Romans [Season 2]- Savannah Charlish-Inman- Romans 15vv22-33: Unifying Generosity

Director of College Ministries Savannah Charlish-Inman blesses us with a farewell sermon by demonstrating that what may seem like simple administrative housekeeping in Romans 15 is in fact a radical political and spiritual statement of a new humanity in Christ. 

Transcript

Paul's Travel Plans to Rome

Speaker 1 0:00

Would you turn in your Bibles with me to Romans 15, 22 through 33?. That is why I have been prevented many times from coming to you. But now I no longer have any work to do in these regions and I have strongly desired for many years to come to you Whenever I travel to Spain, whenever I travel to Spain, for I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there, once I have first enjoyed your company for a while. Right now I am traveling to Jerusalem to serve the saints, because Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution to the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Yes, they were pleased and indeed are indebted to them, for if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual benefits, then they are obligated to minister to them in material needs. So when I have finished this and safely delivered the funds to them, I will visit you on the way to Spain.

Speaker 1 1:00

I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. Now I appeal to you. I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit to strive together with me in fervent prayer to God on my behalf. Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, that my ministry to Jerusalem may be accessible to the saints and that, by God's will, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed together with you. May the God of peace be with you, amen.

Speaker 2 1:31

Amen. This past spring I got to go to Italy and spend some time in Rome, and while I was there, I got to go on a theological tour through St Peter's Basilica, led by a young man who was studying at the Vatican in the process of becoming a priest. For two hours I got to walk through the Bible made tangible, and architecture and art, as my tour guide walked through detail after incredible detail, saying things like I don't know if you remember when Peter yeeted himself out of the boat. If you get the chance to go ever, I highly recommend finding a Gen Z priest to give you a tour. It was unforgettable. But in particular, there was one moment that I've come back to over and over again as we've worked our way through Paul's letter to the Roman church, and it was listening to 1 Peter being read as we stood on the large circle of red periphery right at the entrance of the church.

Speaker 2 2:46

Now, for the very few of you here who hear red periphery and aren't immediately in awe of the weight of this moment, the profundity of it is intertwined with its symbolism inherent to the piece of stone Specifically. To walk across this stone is a spiritual and political pronouncement that Jesus is the one true king. This is because periphery is a stone that is solely derived from Egypt, and so its rarity elevated it to being associated with imperial authority and was used almost exclusively by Roman emperors for thrones, sarcophagi and architectural elements. In fact, the ancient emperors loved periphery so much that they quarantined it to extinction. So, from the late empire onward, the only way to get this purple-red stone was by reusing or re-carving an old piece. So to have inlaid this stone to the entrance of the church of all of humanity was an intentional statement that, while emperors once sat upon this stone to receive worldly glory, the faithful, no matter how poor or seemingly inconsequential, now step over it. It is an unequivocal statement that earthly power is ultimately subservient to God's divine power and that all are equal in God's eyes. And so, as we stood on this stone in the church built upon the ground where it's believed that Peter lost his life for the truth of the gospel, we listened to the words he'd written to the young church in 1 Peter.

Speaker 2 4:24

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to God's elect exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, galatia, cappadocia, asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood. Grace and peace be yours in abundance. As we've read through Romans and worked through the invitations to unity, consecration and mission, and Christ. Jesus's love for us, I've come back to this moment over and over again because, despite its simplicity, I've been genuinely moved by the fact that, because of Christ, someone like me can tangibly experience the truth that no amount of power or wealth can bring me closer to or separate me from the eternal truth that, in through Christ, I can trod over a symbol of one of the greatest empires the world has seen because of the greatest sacrifice the world has ever known. It seems to me that this truth is the core theme guiding every point in Paul's letter to the early church in Rome. And so, while I admit that this text seems unassuming at first, seems unassuming at first, there's something profound about the way Paul weaves every single theme of his letter into these last few lines. And so, as I have said many times, and in the spirit of one more sermon together, look back at the text with me verse 22. This is why I've often been hindered from coming to you, but now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions and since I've been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

