Romans [Season 2]- Savannah Charlish- Romans 15vv1-6: Transcendent Peace

Encouragements for living out Paul's radical call for unity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Amen.
I'm going to invite McKenna upto read our scripture today.
I know we did not coordinateour outfits, but I do plan on
Indiana Jones-ing her with mewhen I move in a month.
So, mckenna, would you pleaseread the Lord's Word for us
today?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Romans 15, verses 1 through 6.
It says we who are strong oughtto bear with the failings of
the weak and not to pleaseourselves.
Each of us should please ourneighbors for their good, to
build them up, for even Christdid not please himself.
But as it is written, theinsults of those who insult you

(00:39):
have fallen on me, foreverything that was written in
the past was written to teach usso that through this is the
word of our Lord, jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
This is the word of the Lord.
Some of you know that duringthe summer, I work as a faculty
member for a non-profit thatruns a college preparatory
program to high-achieving,low-income high school students
from all over the country, manyof whom will be the first in
their families to attend college.

(01:28):
For five weeks, 100 risingseniors live on Princeton and
Yale's campus and push throughintensive academic and
leadership development.
My job in the midst of all ofthis is to provide them with
exposure to a college-levelclass which focuses on
evaluating and applyingdifferent kinds of leadership as

(01:50):
a part of this curriculum.
Every summer we read Dr ReverendMartin Luther King Jr's letter
to a Birmingham jail which,apart from being one of the most
profound modern essays I'veever read, offers a response to
a public statement of concernand caution put out by eight
white southern religious leaders.

(02:11):
In it, dr King discusses therole of self-purification and
civil disobedience.
He writes as in so manyexperiences of the past, we were
confronted with blasted hopes,and the dark shadow of a deep
disappointment settled upon us.
We had no alternative exceptthat of preparing for direct

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action whereby we would presentour very bodies as a means of
laying our case before theconscience of the local and
national community.
We were not unmindful of thedifficulties involved, so we
decided to go through a processof self-purification.
We started having workshops onnonviolence and repeatedly asked

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ourselves the questions are youable to accept blows without
retaliating and are you unableto endure the ordeals of jail?
As we reflected on the lettertogether in class, I was
surprised by how many of mystudents were drawn to this
particular section.
It wasn't because theydisagreed with it or even found

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it controversial, but it wasbecause the concept of
self-purification felt utterlyforeign to them.
Many of them expressed a sharedsense of revelation at Dr
King's commitment to undergoinga formative inner process before
engaging in direct action.
For them, dr King and those whoparticipated in the nonviolent

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workshops modeled a way ofrelating to the world and
pursuing change that they hadn'tencountered before.
Specifically, studentsexpressed awe and inspiration at
the fact that, rather thanasserting will through force,
the civil rights movement reliedon forming themselves into
people of patience and enduranceand persistence, who could do

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things like write a charitableyet convicting letter to
propagators of southernsegregation.
For many of my students, drKing's letter hadn't lost an
ounce of its radical nature, andI think this is in part because
many of them are coming of agein a cultural moment that

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increasingly privilegesemotional alignment over
critical differentiation, bothonline and with those around us,
these students are listening toan array of authorities that
tell them to evaluate moral andrelational legitimacy through
effective agreement, theimplicit question being do you

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feel what I feel?
Are you outraged by whatoutrages me?
In this context, dissent oremotional dissonance is thus
often perceived not asdifference but as a betrayal,
and this reality, I'm sure weknow personally, is not confined
to young interpersonalrelationships.

(05:07):
It's quickly becoming a deeplyembedded feature of our general
political and culturallandscapes.
Just this month, a study wasreleased that argues the extent
to which emotional dynamics, asopposed to ideological
consistency or policy alignment,has become the central driver
of political affiliation andpublic discourse.

