The Book of Romans: Plunge into the Promise!
January 19, 2014 | Anita Retzlaff

"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. (Rom. 1:7) Approximately 1960 years ago this greeting from Paul was received by the small community of Jesus followers in Rome. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This greeting ties us together over the centuries and connects us as people who desire to live in the ways of Jesus of Nazareth. We are hearing from the book of Romans today and you will notice that as we have been preaching through the bible this book is out of order. On the Sunday in fall when Romans was to be our theme Susan Shultz Huxman from Conrad Grebel University College was our speaker and so you have had to wait until now to hear from it: this letter, written by Paul in the years approximately 55 or 56.

1960 years later, today, in 2014 the church that seeks to follow Jesus is in grave danger. The church that seeks to follow Jesus is in danger of losing its reason for being. It has become so caught up in itself that it cannot see out and beyond. And I mean by that, the North American church, including the Mennonite Church in Canada - yes, us!

We come from a tradition of persecution. Mennonites were hunted and marginalized, set apart and then exterminated in various historical settings over the last 500 years. In some countries that is still going on today - but not in ours. Here is the thing. Mennonites in Canada are now a part of the mainstream culture. We are not being persecuted or discriminated against but we are still behaving as if this is the case. We are more or less insular – focused on us and our survival and in large measure continue to lack awareness of our calling to be witnesses in the world around us. We have been contented with running our own show, tweaking our leadership structures and meeting our budgets and being satisfied that we have survived as an institution. But that is all falling away and quickly.

Many of our children and grandchildren have little interest in our public expression of religion, i.e., Sunday morning worship and they do not see us “doing” what we are “singing” about; practising what we are preaching; loving those whom Jesus insisted that we include and hold closely. We have lost our edge as a Christian “institution” and we need to retrieve a sense of urgency collectively and renew an outward-looking passion for the world – not necessarily overseas but right here where we live and work. We are no longer the persecuted ones but have become the well-oiled machine, the carefully reasoned, astute purveyors of Mennonite uniqueness, culture and family values. Our brand of church is protective and can get stuck in the past and will not survive much longer in its present form.

Before anyone gets up to leave, let me just say that I shudder, myself, in saying these things about me and about us. Yet we are in peril or may have already slipped over the edge when it comes to effectiveness as Jesus followers and Christian witnesses in our Nutana Park neighbourhood, in our city of Saskatoon and in our country of Canada. The institutional church has become for most people bland, irrelevant and self-serving. Bear in mind that there is a distinction between an institution and the individuals that make up the body of Christ. Nevertheless the church is in trouble. There are a variety of things happening in my life and work that lead me to these conclusions and I will try to explain a little about what is unsettling me and prompting a desire for us to rethink who we are as the church and as Christians and as spiritual people. What difference does it make that I belong to a church? What difference do I make when I say that I am a Christian? This rant comes to you today courtesy of the Book of Romans.

Paul, in about the year 55, some 25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord, writes an incredible letter of encouragement to Christians who live far away from him, on another continent, in the city of Rome. I find a tremendous surge of hope in what I read here and I want to share that with you today in the midst of some truth-telling about where we find ourselves as the church. We will not all agree on this analysis and here is the problem with standing behind a pulpit and trying to share God’s encouragement. What I say cannot be sold to you as the “gospel truth” though I try to reflect as best I can what I think the scriptures are saying to us. So what I offer here is an interpretation of what I think the bible shows us about God’s love and about our human situation. What Paul does is bring together these two realities – God’s love and our humanity - into a partnership and a relationship that is strong and unshakeable. Paul shows the early Jesus people, through an extended explanation, what it means to be connected to Christ. That is the sum total of the book of Romans. These words are perfectly suited for us here at Nutana Park today in our desire to be a truthful voice of the Mennonite perspective on faith and life in a cultural setting in which the presence of The Church is bordering on insignificance.

Eugene Peterson’s translation of 4:20 describes Abraham as “plunging” into the promise. There you have it! For you swimmers and cannonball experts, plunging is a familiar feeling. Headfirst or otherwise, there is that moment of decision and action where you leave firm footing and plunge into water - some moves more gracefully executed than others. I know what it is like to fear that action of plunging into water. Besides becoming wet the water can be cold, hard (if you sprawl) or unfamiliar below the surface. There is a moment of decision, lift off and then – come what may! It is what we call “taking the plunge.” Paul invites us to take the plunge of faith.

