Romans 1:1-7 (NRSV)
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle,
set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his
prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was
descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God
with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead,
Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to
bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his
name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all God's beloved in Rome , who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
The Divine Collision:
Why We All Hate the Gospel (and Should)
With
a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across the western
Siberian sky Friday and exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs, injuring
more than 1,000 people as it blasted out windows and spread panic in a city of
1 million.
While
NASA estimated the meteor was only about the size of a bus and weighed an
estimated 7,000 tons, the fireball it produced was dramatic. Video shot by
startled residents of the city of Chelyabinsk
Exploding meteor over Russia injures more than 1,100
Exploding meteor over Russia injures more than 1,100
If you thought that was a dramatic collision, wait until you
hear about the birth, in a stable in Roman occupied Palestine , of an impoverished and persecuted
Jewish baby named Jesus, later called the Christ.
About fifty years after that baby’s birth and about twenty
years after the man’s crucifixion, Paul of Tarsus, a Hellenistic Jewish evangelist
who, in the fullness of time, became a Hellenistic, Jewish, Christian
evangelist, writes a letter of introduction to a Jewish Christian community
whom he has not yet met – the Jewish Christian house churches in Rome .
A lot of liberal folks – including liberal Christian folks -
hate Paul. He has, in their minds, hijacked the simple purity of the religion
of Jesus to make it the religion about Jesus.
But, I’m sorry. I like him.
Oh, nice Jesus stories of forgiveness, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, advocacy for the poor, forgiving the sinner and all that other namby-pamby sentimental nonsense are fine if you’re into that sort of thing, but – as a professionally-trained amateur theologian – I’ll choose a butt-kicking dialectic over Hallmark-card Jesus every time. J
Oh, nice Jesus stories of forgiveness, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, advocacy for the poor, forgiving the sinner and all that other namby-pamby sentimental nonsense are fine if you’re into that sort of thing, but – as a professionally-trained amateur theologian – I’ll choose a butt-kicking dialectic over Hallmark-card Jesus every time. J
In the brief space of his opening paragraphs, he declares
Jesus to be God’s promised Messiah with himself a slave of the Messiah and
divinely authorized to speak God’s message on the meaning of that for humanity
and the world – indeed, as being “set apart” from other men to do just that.
And then, the meaning of that message… the collision of the
divine and the human, God and Nature.
He says, “the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended
from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power
according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead,”
Lastly, Paul gives fills out the details as to the purpose of his slavery, his being separated from other people, and his authorization to
preach: “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the
sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus
Christ.”
The word “Gentile” is a Latin form of the Hebrew word “Goy” whose meaning changed over time from
“nation” to “nations that are not Jewish” and, even in New Testament times, it
could be used pejoratively.
So Paul is basically saying to this Jewish Christian fellowship or community, God has divinely authorized and set me apart to tell “the other” that they, too, can share God’s gift of salvation that had heretofore been promised only to the Jews.
So Paul is basically saying to this Jewish Christian fellowship or community, God has divinely authorized and set me apart to tell “the other” that they, too, can share God’s gift of salvation that had heretofore been promised only to the Jews.
He is saying, in effect, God has ordered him to invite these
folks to crash their little party, which caused him – at an earlier venue - to
get stoned on at least one occasion, and not in a good way.J
Paul says a great deal of very important things in a few
short words. (My own gifts tend to run in another direction.)
What is Paul saying, in a nutshell?
Jesus’ earthly life as a poor man in an occupied country who
had a reputation for open fellowship with the undesirable and immoral, healing
people and casting out devils – this Jesus who was crushed and who perished in
shame and agony has another, parallel life hidden in God until the two lives
come into collision at his death and resurrection.
A collision that challenges our own lives and the lives of
nations as we recognize that as God’s life and ability to save inhabited Jesus’
life, though cloaked within the humble circumstances of that life, so too are
our own broken, inadequate lives fully capable of the divine life and
salvation.
It may come as a surprise that the world hates that message.
It may come as a greater surprise that Christians hate that
message more than the world – unless they fail to understand it.
Because if the good news is that we have salvation through
our participation with God in Christ, the bad news is we must abandon all our
other, more tangible, more controllable forms of salvation.
God will prod us and provoke us until we let go of money or
drugs or promiscuity or pride or relationships or mindless entertainments or
distractions or accomplishments or whatever security blankets and teddy bears
we keep to get us through the days and long, dark nights of the soul.
God will continually challenge us to live lives whose security is vouchsafed by damn all or – in the Christian tradition – the unmerited grace and mercy of God rather than by our own efforts.
God will continually challenge us to live lives whose security is vouchsafed by damn all or – in the Christian tradition – the unmerited grace and mercy of God rather than by our own efforts.
The collision of God in Christ and the world at the focal
point of history is an invitation and a very aggressive challenge to let go of
those idols that hold us hostage and freely and boldly choose to live in a
universe where – if we can handle the anxiety of death – we are free.
God is just about ready to knock us off our rocker – and
that’s a good thing. Karl Barth said something to the effect that God is a
tangent that intersects our world at just one point – the Cross.
The Gospel feels like death but is actually an invitation to
freedom and life.
REFERENCES
The
Power of Christmas by Michael Gerson
A Table of
Christological Titles in Early Christian Writings by Peter Kirby
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