New Mercies
Romans 9:1-5, 30-10:4[1]
For
generations, our culture has been one in which self-reliance constitutes one of
the most basic virtues. Most of us would rather not have to admit that there
are times when we really could use some help—in fact there are times when we
actually need help! But it just isn’t in our DNA to admit that to anyone, even
to ourselves. We’d much rather carry on, doing the best we can on our own,
relying on our own strength, ingenuity, and stubborn will-power to get through
whatever we may be dealing with in life. Anything to avoid even letting on that
we need help! For us, admitting that can be seen as the worst kind of weakness.
And
yet, the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ is based on the premise
that when it comes down to it, all of us need help—desperately. When it comes
to our faith and living it out in daily life, we cannot simply rely on our own
strength. And when it comes to making us right in the sight of God, we most
certainly cannot do anything to achieve this by ourselves. The Gospel message
is that we are all in need of God’s grace, God’s mercy, and God’s love—for the
faith to sustain us every day, for the love to serve Christ and the Church
faithfully, and for the hope that our eternal destiny is safely in God’s hands.
In
his letter to the Romans, St. Paul goes to great lengths to elaborate on this
Gospel of new life as a gift of God’s grace and mercy. He makes it clear that because of Jesus’
death and resurrection we all have new life, a life that truly is life. And yet,
in the midst of this wonderful elaboration on the good news, Paul faces an
inevitable question —what about God’s own “people”? The fact of the matter is that God’s “chosen
people” had for the most part rejected Jesus and the good news that Paul and
others were preaching. Paul says that it
personally caused him “great grief and constant pain” (Rom. 9:2). But it also constitutes an argument that
could potentially refute the Gospel.
Think
about it—if this is what God is up to in the world, why is it that God’s own
“chosen people” have not embraced it? Or
perhaps we could ask it this way—if God is so “faithful” and “loving,” why has
God’s project seemingly by-passed the people God promised to bless? It would seem that either the “gospel” is a
massive misrepresentation, or that God is after all unfaithful, untrustworthy,
and “the promise of God has failed” (Rom. 9:6, TEV). For Paul, this raises a
serious question about God’s intentions on our behalf.
All
of this relates to an issue that defines our understanding of God and salvation
throughout the Bible. It is the subject
of “election.” In the Bible, election is
the idea that God chose to bless the descendants of Abraham. The promises to the ancestors, the Exodus,
and the covenant are all part of one great act of God in choosing the people of
Israel to be God’s people. This doesn’t
come across very well with us, because “choosing” anyone sounds to us like
rejecting someone else—or perhaps everyone else! I think one of the great sources of confusion
about the Gospel is the idea that God picks and chooses who will be saved and
who will be rejected. If that’s the
case, then Paul’s “Gospel” really isn’t such good news after all!
That’s
why Paul takes great pains to address this question. Unfortunately, in this section of the Book of
Romans he seems to talk in circles, and it’s easy to get lost in the
process! Though Paul’s language is
confusing, the main idea is that when it comes to our salvation—as well as
anyone else’s—“everything depends on God’s mercy” (Rom. 9:16, CEV).
Or as another version puts it, “It is obviously not a question of human
will or human effort, but of divine mercy” (Rom. 9:16, Phillips).
At
first glance, the idea of “election,” or “predestination,” or whatever you want
to call it, seems to imply that God is arbitrary about who gets to have eternal
life and who perishes in the flames. But nothing could be further from the
truth! When the Bible addresses God’s
“plan of salvation,” it presents a God who is always taking the first step
toward us all. If we follow the Scriptures closely, we will see that what all
of this is about is God’s decision from all eternity to be the God who
justifies the godless (Rom. 4:5), who has mercy on us all (Rom. 11:32), who
takes all notion of rejection away (Rom. 8:1; cf. Gal. 3:13). At the end of the day what must be said about
the Bible’s witness is that what God elects, what God chooses from all
eternity, what God “predestines,” if you will, is our salvation—and the
salvation of all humankind! This is
true even in the case of those who apparently reject God’s love now, of those
who seemingly want to be destroyed, of those who have hardened themselves!
All of this may seem
difficult to grasp for those of us who live by the creed that you pull yourself
up by your own bootstraps and you make your own way in this world. But the
essence of Paul’s Gospel in the letter to the Romans is that “everything
depends on God’s mercy” (Rom. 9:16, CEV). This is true even for God’s “chosen”
people who have seemingly rejected Jesus. For them, God’s mercy will be renewed
and they will be restored (Rom. 9:25-26). And for the rest of us, whether we
have sought out God or ignored God, God’s mercy claims us all for his own. For
all of us, the bottom line is that God is the one who has determined from all
eternity to be the God whose mercies are “new every morning.” And if we’re
honest with ourselves, we’ll have to come the conclusion that we too depend in
the final analysis on God’s new mercies for all of our life and for all of our
hope.
[1] ©
2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/6/2017 at
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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