(This sermon was preached August 16, 2026)
I’m going to go a little out of order today. We are beginning a new series on the Letter to the Romans. This is a long letter. Paul of Tarsus is the undisputed author of this letter. Paul, formerly known of Saul, was a Jew and a Pharisee who saw the Christian movement as a threat until he had an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Through that encounter he was struck blind and then miraculously healed. He was charged to go to the Gentiles and spread the word about what God had done through Jesus of Nazareth. So, Saul changed his name to the Roman name Paul and took up the calling to spread the good news.
Paul wrote this letter, which is more of an essay, to the churches in Rome late in his career. I say churches (plural) because Rome most likely consisted of a collection of house churches. This letter is going to congregations that Paul did not found, nor had he ever visited. Though the letter does make it clear that he did know several people there. So, this letter introduces the Roman churches to Paul, and he shares with them the Gospel.
Additionally, Based on the nature of the letter, one might guess that the letter to the Romans was also written because Paul had heard about some tension among the churches. The Roman emperor Claudius had expelled all ethnic Jews from Rome in the year 49. That included Jewish Christians. It may be that when Christian Jews returned in the year 54, much had changed with the Gentile Roman Christians. Jewish practices, like adhering to the laws, were more than likely abandoned when the Jews left, and the Romans had developed their own ways to express their Christian faith. Their cultures, which were already quite different, had caused their faith practices to grow even further apart in the intervening years.
And so, Paul’s letter addresses the tensions between Jews and Non-Jews in the Christian Church. And calls them to look at the bigger picture.
Romans 1:1-7, and 16-17 Common English Bible
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5 Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. 6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
7 To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”
(Paul goes on to express his longing to visit Rome)
16 I’m not ashamed of the gospel: it is God’s own power for salvation to all who have faith in God, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 God’s righteousness is being revealed in the gospel, from faithfulness for faith, as it is written, The righteous person will live by faith.[c]“
I want to stop here for a moment and talk about verses 16 & 17. Paul is declaring faith to be of the utmost importance. He says this faith was given to the Jew first and also to the Greek. This is not meant to be a hierarchal statement. It is simply a chronological one. God was first revealed to the Jews and then the message was carried through Jesus, a Jew, word become flesh and passed on to the Gentiles or as Paul puts it here the Greeks. This reminds me of the Native Americans who referred to all white people as the Boston Man. This is not to say they were from Boston, nor are all non-Jews from Greece.
This next bit is very theological: Paul writes, “God’s righteousness is being revealed in the gospel, from faithfulness for faith”. This is a deeply Jewish perspective of the person hood of God.
First, Righteousness is an important word for Paul. He uses it a lot. So, we need to understand what it means to him. Righteousness is God setting things right. This is going to include God’s faithfulness, and holiness, deliverance, integrity, and life-giving power. Righteousness is going to be God’s justice, and not like judgement kind of justice, but rather, justification kind of justice. The kind of justice that heals, reconciles, restores humanity to the life-giving source that is God. God created humanity to share in this righteousness, but we strove to be separated from God and go our own way. But through Jesus, God is determined to create a new humanity that walks in faith. That is faithfulness. That is the stuff of, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ It’s just as we learned in our series on the nature of God and how God is described in the Torah or Old Testament, we know that we worship a God who is compassionate and Gracious, very patient, full of loyal love and faithfulness.
And Paul argues that Jesus, being born and walking among us, living life and ministering to the hurt and the broken, and ultimately giving up that life on the cross is the ultimate display of God’s Faithfulness. God did not abandon us, but sent his only Son, to set things right.
And so. this one sentence, “God’s righteousness is being revealed in the gospel, from faithfulness for faith”
This sums up what God’s righteousness and justice achieves. God demonstrates the faithful fulfillment of his love and promises manifest in Jesus, and in turn God’s faithfulness evokes gratitude and faithfulness in us. This loop of faith, is the New Covenant, in a nutshell.
I’m going to go ahead and sum up the rest of Chapter 1 & 2:
Paul goes on to state that gentiles have no excuse, that God has been revealed to all the nations through creation. But that people worshipped the creation instead of the Creator. Paul then says that God left the people to their sins. He calls out many sins like sexual immorality, injustice, greed, idolatry, gossiping and slandering, fighting, deception and malice. They are not loyal or merciful. In other words, the Gentiles are a hot mess.
But on the other hand, Jews also have no excuse and cannot pass judgment because it would be hypocritical. It is not just the gentiles who are trapped in a spiral of selfishness, but the Jews are too. The law was given to them, but they broke their covenant with God repeatedly through their selfishness and idolatry. And perhaps that is even worse, because they had the law. They should have known better. Paul even quotes Psalm 14 and says, ‘There is no righteous person, not even one.
So what can be done about it? We pick up our passage again:
Romans 3:22-31
‘22 God’s righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in him. There’s no distinction. 23 All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, 24 but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus. 25 Through his faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice where mercy is found by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, 26 during the time of God’s patient tolerance. He also did this to demonstrate that he is righteous in the present time, and to treat the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous.