He holds up the story of Abraham from the Old Testament as an example of taking the plunge of faith and believing in Jesus. Just like Abraham had faith in God, we can have faith in Jesus. Just like Abraham and Sarah had a baby at 100 years old and older to become the parents of the Jewish faith for centuries to come, we too must plunge into the faith believing that our inclusion into the Body of Christ will help to change the world. Remember that Paul is writing this within a few years of Jesus’ remarkable resurrection. It would indeed have been a plunge into faith on Paul’s part to be preaching Jesus crucified and resurrected especially since Paul had previously been “the enforcer” of the failing church institution of his time. Many of us read Paul’s letters 1960 years into the institutionalization of the Jesus religion and write him off as anti-women, boring and interested only in doctrine and not action. I would challenge all of you to read Romans in The Message which is a translation into contemporary language. This translation by Eugene Peterson is not boring. Read it alongside the text printed in our bulletin and you will see how some of these words really come to life and into a new light. I want to share with you the words from this translation of chapter 4 beginning at verse 19. Here is a story of incredible hope that Paul wants us to understand.

“Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That is why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right,” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.”

When all seemed hopeless Abraham believed anyway – couldn’t see the silver lining or the light at the end of the tunnel but he believed in God’s promise to him. I think Paul’s life and writing is similar. Jesus’ way was a new way and Paul stood up against the highly structured religion of Israel and did so long before the church had been established as an authority on anything. He was alone and vulnerable, hoping against hope, trusting, believing that nothing could ever separate him from the love of God that he had experienced in Jesus. Remember also that Paul had not met Jesus and didn’t have the firsthand experience of being his disciple. He lived like Abraham did, plunging into the promise. He put his life on the line and met his death when eventually he did get to Rome. His was an urgent and hope-filled message, not some dry doctrine that didn’t lead anywhere.

He got into real trouble when he insisted that no rules of worthiness or special churchy requirements were necessary for being connected to God. When God is for us who can be against us? This hope of inclusion is what set him free to leave the confines of the structures of Jewish religion and move out into the world of grace. We have that same hope. The work of Jesus in the world frees us to move beyond the confines of some of our structures and reach out into the lives of our neighbours. We do not have to worry about keeping someone else’s rules or buttressing institutions that no longer deliver on their promise. We can take the plunge of faith that God’s spirit will continue to be active even when some familiar boundaries fall away and things change. God does not leave us alone. We can take this promise and challenge ourselves and our congregation to pay attention to what is happening around us. For example, there is a new gathering called The Meeting House and this is how they explain themselves online:

“Throughout history the Christian Church has often lost sight of the core message of Jesus. It’s not hard to see how this can happen. Whenever something really good comes along, people have a tendency to try and build around it, take advantage of it, own it, organize it, systematize it, enshrine it. The problem is, before you know it, the very thing you once valued ends up totally obscured by all that other stuff….At the Meeting House…. We think that when you see Jesus without the religious baggage we have put around him, you’ll find someone undeniably life-changing and worth following. Everything we read about Jesus in the Bible paints a clear picture of a revolutionary and radical who intended on turning our ways of thinking upside down and inside out. He wasn’t interested in creating a new religious system of do’s and don’ts, wrongs and rights, rites and rules. Rather, he had a completely irreligious message. His message was that we can only find true peace and wholeness when we embrace a love-based relationship with God, others, and even our enemies….We believe that in order to truly see Jesus, grasp his message, and follow him, we need to reject the lens given to us by religion, even the Christian religion, and become a community who opens our Bibles regularly with fresh eyes and re-live the accounts of those who first followed Jesus.” [taken from the website www.themeetinghouse.com]

Bruxy Cavey, a teaching pastor at the Meeting House will be speaking here in Saskatoon in a couple of months and I want to hear what he has to say. For the most part I agree with the leaders of the Meeting House about Jesus’ message but I disagree with their assessment that the Christian church has gone so far down the road that it no longer can see anything clearly about Jesus. I want to be a part of the Church and I do know that we must make some significant changes. Having attended task force meetings this past week, looking into ways in which we can re-vision ourselves as Mennonite Church Canada, I am convinced that we have much to offer. I am taking the plunge. I am hopeful that our ministry as a national body of Christian people who call themselves Mennonite is still very relevant. I believe that when we disciples of Jesus go out with his message of love and inclusion, we are indeed changing the world - a tiny corner at a time. When all seems hopeless we plunge in anyway. God has promised to be with us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That should make us bold. We have incredible freedom to move into the world as followers of Jesus. Our institutional church is shifting and groaning and waiting for new birth. That’s us my friends. We have been blessed and sent, so let’s do it. Thanks be to God – the One who is for us. AMEN