Jews and the People of God
Romans 11:25-end

Lord God, take my words and speak through them, take our minds and think through them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you, you who are Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Bible version
It would probably be something of an understatement to say that parts of St Paul’s Letter to the Romans are difficult to follow. When I first looked at the passage we’ve just heard in our New Testament lesson; that was certainly similar to one of my initial thoughts.

I tend to read the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, as my default option. A couple of reasons really: one, I think it’s a good translation; and two, it comes most readily to hand — I have three different copies within arms length when I’m at my computer, and another one on the bookshelf above, plus a ready to link to the Oremus Bible Browser on the internet.

I learnt a while ago, that if I’m struggling with a bible passage, it can help to read it in a different translation. Thankfully, that did indeed prove to be the case for this particular passage — or you may not have had a sermon this evening: I’d found the Old Testament passage just as challenging, if not more so.

Verse 29 of our New Testament lesson reads, in the New Revised Standard Version, as, “for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable”. But in the Good News Bible, which is written in much simpler language, it reads, “God does not change his mind about whom he chooses or blesses”. They mean much the same; but the second one just seemed be the key to open the passage up for me.

Reconciliation
Paul was a Jew, and he knew that God called the Jews to be his Chosen People, as long as they kept the Law of Moses. But Paul believed he’d been sent as an apostle to the Gentiles, the non-Jewish nations, to draw them into the People of God.

Many of those Gentiles were converted, and lived admirable and loving lives. Yet trouble arose when the original Jewish followers of Jesus, protested that you couldn’t be one of the People of God, unless you became, in effect, a Jew, and kept every detail of Jewish law. But there was no way they could do that, while continuing to live and do business in the Roman Empire.

Paul was writing to Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians in Rome, and they were at each other’s throats over what it took to be a member of the People of God. Even then, so soon after Jesus himself had walked the earth, people argued and squabbled over details; just the same as we still do today.

In his letter to those Romans, Paul aimed to bring some sort of reconciliation between the two factions. He couldn’t deny the importance of his fellow Jews, and their obedience to the law; but he’d equally to insist that membership of the People of God, is unconditionally open to all, and not just the Jewish People.

Choosing
Because, it is important that God chose the Jews. He couldn’t reveal himself to the whole world at once, so God chose a few tribes who had nothing, and he made a people of them. Gradually, over the course of many centuries, they learnt what God expected from them: which was obedience to his will, and faithfulness to the one God who is king over all the earth.

Thank God, then, that he made the Jews his Chosen People. It was hard enough to get his message across to one small nation; somehow I can’t imagine he’d ever have been able to get the whole of the human race to listen to him at that time.

No other nation ever learnt what we call ‘ethical monotheism’. Let me explain what that means. It’s a belief in one God from whom emanates one morality for all humanity: a God whose primary demand of people, is that they act decently towards each other. If all people subscribed to this reasonably simple belief — which doesn’t mean leaving, or joining, any specific religion, or giving up any national identity — the world would experience far less evil.

If we hadn’t learnt that from the Jews, you and I would still be worshipping wooden idols, and robbing and murdering each other, with a clear conscience.

Thank God for the Jews. As Paul said, “God does not change his mind about whom he chooses or blesses”.

Keeping it to yourself
But before the Jews could spread that message, they had to be welded together into a united people. They did this by insisting on a literal obedience to hundreds of detailed laws.

But in the process they became very nationalistic, and jumped to the conclusion that God wasn’t interested in anybody who wasn’t a Jew.

They had this wonderful revelation from God, but they failed to spread it to others, which was the very thing God had chosen them to do.

Before you leap to condemn the Jews, however, ask yourself this, “how energetic am I, in trying to spread the good news of God’s love, to other people?”

Paul’s argument was that you and I, non-Jews who trust in Jesus, have been grafted into God’s Chosen People like branches grafted into a tree. And just as those branches become a full part of the tree, so we’ve become full members of God’s Chosen People.

Cultures
Many of those laws, which the Jews followed, were very important for nomadic tribes, and settlers in a new country. In a world with no fridges, for instance, pork was dangerous meat to eat.

Food hygiene is always important, but when people live in a large city like Rome, God’s got more important things to worry about than what meat they eat.

Is it essential, they asked, that every member of the People of God should have to become Jewish, and follow Jewish culture? Surely we should explore the different forms which obedience to God takes in many different cultures?

Paul’s argument
Saint Paul would have agreed with that. The Jews are chosen to be an example to the non-Jews, who will be grafted into God’s People on equal terms.

Then the non-Jews are called to be an example to the Jews, by showing that Love, is a deeper way of following God’s will, even than obedience to the law.

Neither of us, Jews or non-Jews, can boast, because neither of us has lived up to our calling. But, like Saint Paul, we can work for reconciliation between God’s original Chosen People and the non-Jews who are privileged to have been grafted in.

We should also be working towards reconciliation and understanding between all those who struggle to obey a code of morality, and those who are seeking a more flexible obedience to the Law of Love. All have a place in the tolerant and inclusive People of God, and “God does not change his mind about whom he chooses or blesses”.

Amen.