Romans 9:1-5
I like the Apostle Paul.
He’s my middle name.
I’ve often joked that my parents gave me the perfect name … Thomas Paul … Thomas the Doubter; Paul the Believer … and I’m somewhere in between: “LORD, I believe; help my unbelief.”
Believing always includes pieces of unbelief … and unbelief always flirts with believing … Thomas Paul … the Doubter, the Believer … for me, it’s a good combination … and I’ve always been grateful.
I’ve always been glad to share Paul’s name, and I’m glad to share in Paul’s vocation.
He’s a pastor …
He’s a missionary …
He’s a teacher …
Utterly humbled by his Damascus Road experience …
Paul is patient …
Paul is a man of Good News …
A preacher of grace … passionate about grace.
Paul is real … he frets and fusses like we all do … he gets angry, has regrets; he defends himself and then apologizes for being defensive; he’s at a loss for words, and he’s eloquent; he’s tender and he’s testy … in other words, just like you and me, he’s a sinner saved by grace.
I like Paul.
His credentials make him a voice worth listening to.
No armchair philosopher.
His faith is forged on the anvil of suffering.
Paul puts himself on the line again and again.
Paul knows the pain and humiliation of a Roman lash.
The filth of a prison in Philippi.
He’s been shipwrecked and robbed.
Beaten and belittled.
He’s been hungry and cold.
At one point, Paul asks, “Am I doing this for human approval?” If so, I must be nuts. But what I do I do for God [Galatians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:4].
Does Paul understanding everything there is to understand about the Gospel? … not at all, and he’d be the first to say so.
Should we take everything Paul writes with unquestioned literalness? … Paul would say like any good theologian – “Let’s talk about this. Let’s think deeply about Jesus. Let’s talk about grace.”
“I’m not the issue,” Paul would say.
“Jesus is the issue.”
Paul believes that God did something profound in Jesus …
For a moment, we have to put on our thinking caps … we have to remember that Paul is a Jew … when Paul talks about God, it’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … the God who led the children of Israel out of slavery, through the wilderness to the Promised Land … the God of King David and the God of the Prophets … the God who sent His people into exile and then brought them home again …
Paul believes that the whole story was headed for the moment when Jesus was born … that all the hopes and fears of humankind are focused in that Bethlehem babe … Jesus of Nazareth, the man of sorrows.
Paul believes that Jesus is the fulcrum on which the whole world is balanced – Jew and Gentile, free and slave, male and female; past, present and future – the whole world, the universe …
In Jesus, God is at work, reconciling the world to Himself.
Doing for humankind what humankind could never do for itself … to shoulder the burden and pay the price … to lift up the weary and heal the sick … to give sight to the blind and set the oppressed free.
Paul’s letter to the Romans is often dense and difficult … Paul is writing to a community he’s never visited … but he knows a few of them … Paul hopes one day to visit Rome and then travel on to Spain.
Paul never stops thinking about the world.
Paul’s vision is large.
Paul cares about the spiritual wellbeing of people … because God loves the world … God’s grace and mercy are present and obvious everywhere … yet Paul sees the terrible confusion that fogs the mind and heart of humankind.
Paul is passionate about people.
Paul lives in the Roman Empire … he’s a Roman citizen … he’s no one’s fool … Paul has seen the world and he’s seen it all.
Roman says, “Caesar is lord” … Paul says, “Jesus is LORD.”
The world expects salvation from Rome … Paul says, “The hope of the world is Jesus.”
Folks called Caesar savior … Paul replies, “Jesus saves!”
The end of Paul’s life is not recorded … the last we hear of him, he’s in Rome, imprisoned … under house arrest of sorts, with a guard. He’s free to have visitors, free to write his letters …
Tradition is murky at this point … but everything suggests execution … this is what Rome did to anyone who challenged its authority, who created a disturbance, and Paul created lots of disturbance wherever he went.
Paul is passionate about truth.
Our reading today is a fascinating piece of a very large puzzle …
[read text …]
Putting it as simply as we can, folks wondered if something had gone terribly wrong with God’s plan of salvation.
If Jesus is from the Jews, by the Jews, for the Jews, then why have only a few Jews acknowledged Jesus as LORD and Savior?
And if something has gone wrong, could Paul be wrong?
And if Paul is wrong, is the gospel wrong?
Have we gotten it wrong?
Have we bet on the wrong horse?
Have we hung our hat on the wrong peg?
People were putting their lives on the line for the gospel … so folks wanted to know: Is Jesus the One?
Is Jesus is the long awaited Messiah?
If Jesus is the way, the truth and the life?
Is Jesus is everything you claim Him to be, Paul?
Then why have so few of His own welcomed Him?
Paul was caught between an expectation of how things might to work and how things were really working.
Who hasn’t been there a time or two? Caught between expectation and reality.
We’ve made our plans, figured it out, put pencil to paper – googled it and talked it out with friends and family, and everyone says, “Yup, that’s a good idea.”
Then life takes an unexpected turn – events unfold in their own chaotic way, and who would’ve guessed.
Monday morning quarterbacks tell us we should’ve done it differently.
We find ourselves saying, “If I knew then when I know now, I would have made different decisions. I would have gone in another direction.”
