Gospel ignores all of these dangerous notions, and so will I.
Lauren and I dreamed that we could start a congregation that would truly minister to Jews and Gentiles, All People. A colony of heaven that did not create first-class and second-class citizens. Just one group of first-class citizens made up of Jews and Gentiles alike. We wanted to build a congregation that cared about people made in the image of God and not programs that needed volunteers. That is why we repeatedly say we are not a Jewish messianic synagogue. And, we are not a Gentile church. We are a Jewish Christian congregation that wants to inspire all people (Jews and Gentiles) to wholeheartedly follow Jesus.
Our congregation will always recognize God’s prerogative for the Jewish people because of His covenants with them. That is why we bless Israel financially as a nation in unbelief. Still, we bless the Jewish people with the Gospel just as much as we do the Gentiles because both groups have priority. We believe that because of God’s prerogative for the Jewish people, they received a biblical culture, biblical calendar, biblical covenants, and unique identity. We honor that by participating in Jewish life and culture. BUT, God has given to the colony of heaven (Jews and Gentiles) a culture, a calendar, a covenant, and a unique identity through baptism. We want to be a dappled congregation made up of Jews and non-Jews.
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Last, the element that makes Paul’s theological imagination so conspicuous is his vision for God’s dappled colony of heaven.
Everyone I meet—it matters little whether they’re mannered or rude, smart or simple…Jew or Greek…is someone who God loves and wants to rescue. – Romans 1:14, 16-17).
As a listener of God’s word, Paul heard his history, the story of Israel. He recognized that God’s people have always been dappled. There were Gentiles from the very beginning who gave different shades and colors to God’s colony. Some Egyptian midwives did not obey the murderous decree of Pharaoh and Persians. They ignored the same lethal law of Haman. There were Syrian wives and a Syrian General. There were prostitutes like Rahab and Moabites like Ruth. Paul’s imagination saw all of their faces lit up brightly.
Paul also heard the stories of God’s people using and abusing the dappled among them. He knew the story of a great Jewish King, David, who secretly murdered Uriah, a loyal warrior, so he could cover up his adulterous transgression. He heard the story of Gentiles like Haman, who wanted nothing more than to destroy the Jewish people. And Paul had heard all the stories about Jesus collecting around himself notorious sinners, deviants, outcasts, unacceptable, and, don’t forget, tax-collectors. It is funny to me that in the Gospels, the only thing the Pharisees and the Prostitutes agree upon is that the Tax-Collectors are worse than them, a common enemy. Paul listened to the stories of a dappled, rough-edged Jesus community, and he wanted to continue that story in Rome.
Rome was not the kind of place that liked things dappled. It was a conformist culture, to say the least. Yet, Paul explodes onto the pages of history and can speak like a Poet when he says:
Everyone I meet—it matters little whether they’re mannered or rude, smart or simple…Jew or Greek…is someone who God loves and wants to rescue. – Romans 1:14, 16-17).
Paul was not looking for things to be tidy and neat, without loose ends and devoid of ambiguity. He was not trying to create colonies of high-browed elites and intellectuals or colonies for Jews only. Paul’s theological imagination just does not paint with that brush. Paul’s theological mind sees a Pied beauty like Gerard Hopkins, I think he would exclaim like Gerard,
Glory be to God for dappled things!
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
The God whose beauty never changes brings forth these things:
Praise Him for dappled things!
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As we listen to Paul and allow his words to soak into our souls, we find ourselves in the presence of a theological master. He does not even think himself a master of anything. What we have in Paul is theological imagination that can mature us and help give shape to our own congregation and mission statement: submission to Scripture, the proclamation of the Gospel, the priority of Jews and Gentiles, and an insistence on a dappled colony of heaven right here in Katy, Texas.
I want to live this Way, the Jesus Way, and I want to do it together with you.
[1] Taken from Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Romans.
[2] https://series.northpointministries.org/breathing-room
[3] https://www.challies.com/vlog/the-joel-osteen-sermon-that-changed-oprahs-life/
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/20/bishop-michael-curry-sermon-history-harry-meghan-wedding
[5] Ibid.