(05:28):
The authors of this study writerecent insights from political
science.
Literature highlights thatmovements appear predominantly
driven by emotional communitiescharacterized by shared
experiences of anger, outrageand resentment.
This is especially evidentamong populist parties, which
reject the conventionalleft-right divide in favor of a

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new fault line between thepeople and the elite, a
distinction rooted not only inmaterial interests but also
deeply felt emotions of angerand resentment.
There is thus a need to betterunderstand the effective
emotional dimension of thepolitical process that cannot
fit neatly into rational andcognitive frameworks.

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Put another way by the economistTyler Cohen, I have a core
theory that ties together thesedevelopments.
I call it negative emotionalcontagion.
It's simple If other people insociety become grumpier, we are
more likely to become grumpy too.
If someone insults us, we aremore likely to insult them back.

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If someone tries to cancel usout of a job and livelihood, we
are more likely to retaliate,and so on.
We see evidence for this kindof symmetric behavior every day,
most of all online, but theimplications of this dynamic are
rarely thought through.
When psychological contagion ispresent, social trends can
spread quickly, and they canalso spread far and wide.

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If the mood in society becomesmore negative, a small initial
change in negativity can lead toa much larger, longer-run boost
in bad feelings.
The danger here, beyond theobvious political and social
fragmentation so many of us areexperiencing in our day-to-day

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relationships, is that thiseffective logic can subtly
reshape our understanding ofwhat it means to be a disciple
to Jesus in such a way that thechurch, rather than offering a
counter-cultural witness to theworld, risks becoming a
magnified reflection of it.

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What I mean by that is that ifwe Frame the world in this lens,
our discipleship becomesdistorted and the teachings of
Christ are filtered through ourinherited cultural assumptions
about what is good and just.
In this case, if we are moreformed by the narratives of
effective tribalism, then ourperception of Jesus, his

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teachings and invitation for ourlives become obscured.
However, the good news thismorning is that the human
condition is delightfullyconsistent, no matter how much
progress we make, meaning thatwe are not the first, nor will
we be the last to wrestle withthe tension of our passions and
Christ's invitation to formation.

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Look back at the text with meRomans 15, lines one through two
.
We who are strong ought to bearwith the failings of the weak
and not to please ourselves.
Each of us should please ourneighbor for their good, to
build them up.
Now, for those of you who arenew to this letter, I recommend
listening to the past fewsermons that have done a great

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job unpacking the historical andtheological background of this
letter.
But just for this morning, as abrief recap, paul is addressing
tensions between two distinctcommunities, the Jews and the
Gentiles, that have emergedwithin the newly founded church
in Rome.
Specifically, paul's addressingdebates over whether Gentiles
or those who are not bornethnically Jewish are required

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to follow the laws outlined inthe Torah now that they have
been baptized into God's chosenpeople.
Broadly speaking, within thisdebate, there's one group that
believed that full inclusion inGod's community required
wholehearted adherence to OldTestament commands.
The other group, however,interpreted Jesus' claim of

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fulfillment of the law asmeaning that those baptized into
Christ's kingdom were no longerbound by practices like
circumcision or dietaryrestriction.
By the time that we arrive atthis part of the letter, paul
has already distinguishedbetween those who are strong in
faith and those who are weak.
In reference to this debate,affirming the convictions of the

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strong that, through Christ,there's no longer a distinction
between clean and unclean food.
I think biblical scholarDouglas Moo summarizes it well
when he says these exhortationsto mutual acceptance and concern
are directed specifically totwo groups of Christians those
who are weak in faith and thosewho are strong in faith.