The Collection for Jerusalem's Believers

Speaker 2 6:22

It's important to note that Paul is in fact asking for money from the Roman church. At the time Paul was writing this letter, there was a famine that was devastating parts of the Roman Empire, and this famine catalyzed a fundraising campaign by Paul from the Gentile churches, not only for the practical realities of providing funds to care for the pressing needs of the community in Jerusalem to care for the pressing needs of the community in Jerusalem but also as a tangible expression of God's working through the church, reflected in unification and selfless love amongst the new believers. For Paul, giving money to care for the Jewish church wasn't merely a donation, but an intentional and direct statement that the disagreements between Jewish and Gentile believers is transcended by the transformative power of Christ's love and freedom, working through their hearts and minds because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit amongst God's people, revealing God's power through expressed acts of love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control In the midst of great tension and fracturing. For the Roman church to give money to the believers in Jerusalem was an explicit statement that Christ's death, resurrection and ascension has ushered in a new kingdom that cannot be conquered or destroyed. As the theologian Thomas Schreiner summarized it, the collection for believers is vitally related to the Pauline mission for the generosity of Gentiles for the poor in Jerusalem, testifies to the solidarity of the new people of God and is tangible evidence that the promises made to Abraham are being fulfilled. And is tangible evidence that the promises made to Abraham are being fulfilled when Jews and Gentiles are in harmony in Christ, then the new humanity promised in the Old Testament is becoming a reality.

Speaker 2 8:16

If you remember the movements of this letter, one of the key points for Paul is showing how Jesus is forming a new covenant family and people from all nations. Paul goes on to claim that these people are the new humanity that fulfilled God's promises to ancient Israel, and now Jesus stands as the head of that humanity. The result of this new humanity is that when a person trusts in Jesus, their life is joined to his and what's true of him starts to become true of them. It's when people accept their identity as Jesus-like humans that they are liberated to become wholehearted people who can love God and their neighbor. And so, as humanity has been adopted into the promises of Christ, paul writes that the only response is for these Jewish and non-Jewish Christians to become a unified church community.

Speaker 2 9:11

However, I'm not sure if you've noticed this or not yet in your own lives, but living closely and in unity with one another is made very difficult by other people. Just think about the people you like and spend time with and the friends that you choose, and the yet inevitable disagreement that still arises in these relationships. I mean, I think about when we were leaving St Peter's Basilica. There was an American man exiting near us and he was wearing a shirt with Martin Luther's face on it and it said nailed it. And for those not immediately familiar with the Reformation history, martin Luther was a theologian whose criticisms of the Catholic Church birthed the Protestant Reformation and the splitting of the Protestants from the Catholic Church. And he did this by nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church in Germany, and since then Martin Luther is not known for being a beloved saint within Catholic theology.

Red Porphyry: Symbol of Kingdom Authority

Speaker 2 10:22

So to show up to the church that the Catholic tradition believes was built on the literal grounds where St Peter died, and that this is the one true church. As Jesus said to Peter, you will be the rock upon which my church is built. You can imagine how it was received to arrive there unapologetically, walking around the church with this image glaring back at you. As Landon and I were both shocked and laughing, because it is a little funny, we were also taken aback by how many of us Christians walking through that church confessed Jesus is Lord and how quickly obvious it became that we clearly did not agree on certain things. And if this is true of that small of a moment, how much greater is the tension when you try to mix entire cultural traditions and experiences, different upbringings and belief systems, languages and social norms. If we think that it's hard to reconcile our beliefs with our Catholic brothers and sisters, we can begin to appreciate the challenges facing the early church as Jews and Gentiles tried to navigate, learning to be like Jesus under immense persecution and economic hardship.

Speaker 2 11:47

And so, with this in mind, look back again at the text with me, starting in verse 25. Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord's people there, for Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord's people in Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it and indeed they owe it to them, for if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings. So after I've completed this task and have made sure that they have received this contribution, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way. I know that when I come to you I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ.