27 What happens to our bragging? It’s thrown out. With which law? With what we have accomplished under the Law? 28 No, not at all, but through the law of faith. We consider that a person is treated as righteous by faith, apart from what is accomplished under the Law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Isn’t God the God of Gentiles also? Yes, God is also the God of Gentiles. 30 Since God is one, then the one who makes the circumcised righteous by faith will also make the one who isn’t circumcised righteous through faith. 31 Do we then cancel the Law through this faith? Absolutely not! Instead, we confirm the Law.”
God reveals his intention and faithfulness to always set things right. This is God’s righteousness and justice. And this is manifest in Jesus, his only son who came to save the world tearing down any distinction between peoples, because really, we are all the same, people created in God’s image. So, there is no distinction. And our response to this is faith, we are not just called to belief, but we are called to active faith which turns our eyes back to the God of Righteousness. The restorer who makes us whole.
This my friends is the big picture, that Paul introduces to the Romans. When you are looking at this picture, it is harder to have factions. It’s harder to have one group over here saying hey, “THEY” are a bunch of sinners who are not following the law. While the other group is feeling superior because “THOSE Jews” are second class citizens that got kicked out of Rome. In fact, THEY are practically foreigners now. Romans first, right? No! There is no distinction.
Reading through the first three chapters of Romans, I’m reminded that people really haven’t changed much. We have always been clannish. There has always been this tendency towards ‘us vs. them’. There has also always been this tendency towards moral superiority. Or my way, or the highway.
We see these things in the political landscape of us vs them. This graphic came from an article in Scientific American called “People Overestimate Political Opponents’ Immorality” To heal political division, start with common moral ground, a study suggests. In other words we all tend to think the worst of people who are politically different than ourselves, especially in this day and age.
We can see divisions often in family dynamics and the differences in how different generations handle things. That is the generational divide.
We can see clannishness in pockets of ethnicities that feel like it’s safer to isolate and stay separate than it is to integrate.
We see ‘us vs them’ ‘in all the schisms that have happened in the church ever since the reformation and probably before that too.
But what happens when we start down the road of ‘us vs them’, we cease to see all the things that make us the same. In families, we forget that we come from the same root, and that what is in you is also a part of who I am.
When we reduce disagreements down to political affiliation, we fail to see that we are all the same nation, and have the same basic needs, hopes and dreams…. We simply disagree on how that is accomplished. And this difference of understanding is egged on by the absolute fear mongering of both media and social networks. That isn’t usually a difference in morality or soul or humanity… that’s a difference of understanding the mechanics of how the world works. When you think about it that way, it’s hard to get angry with someone because they support a political party that you don’t like.
And in cultural clusters that exist in the world, it is because sometimes we “other” people to such a degree that we create an environment where it feels unsafe if you are different. And it seems better to stick with other people who are like you. But really, we are all human, we all want our children to grow and to flourish, we all want to feel secure in the world and we are all made if the image of God.
In churches we often forget that we worship the same God, and that much about God is a mystery, and so we walk around in a state of moral superiority thinking that we understand God better than someone else does. But Micah 6:8 says, “To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God”
Paul would not have deep dived into these divisions in the church in Rome if he didn’t consider them a serious problem. If the Gentiles and the Jews cannot even get along, what does that say about the faith? If they need to separate and stay separate, what does that say for the future of the church, for growth and flourishing?
And what would Paul have to say to the Christian churches of the world today? I wonder if Paul would tell us to focus on what unifies us rather than what divides. I don’t even see him trying to fix the divisions, do you? He doesn’t tell the Jews to give up following the laws. And he doesn’t tell the Gentiles that they need to start following the laws. Instead, he says that you have been washed by Grace, and it is your resulting faith that makes you the body of Christ.
People are always stronger together. Anything that I have ever wanted to build or be a part of out there in the community has done far more and gone farther when the community has come together to make it happen. And to be honest, the more diverse the group of people who come together, the more amazing the result. If you want to put on a community event, then build a coalition of volunteers to make it happen. And I promise if you bring in a variety of ages, people with diverse backgrounds and heritage and lived experience, you will create a more dynamic and successful event. We all bring our various gifts and points of view to the table, and that creates life and vibrancy, and energy that people want to be a part of. And this is true for so many things: clubs, events, gardens, sports, the arts, whatever it is. When you come together, you don’t focus on how different you all are. You focus on what has brought you together. Right?
And God built humankind to be this way. God build us to bring our different gifts and abilities to the table to build a stronger Beloved Community, a community that feeds people both spiritually and physically. A place where justice and mercy matters, and people are valued. A place where we listen to each other with care and divisions and conflict are resolved peacefully.
And the first step for each of us, here in the church and out there in the greater world: when you meet someone who is different from you… instead of being afraid of the things that separate you, focus on the things that make you the same, your shared humanity. See the child of God that stands before you and open your ears to hear what they have to say. You might just feel the great divide start to contract, and your heart’s capacity for understanding expand.
Blessings to all, Pastor Jessica