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Two and probably three issuesdivide these two groups the
strong eat all kinds of food,while the weak eat only
vegetables.
The strong make no distinctionamong the days, while the weak
value some days more than others.
And the strong drink wine whilethe weak abstain.
Welcome to church this morning.
And so, while we're not onlysupposed to pray for the

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repentance and sanctification ofour vegetarian brothers and
sisters into the strong way offaith and meat, it's important
for us to recognize that, inthis context, this wasn't an
inconsequential disagreement.
For those who follow the Torah,the question of eating clean

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food and unclean food wasprofoundly serious.
This is because eatingsomething unclean meant coming
into contact with death itself,which rendered a person ritually
impure and therefore unable toenter the temple, the very place
where God's presence dwelled.
As it says in Leviticus 11, 43,do not defile yourselves by any

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of these creatures.
Do not make yourselves uncleanby means of them or be made
unclean by them.
I am the Lord, your God.
Consecrate yourselves and beholy because I am holy.
Do not make yourselves uncleanby any creature that moves along
the ground.
I am the Lord who brought youout of Egypt to be your God.

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Therefore, be holy because I amholy.
For those defending the practiceof clean eating and drinking,
the issue wasn't simply aboutpreserving tradition.
It was about what they believedwas necessary to maintain right
relationship with God.
These rituals were deeply tiedto their understanding of

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holiness and access to God'sdivine presence.
The challenge with this, though, and a truth that we often take
for granted today, is that,through Christ's death,
resurrection and ascension,nothing now separates us from
the presence of God, because thedeath that once separated us
itself has been defeated, asPaul writes earlier in Romans 8,

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beginning in verse 34,.
Who, then, is the one whocondemns?
No one.
Christ Jesus, who died morethan that, who was raised to
life, is at the right hand ofGod and is also interceding for
us.
Who shall separate us from thelove of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship orpersecution or famine, or

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nakedness or danger or sword, asit is written for your sake, we
face death all day long.
We are considered a sheep to beslaughtered.
Knowing all these things, weare more than conquerors.
Through him who loved us, for Iam convinced that neither death
nor life, neither angels nordemons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any powers,neither height nor depth nor

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anything else in all creationwill be able to separate us from
the love of God that is inChrist Jesus, our Lord.
For Paul, the key differentiatoris that those who are strong
are fully living into the totalfreedom from sin and death
purchased on the cross, wherethose who are weak are not.

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Yet this means that, where itmight be tempting to take Paul
to mean that weakness is definedby false belief, what Paul is
really pointing to is this thatthose who are weak in faith are
not marked by wrong theology perse, but a deeper struggle to
truly believe and be formed upby the reality that nothing can

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separate us from the love andgrace of Christ.
Listen to these words onceagain, for I am convinced that
neither death nor life, neitherangels nor demons, neither the
present nor future, nor anypowers, neither height nor depth
nor anything else in allcreation will be able to

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separate us from the love of Godthat is Christ Jesus, our Lord.
It might be hard to seeourselves and the early Jewish
Christians who are insisting onthe essentiality of clean eating
, but the truth of the matter isthat what's at stake isn't the
exact right or wrong belief, butthe underlying motivation which

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drives it.
This means that the question isdo we really believe, such that
the fabric of our soul is beingformed and molded by the truth,
that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from
the love of Christ?
Angers, resentments, passionsand convictions Are being

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transformed by having let go ofour own understanding and fully
submitting to the goodness ofChrist's authority in our lives.
If we take Paul at his word,then weakness in faith isn't
primarily about incorrectbeliefs, but more about the fear
, judgment or anger that oftenmotivates those beliefs.

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And the reason why I'm honingin on this point is not just
because of the beautifulinvitation it offers to us in
self-reflection, but because itmakes Paul's next move all the
more remarkable.
Specifically, what's astoundingis that Paul not only
identifies a group as strong infaith, but he assigns a

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particular responsibility tothem, such that it's from a
place of strength that they arecalled to lower themselves and
bear with those around them.
In a surprising and radicalmove, paul commends these young
Christians, those he callsstrong in their faith, to submit
themselves to others as a wayof fully embracing the freedom

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Christ offers.
As is consistent in Paul, paulshifts the dynamics of power so
that those we would assume whocould claim authority or
maturity are not asked tocorrect from above, but instead
to come alongside and partnerwith others in their weakness.
Just as the recipients of thisletter would anticipate the