Speaker 2 12:32

In many ways this passage captures the details, the lived theology that Paul has spent the entire letter moving towards. If we lose sight of the motivating theme of the letter that there's a new humanity ushered in by Christ, we are at risk of forgetting that the Roman Empire was an oppressive regime that promised peace and prosperity through force and fear, maintaining factions and separations amongst ethnic groups, allowing people to maintain their cultural practices, but only if they were within the legal boundaries of the empire. This means that the stakes of what Paul is writing here is not only politically scandalous but spiritually radical For people across ethnic lines to come together and give material support to a community they hadn't met yet was utterly perplexing and even foolish to those living in the ancient world. I mean, it's not hard for us to think of the devastating floods in Texas this summer that killed almost 150 people, or the horrific fires in LA that killed and displaced hundreds of people, and how quickly the situation became political discussions as relief efforts went underway.

Paul's Radical Vision for Unity

Speaker 2 13:49

In many ways, our political context shares the same mindset that who you give money to is who you support, that money is a scarce resource and that these realities take priority in the face of needs and disaster. Particularly if we think about the life of the Romans, it's estimated to that up to 80% of the population lived in poverty, and so money itself was a deeply political thing For the poor. Models about the collapse of the Roman Empire were predicated on the idea that the end of Roman dominion was the decline of a certain quality of life or, on the other hand, that the end of Roman oppression spelled new liberties and wealth for the peasantry. And so, just as issues today are quickly politicized for the point of garnering support or undermining those currently in power, the famine facing Jerusalem was equally political, as famines were often blamed on the mishandling of grain by Roman politicians. And, to be clear, I'm not saying that there weren't legitimate political issues that needed to be discussed. Rather, my point is that when we take this context into consideration and realize how much we actually share with the early church in Rome, it magnifies how radical Paul's challenge was that these disagreements and the factions they cause are secondary to and subservient to the selfless, compassionate response of Christ in the face of suffering.

Speaker 2 15:25

In this way, paul's relief funding efforts cut across political and theological divides to get straight to the core of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus that we are God's people in Christ, filled with his spirit. We are the renewed Israel, the people of the covenant, a new humanity. Our primary identity is rooted in the confession that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, and this defines us over and against those who worship other gods and lords. In short, paul views the very presence of the church and its obedient life as a living, breathing testimony to the world of who its rightful God and Lord now are Captured beautifully by NT Wright.

Speaker 2 16:23

Paul's aim was to extend the rule of Jesus, the world's true Lord, planting cells of people loyal to Jesus, whose loyalty would be evidenced not least by their unity across traditional and ethnic cultural lines. To that end, he had taken a collection from Gentile churches and was on his way to Jerusalem to give it to the Jewish Christians there. It was a powerful symbol that Jesus is Lord and that the principalities and powers who keep the world divided up into separate categories and allegiances are not. This is the heartbeat of Paul's message when he writes in Ephesians for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that, when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand. So, stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place. No-transcript For Paul.

Speaker 2 17:37

The key dynamics that he's addressing include the weak and the strong, the relations of the Christians within the Roman state, the offering being gathered for the struggling church in Jerusalem, his own intended mission to Spain and the practical question of how these believers are supposed to live together amid such varied concern and all of what that looks like in five or six house churches. His letter proposed is run by a narrative in his mind, as he intends to explain that his gospel, that mostly his gospel to the churches that mostly don't know him, as he solicits support for his Spanish mission and seeks to pastorally persuade the strong to embrace the weak as family, while encouraging the weak to grasp the transformative newness of Christian life. The underlying story here is not merely Paul's own, but his reading of God's unfolding and unexpected plan for history, revealed in Israel's scriptures At its core. What this means is that, despite the unassuming nature of this part of the letter, what Paul is really doing here is taking the concept of grace and salvation through Jesus Christ and presenting it as a concrete reality. Specifically, his point is that all of humanity has been invited to participate in the freedom that comes from knowing the one who made us, and that that invitation is so transformative that it is embodied and testified to in the very ways that we orient our lives.

