Reading: Romans 11-12, Psalm 138

It is one of the unfortunate and bizarre realities of life as a human that at some point we will take what we are given and deduce the opposite from it than it actually says. So is the case of the Church’s relationship with the Jewish people and Romans chapter 11. It is undeniable that this chapter, along with many other parts of Paul’s writings, were used at different times and places in the history of the church to justify exclusion, mistreatment, and outright barbarism towards the Jewish people. Which when I read it, I have a hard time accepting. It appears that those who used it such did not bother to read it first. Shocking that this would happen in the course of power games and politics.

Anyway, the point that Paul is making in chapter 11 with his analogy of the pruned and grafted branches is not that the people of Israel are forever excluded from the Kingdom of God. It is, in fact, the opposite. He is saying that the Jewish people are the original branch of tree, and we gentiles ought not to get to uppity in our status as grafted in branches. We have already read in the previous chapters of his personal anguish over his people’s rejection of the gospel, now he is letting the gentiles know that that he fully expects the the people of Israel to eventually be returned to the Kingdom. Even this he ties back to the Hebrew Scriptures, recalling the story of Elijah during some of the worst years of the northern kingdom under Ahab and Jezebel. Israel has been rejected before, and there is always a remnant. It happened in the days of Elijah. It happened in the exile to Babylon. It is happening again, but make no mistake- God has a purpose for Israel, and it is not to reject it. The promises of God are not made void by human disobedience. We don’t have that kind of authority.

Paul uses this occasion to remind the gentile Christians of how awesome it is that God has called them to repentance and life in the name of Jesus. I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Paul tells the church in Rome to look around at how amazing it is that they even have this gospel message, and to respond with worship. His words recall those of Jesus: if anyone would be my disciple, he must take us his cross and follow me. Having lamented the rejection of his own people, Paul wants to remind the Romans what following Jesus looks like. It is not a prideful endeavor, but an act of sacrifice and submission to God’s authority. He does not want the gentiles who have believed in the name of Jesus to make the mistake of his own people. To start thinking that because they have the message of salvation, they can simply do whatever they want. No, they are to be transformed by the renewing of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God. Note that he does not say that our minds are renewed so that we might know what we really want to do, but that we might know God’s will. The renewed mind is concerned with God’s will, not it’s own will.

Paul is going to spend the next few chapters expounding what a person of renewed mind looks like. They are not proud. They do not try to do it all themselves, but acknowledge that God has given different people different gifts. They abhor what is evil but hold fast to what is good. They love one another. They try to outdo one another in showing honor. Just look at Romans 12:9-20 and tell me this is not a recipe for conflict with the surrounding world. I think that is the point. When the people of God actually act like this, it is an act of war against the human problem. Not just in the heart of the individual, but in the society at large. The will of God is a better world, and when God’s people pay attention to this will rather than their own, it actually works.