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powerful being platformed, weare challenged by Paul raising
the status of the weak byrequiring that they be treated
with dignity, love, respect andfriendship.
In this way, bearing with oneanother isn't just about
tolerating or mitigatingdisagreement.
It's about entering into loving, committed relationships with

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those we might fundamentallydisagree with, and doing so in a
posture of humility.
I think Moo captures this ideapoignantly again when he says
Paul agrees in principle withthe strong.
I know and am persuaded in theLord Jesus, that nothing is
unclean in itself, but he spendsno time developing this point.
His concern is not so much withthe rights and wrongs of this

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particular issue, but with thepeace and mutual edification of
the body of Christ.
He makes clear that those whopride themselves on being the
strong have a specialresponsibility toward this end.
It is they, those who trulysense their liberty on these
matters, who are to put theirexercise to that liberty and
perspective and to subordinateit to the far more important

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good of their fellow believersedification and salvation.
In this they are to imitatetheir Lord, who subordinated his
own interests for the sake ofthose, both circumcised and
uncircumcised, that he came toredeem.
Put another way by Martin Lutherin his seminal work the Freedom
of a Christian, which I wish Icould have just read aloud to
you today, as my sermon For afree Christian speaks thusly I

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will fast, pray, do this andthat whatever is commanded, and
not because I am required thisor because I thereby become
pious or saved.
Instead, for the sake of thePope, bishop, the community, my
fellow brother or Lord, I willprovide an example, offer
service and suffer just as muchas Christ did and suffered far
greater things for my sake, eventhough it was much less

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necessary for him.
And even if tyrants actunjustly in demanding such
things.
Yet it will not harm me, suchas long it does not do, contrary
to my God.
Paul's lesson to the new churchis that Christ's love requires
an entirely different posturingtowards one another that is

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intuitive or praised.
In particular, it comes to theunessentials of belief.
Paul commends us to liveentirely sacrificially towards
one another, lettingrelationship with Christ and
each other take priority overhaving an entirely perfect
system of beliefs.
At this point, I think it'ssafe to say that, like many

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teachings in the Bible, thissounds great in theory but, if
we're being honest, probablynaive in practice.
Not only would Paul's lettersound absurd, ignorant and even
offensive to the young churchthat he was writing to, but I
think it's fair to say that ourown contemporary cultural and
political landscape similarlyboxed at the idea that those

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with correct beliefs shouldn'tconcern themselves with fixing
those around them.
In many ways, the passage oftoday is one in which we get an
image of the kingdom of God, onemarked by unity, peace,
kindness, generosity, inclusionand deep relationship, a kind of
world the deepest part of ourhumanity longs for.

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But it is partnered with atemplate for getting there that
sounds maybe foolish andsometimes even morally
irresponsible.
That sounds maybe foolish andsometimes even morally
irresponsible.
I mean this instruction, thisinvitation to live closely and
lovingly and intentionallyalongside other Christians we
disagree with doesn't justviolate our intuitions and

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impulses to correct and fixothers.
It fundamentally goes againstthe grain of almost every
cultural value we're fed on adaily basis.
I don't know about you all, butthere's a tangible gap for me
between the patience I showthose who call themselves
Christians and those who don't.
Sometimes it feels like there'ssomething in my brain that sets

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on fire when I'm aroundChristians.
I just don't think could bemore wrong, and I can't tell if
my patience towards people whoaren't Christians is
grace-filled or patronizing whenI tell myself that I can't get
too mad at them because theydon't know better, but I can
tell you that I lack all of thevirtues Paul talks about.
When I'm around, christians Ioften disagree with.