Money as Testimony to New Humanity

Speaker 2 19:21

Teach the Roman church is that every act of selfless love is not only a rejection of the empires whose existence is dependent on division and fear, but that also having been transformed ourselves through Christ's love in such a way that we become agents of that love dethrones evil itself. It is something so miraculous and divine that the only way to explain it is through the outworking of the Holy Spirit in God's people. And it's a miracle that Paul knows only come from the prayers reflective of a deep life and love with Jesus. Look back at the end of the text with me, starting in verse 30. I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord, jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be kept safe from unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favorably received by the Lord's people there, so that I may come to you with joy and, by God's will and, in your company, be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all, amen.

Speaker 2 20:30

Paul's letter to the church sits in the tension of casting the vision for what it means to be a part of God's kingdom and the painful realities of it not yet fully being manifested. When he asks for prayers for safety from persecution and that the rest of the church participate in the invitation of Christ to unity and selfless love. He knows that these things only come through the work of God's redeeming grace, and so, just as Paul prays that the Roman church will give an acknowledgement of the love that binds them together with the church in Jerusalem, paul prays that that same church would accept their gift, making a full acceptance of a new humanity, a new kingdom and the one righteous king who binds it all together. In many ways, this text is Paul's confirmation that the unity of the church is a core reflection of the work of the Holy Spirit in us and only comes about because of Christ's love made real to us. And it's this call to individual transformation made real and communal relationship that remains alive and well for us 2,000 years later.

Prayer as Spiritual Warfare

Speaker 2 21:44

Like the early believers in Rome, we recognize that, although Jesus' resurrection has inaugurated a new creation, we now live in the in-between between that decisive event and the final redemption still to come for us and the whole world. And since most of the world does not yet know Jesus as Lord, and we too ourselves are not yet perfect, we live in the tension between what we are already in Christ and in spirit and what we shall be when Jesus appears again and completes his work in us. This means that the tensions, fears, pains and longing we feel is often reflective of the real brokenness we see in the world around us. But the good news this morning is that this thing that brings us together every week is not merely a belief system or good instructions, though it is both of those things in the best way. What Paul is really commending the church to embrace, and what is most important for us to remember, is that what we have available to us right now is a relationship with the creator of the universes, who not only made you out of an act of divine love, but made you in the full pursuit of the entirety of who you are. And he gave his life and defeated death so that you may know the freedom you were designed to experience. And it's this perfect love that casts out the fear that tries to choke the good news of the gospel, as Paul writes in his letters to the Ephesians, for he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier and the dividing wall of hostility by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace and in one body to reconcile them both to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. As we come to a close and I invite the worship team up one of the things I find most profound is that, in following this letter, paul's prayers are answered, but in a somewhat ironic way.

Speaker 2 24:10

The collection was apparently accepted by the Jewish Christians, but Paul's subsequent arrest in the temple precincts raises suspicions about him again in the churches he had not yet attended. Paul was in fact delivered from persecution in Judea, but only by being locked up by the Romans for two years. And Paul did get to Rome and experience a measure of joy, but he arrived there in Roman chains. And yet, in the midst of all of this, paul is unwavering about the power of Christ and his victory over the empire that will ultimately martyr him. For Paul, the fulfillment of God's redemption was not in conquering the political ranks, but rather it was seen in the transformation of God's creation into the people of blessing he created them to be. And as Paul witnessed this, despite the persecution that followed him, he remained steadfast through his ministry that every profession of Christ as king reflected a victory that had already been won.

Speaker 2 25:20

For Paul, christ is the active worker in the things of which he is talking about, and Paul was simply the instrument called forth by his own transformation after encountering Christ.

Speaker 2 25:34

As he writes in 1 Corinthians 6, I planted the seed, apollo's watered it, but God has been making it grow.

Speaker 2 25:44

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters anything, but only God who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor, for we are co-workers in God's service. You are God's field. God's building. Unity, consecration and mission is the work of the Spirit through God's people, in the present and the future, putting into practice for us and for the whole cosmos what has been accomplished in Christ. God will put the world to rights, achieving what empires have tried to claim to have done. And it is this hope that sustains us as we learn to become people who testify to the goodness of the gospel we proclaim, embodied in our selfless love toward one another, in service to Christ. And so, as we near the end of this letter and you meditate on the words of truth and let the Spirit convict you and inspire you, I will leave you with Paul's same words the grace of peace be with you all, amen.