That’s the hard edge for Paul …
Paul is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Let’s step back for a moment … and think a bit more about Paul!
Paul is brilliant and well-trained.
He knows the story of Israel inside out and backwards.
He’s has spent a lifetime with God.
With a life-changing moment on the Damascus Road.
You know the story:
A blinding light hurls him into the dust of the road …
A voice addresses him, using his Jewish name, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Who are you, LORD? Paul replies.
I’m not persecuting you.
I’m defending you.
I’m on your side.
I’m doing what’s right.
I’m living my faith.
And I’m persecuting you?
In a blinding moment of realization, Paul’s certainty is shaken to the core.
The world, as he knows it, is suddenly turned upside down.
Everything up for grabs.
The story Paul knew so well suddenly grows strange.
This is an unexpected twist.
A turn he didn’t see.
Who are you, LORD?
I am Jesus!
But you’re not the one!
We tried you in our courts and found you wanting.
The Roman Empire charged you with sedition and executed you.
You’re dead and buried.
We put you away.
We’re done with all of this.
And I’m doing what I can to stamp out the remnants of this distorted movement.
Who are you, LORD?
I am Jesus!
There are some sidebars to this story.
The voice asks, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
Ring any bells?
Of course … King Saul … Israel’s first king … from the tribe of Benjamin, just like Paul is from the tribe of Benjamin – like two folks discovering they’re both from Westchester.
Saul, Saul.
Echoes here of King Saul’s intent to kill David … the young shepherd boy, David, is hired to play the harp to soothe Saul’s depression, but in a fit of rage, Saul hurls a spear at David hoping to pin him to the wall.
David escapes … and the inevitable begins to unfold … David’s popularity eclipses that of Saul … time and again, Saul fails; David succeeds … Saul fusses and fumes and embarks upon a campaign to kill David, chasing David through the wilderness, persecuting David.
Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
In this remarkable moment on the Damascus Road, Paul sees his murderous rage for what is - misdirected and ill-conceived … it’s all wrong.
Paul suddenly sees through fog of his own convictions and traditions – Jesus is the LORD God of Israel.
Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of the Cross … Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph … the LORD God of Israel.
The man on the road thought he knew so much, but now asks the simplest of questions: Who are you, LORD?
There’s a second element here … remember the call of Moses?
Moses the shepherd in Midian.
When off to the side, one day, Moses sees a burning bush … in the middle of nowhere.
I’d better check this out, thinks Moses.
And when he’s near to the bush, God calls him, Moses, Moses.
Twice named … just to be sure.
Saul, Saul, why do your persecute me?
When God commissions Moses to return to Egypt and lead the people to the Promised Land, Moses asks, Who are you, LORD? Do you have a name?
God replies, I Am Who I Am – Yahweh – I Am Who I Am.
When the people ask you, tell them “I Am has sent me.”
God’s name, I Am, Yahweh …
The sacred name … so sacred, Israel didn’t say it – they said, Adonai instead, and Adonai means LORD.
The LORD God Almighty … Yahweh … creator of the heavens and the earth … the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob … the God of the Prophets …
On the Damascus Road, Paul realizes that Jesus is the LORD God Almighty … that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is Jesus of Nazareth.
Who are you, LORD?
I am Jesus!
And with that, Jesus says to Paul, Now get up and get on your way; I’ve got work for you to do.
And work Paul did.
To tell the story … now with a twist.
To tell the old, old story, with a new chapter.
What God started in Abraham has come to pass in Jesus.
Yes, we killed Him.
But God the raised Him from the dead and crowned Him LORD of lords and King of kings.
This is not what I expected, says Paul.
But who can guess the mind of God?
The ways of love are beyond our grasp.
A story to tell to the nations … a story of goodness and hope … a story to set nations free and liberate the soul from superstition and idolatry … to break the chains of sin and sorrow.
But it wasn’t long before Paul realized that others didn’t see it as he did.
Have you ever been convinced of something, tried to explain it to someone else, only to have them scratch their head and say “huh?”
The question plagues Paul:
If I have seen this, why can’t my brothers and sisters see it?
Could I be wrong?
Again?
I was wrong before.
Might I be wrong again?
Our text today has to be read in the light of the whole book.
Paul remains clear – all things work together for good, all things for the glory of God and welfare of creation.
Though my heart breaks for my own people, I know that God’s love for them remains intact … there will be a day when the barriers come down.
Paul is passionate.
He would trade his salvation for the sake of his own people.
Like a parent at a child’s hospital bedside, “I’d take my child’s place if I could.”
“I would suffer in their stead.”
So says Paul about his own people.
If I could, I’d change places with them.
But Paul doesn’t lose his confidence in the goodness of God … Paul knows that it will end well.
All things work together for good.
God is faithful.
The covenant God made with Abraham and Sarah remains … if there’s a strange twist to the story, so be it.
Stories have a way of taking a strange twist.
But God’s love remains.
The hope is right.
The vision secure.
I like Paul.
He’s a man of passion.
He met Jesus and followed Him to the end of his days.
I’m glad to share Paul’s name.
And with all of you, to know the Damascus LORD, our LORD Jesus Christ.
Amen and Amen!