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If you doubt me, ask some of myfriends who knew me when I was
at seminary.
I think this is so becausethere's a particular kind of
fracturing and frustration thatcomes from wanting to walk into
a room with a bunch of peoplewho claim the title Christian

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and yet are faced with the unmetexpectation that the church
isn't a retreat center from thehuman condition.
Rather, what Paul understood andfaithful discipleship teaches
us is that the church isactually the primary working out
of sin, forgiveness and theformation that shapes us into
people who can genuinely lovethose beyond our immediate

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churches.
Put beautifully by NT Wright,paul saw the church as
microcosmos, a little world, notsimply as an alternative to the
present one, an escape countrycottage for those tired of city
life, but as a prototype of whatis to come.
That is why, of course, unityand holiness mattered.

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And because this microcosmoswas there in the world, it was
designed to function like abeacon, a light in a dark place,
a place of reconciliationbetween God and the world, a
place where humans might bereconciled to one another.
Put another way by James KASmith in a broken, fragmented
world, the church is called tobe the first fruits of a new

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creation, embodying a reconciledcommunity, a community that
gathers irrespective ofpreferences, tastes, class or
ethnicity in order to pursue acommon good.
I often tell my children thatone of the reasons we go to
church is to learn to lovepeople we don't really like that
much, people we find irritating, odd and who grate on our

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nerves.
The feeling's certainly mutual,I'm sure, and sometimes we will
even have to work through ourfrustration and hurts when we
fail one another and disappointone another.
When Paul wrote to the churchin Rome, he wrote with a call of
unity built on acounter-cultural framework that
would point to the truth ofGod's kingdom that only a

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perfect love could so transcendthese differences as to produce
a community of reconciliationand peace.
The hill that Paul is dying onright now is that when we turn
towards each other and ourdifferences and offer each other
selfless deference, we not onlybegin to taste the goodness of
God's kingdom ourselves, but weourselves become witness to the

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incomprehensible love of Christ.
At this point, I think it's goodto address two dynamics that I
think this teaching can raisefor us.
The first is what do we do whenwe try to do this and we're
rejected by our brothers andsisters in Christ, and what do
we do when disagreement seemsinsurmountable?

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A short word on each.
First, I want to be honest withyou that if you incorporate
this practice into your dailylife, you will inevitably be
rejected by someone you aretrying to serve.
Rejection is so inevitable inthis process that the first
thing Paul says, aftercommending those strong in faith
to endure with the weaknessesof others, is that for even

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Christ did not.
We would all be doing it.
But disagreement isuncomfortable, tense and so

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fracturing that I think we oftenorient our lives around it,
avoiding it at all costs.
I mean just the last two years.
I had a college student withwhom I'm incredibly close and
for two years she hid herparents from me or me from her
parents, I'm not quite surebecause she was terrified at

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what would happen inconversation if we had more than
five minutes to talk to eachother.
I know some of you personallyin the room share her anxiety
about introducing me to certainpeople in your lives, because
there's something aboutdisagreeing with each other.
That forms a pit in the bottomof our stomachs as we get the
feeling that there's no way towork through the divide in front

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of us.
The consequence of this is,then, that we often hold on to
our beliefs so tight or mistakeavoidance for peace to such a
degree that we positionourselves in a way that
disagreement becomes an unluckyrarity rather than an
inconsequential feature of ourlives.
So what do we do with aninvitation like this?

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I think that, to be thepeacemakers that we're called to
be, one of the first thingsthat we have to do is not think
that the absence of conflict isreflective of unity.
Specifically, paul's wordsdon't give us the promise that
selfless deference to each otherwill suddenly make us into

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people who all agree or see theworld in the same way.
Rather, paul's proclamationtestifies to the truth that true
peace transcends disagreement,binding us in love to one
another in such a way that ourgenuine care for the other
person motivates us to movethrough disagreement when it

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arises, without expecting thatthose we disagree with shape
themselves into our image.
It means that we keep an openinvitation to participate in
deeper relationship, even ifwe've been rejected, and it
means sacrificing our egos,insecurities and self-importance
to leave the door open to thosewho have hurt us in their own

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judgment, immaturity and pain.
I think this call is echoedbeautifully in 2 Timothy 2.24,
in which he writes and theLord's servant must not be
quarrelsome but must be kind toeveryone, able to teach, not
resentful.
Opponents must be gentlyinstructed in the hope that God
will grant them repentance,leading them to a knowledge of

