My Kindred According to the Flesh

Romans 9: 1-5, page 159
I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Sermon
Last Sunday afternoon, James Fleming, the chair of the pastor nominating committee who interviewed and called me to this church, challenged me with an email titled: “Can you top this?”
The email was a video of a protestant minister praying before a huge crowd at a NASCAR race:
“Heavenly Father, we thank you tonight for all your blessings. You say in all things give thanks. So we want to thank you for all these mighty machines that you have brought before us. Thank you for the Dodges, and the Toyotas, thank you for the Fords, and thank you most of all for Rouch and Yates partnering to give us the power that we see before us tonight. Thank you for GM performance technology and R07 engines, thank you for Sunoco racing fuel, and Goodyear tires that give performance and power to the track. Lord, I want to thank you for my smoking hot wife tonight Lisa, my two children, Eli and Emma, or as we like to call them, the little “e’s”. Lord I pray you’ll bless the drivers and use them tonight. May they put on a performance worthy of this track. In Jesus name, boogedy, boogedy, boogedy, Amen.”
The titled of Mr. Fleming’s email was, “can you top this?” but I’m pretty sure that if he really thought I could pray a prayer to match that one he never would have been interested in interviewing me to serve this church.
There’s a degree of polish that comes with being a Presbyterian. There’s a certain air, and maybe you, like me, consider yourself to be different from the kind of pastor who would pray a prayer like this one and the kind of crowd who would appreciate it.
I would like to believe that there are miles of difference between the two of us, but when you get right down to it we have a lot more in common than I’d like to admit. We’re both pastors, we’re both protestant pastors for that matter. I assume we share many of the same hopes and aspirations – to live as Christ would have us, to pray for those who face danger, to see and know fully all the blessings that we have to be thankful for. This pastor, Joe Nelms and I, not only share the same vocation and many other similar qualities; we have the same first name.
I’m stuck with him, just as he’s stuck with me, as in a lot of ways our Spiritual Family isn’t any different from the families we were born into. They’re not like your friends, in that you don’t get to pick them. You and I are stuck with Pastor Joe Nelms, though we’re tempted to see ourselves as different, and maybe even better.
The Apostle Paul must have been faced with the same temptation, to believe that he was more enlightened, to believe that he knew more or was closer to God than those Israelites who stayed with the old traditions and failed to see Christ as the Messiah. He must have been tempted to believe that there were miles of difference between where he came from and where he ended up, going from a life in Judaism to a life in Christ. But in our scripture lesson we see a man who doesn’t distance himself from the Israelites, but honors them despite their differences:
“They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah.”
Rooted then in the faith of his forefathers and foremothers Paul celebrates not only his new life in Christ, but his heritage in the people who gave Christianity a savior.
While Paul sees it this way I doubt his family did. They must have seen him as their great disappointment. There’s no evidence that anyone in his family followed his example, and maybe you can imagine how dinner conversation went when Uncle Paul journeyed back to Jerusalem to visit his brothers and sisters. His grandmother had been explaining his quirks to all her friends – yes, he was such a student of the Torah, yes, he adhered to the letter of the Law, yes, he did go on to persecute Christens…but right now he’s going through some kind of phase you see – but I’m confident his parents are going to be able to talk him back to reality – you know how young people are.
I’m sure that his parents were worried, and that they saw miles of difference between where he was and where they thought he should be. But while it would be understandable for Paul to go and do the same, call attention to the gap of difference between them, Paul calls their attention to what they hold in common and longs for a way to bridge the gap – “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”
This way of thinking doesn’t last very long as relations between Christians and Jews deteriorate rapidly – first Christians are kicked out of the synagogues, then ostracized by their families, and soon Christians begin returning the favor, and by the middle ages you have Crusaders who find it appropriate to destroy Jewish settlements in Europe on their way to fight Holy War in the Middle East.
What develops is the kind of mindset that becomes the foundation of the Holocaust – but it didn’t have to be this way.
The Apostle Paul doesn’t call for animosity between Christians and Jews – here he so clearly calls Christians to acknowledge the truth that the foundation of all their belief is with the Israelites, and rather than strike out at them we should longingly look forward to the day when they recognize the coming of their Messiah in Christ.
We’re not so different at all, he seems to be saying, but sometimes our tendency is to call attention to the differences.
Last Friday the Daily Herald quoted late night television host David Letterman: “The NFL lockout is over. All the parties agreed and we have a compromise. It’s too bad the national debt isn’t as important as football.”
It is too bad, but these days the difference between a Democrat and a Republican seems insurmountable – Speaker of the House John Boehner not wanting to have much to do with President Obama, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.
It seems today as though there are miles of difference between the two camps, and the more this difference is aggravated the more you and I will suffer.
That’s how it seems to be anyway – that this country stands to gain from a government working together rather than perusing two difference goals, that we have more in common than we have different, and we should be praying for each other rather than fueling division with our rhetoric.
“I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”
Paul does not represent the current attitude among politicians in Washington, but may he represent yours.
See commonality when all around you there is focus on division.
Feel the pain of schism, with great sorrow and anguish in your heart.
And while some focus on what they have to gain from attacking opponents and catering to likeminded factions, remember that Paul would cut himself off from Christ for the sake of his people.
Exhibit that same love for those who seem different and you’ll honor the one who makes us all sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.
Amen.