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the truth.
This is why this practicebecomes such a testimony to the
goodness of Christ.
It can only happen throughChrist's love and the freedom
bought by him on the cross.
Love and the freedom bought byhim on the cross.
On the other hand, what do wedo when disagreement seems

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insurmountable?
To be honest, I think this partof the text is one of the most
difficult, because Paul leavesus with the framework that
differentiates between essentialand non-essential beliefs in
the church, without providing adefinitive and exhaustive list
of which ones are which.
This means that we arechallenged with the task of not
only discerning which beliefsare essential and which ones

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aren't, but also navigatingdisagreements on that very topic
.
Truth be told, as much as Isincerely wish I could cleanly
lay out for you which hills todie on.
I believe more in the power ofScripture to guide you in ways
beyond human capacity Because,as Paul writes to the Roman

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church, for everything that waswritten in the past was written
to teach us so that, through theendurance taught in the
Scriptures and the encouragementthey provide, we might have
hope.
If you flip through the storiesof the good book, you will find
example after example thattestifies to the incredible love
of God and what is madepossible through Christ's

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forgiveness towards us.
These stories, in partnershipwith the Holy Spirit and the
conviction and hope they provide, have the potential to form us
into people who can navigatedisagreement, not by eradicating
it, but because we've beenslowly formed, into people who
are patient, kind, humble,forbearing, loving, all because

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of the love we have receivedfrom God.
It is reading stories aboutthis that inspires us and
convicts us and helps us learnfrom the mistakes and successes
of those who have come before us.
When we look to Paul, we cantake great comfort that his
commitment to unity was not anaim for uniformity, because the

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invitation is not to ridourselves of difference.
That his commitment to unitywas not an aim for uniformity,
because the invitation is not torid ourselves of difference but
faithfully and with radicalhope, move towards one another
as an extension of thetransformative love we ourselves
have received.
As we come to a close thismorning and I invite the worship
team up, I want to betransparent that there is a

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version of me not long ago thatwould have thought all of this
was just simply wrong.
Aristotle, in one of the rareand unfortunate moments that
he's wrong, said that whilefriendship is man's greatest
love, even friendship must besacrificed on the altar of truth

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.
For a long time, this was aprinciple that guided much of my
life, and it's only much morerecently that Jesus's kindness
has led me to believe that Paulreflects the truth of grace in
his invitation to love oneanother in this kind of way.
My prayer for you this morning,as you come around and come to

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the foot of the cross and beginto think about becoming this
kind of person, begin to thinkabout becoming this kind of
person, I would like to prayPaul's prayer that he gives to
this early church navigating thedisagreements and tensions and
pains so many of you I knowenter into every day with.

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In verse 5, paul says May theGod who gives endurance and
encouragement give you the sameattitude of mind toward each
other that Christ Jesus had.
In verse 5, paul says let'spray together.

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Heavenly Father, I thank you forthis church and the way that
they faithfully show up week inand week out worshiping you.
God, I pray with the joy that wesing of this morning, the hope
that comes from the truth thatthere is no thing that can

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separate us from your love.
Lord, would it fill us up andwould it pour beyond these walls
?
Lord, I pray for a divinehealing for those who have
experienced the pain ofrejection or hurt.
God, would you wrap them up inyour love?

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Would your patience and yourkindness and your steadfastness
consume them, and would theyleave this morning feeling anew?
God, would you make us faithfuldisciples of the invitation
that you've given us thismorning?
And, lord, for those who hearthese news, the good news of the

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gospel, and have not yetentered in, and for all of its
messy and all of its hard, seethe picture of you on the cross
in sacrificial love and say Iwant it.
Lord, would you inspire them topray with others this morning?
God, I thank you and we praiseyou that you are making good on

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your promise, that you aremaking all things new.
Pray this in your name, amen.