Lectionary Commentaries for August 16, 2026
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

After disputing with Pharisees and scribes about ritual handwashing (Matthew 15:1–20), Jesus and his disciples left Gennesaret, located northwest of the Sea of Galilee (14:34; 15:21). He went away (anachōreō) to the district of Tyre and Sidon (see also 11:21), where he encountered a certain Canaanite woman.

Many scholars hold that Matthew used Mark as a primary source, and already in the opening verse Matthew replaces Mark’s aperchomai (“depart”) with anachōreō, a verb that connotes a significant transition or “crossing over” in a wider Matthean context (for example, 2:12–14, 22).¹ Attention to how Matthew adapts Mark 7:24–30 helps us better understand his own theological emphasis, which reflects his community’s sociohistorical situation.²

First, Matthew’s presentation of the setting and characters calls for attention. Earlier, Jesus’s fame as a healer had already reached all of Syria, whose residents brought “all the sick, … [and] people possessed by demons” to him in Galilee (4:24). In chapter 15, the movements are reversed: Jesus is no longer in Galilee but now in Syria, with specific reference to the coastal cities (“Tyre and Sidon”). Depending on the translation of meros (“part” or “district”), Jesus may be in a Jewish enclave on the Phoenician border. Alternatively, one could argue that this is the first time in the Gospel that Jesus explicitly interacts with a gentile woman on gentile soil.

Moreover, instead of slipping into a house alone for rest (Mark 7:24), Jesus is with his disciples. To all these Jewish men, there comes a woman who is a “Canaanite from that region” (Matthew 15:22). Edited from “a Greek, Syrophoenician by birth” (Mark 7:26), her ethno-geographic marker foregrounds Israel’s historic enmity with Canaanites. Several layers of tension thus arise from the ethnic, religious, and gender differences between Jesus (and his disciples) and the Canaanite woman, as soon as her desperate plea for her demon-possessed daughter is met with Jesus’s silence and the disciples’ dismissal (Matthew 15:22–23).

Such tension enables Matthew’s narrative to unfold dramatically, particularly in a more detailed exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman than in Mark’s version. While the disciples’ request to “send her away” (apolyō) can alternatively be translated as “release her”—in other words, the woman’s daughter from the demon—Jesus’s replies are cold, if not disrespectful, from the outset. His indirect refusal to heal her daughter echoes Matthew 10:5–6, where he clearly circumscribes his disciples’ mission within an ethnic boundary (“Go nowhere among the gentiles … go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”).

Despite the woman’s continued plea (15:25), Jesus’s second response reinforces his Israelite-only policy by likening Canaanites to dogs unworthy of bread. When this frame of ethnic priority seemingly escalates the situation, the woman’s reply reframes the exchange: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ [lords’] table” (verse 27).

I often introduce this to my students as the “When Jesus goes low, the woman goes high” moment. Verse 27 is the narrative climax, where the Canaanite woman actively and patiently dismantles the ethnic, religious, and gender barriers the narrative set up earlier.

While Mark’s Syrophoenician woman uses “Lord” only once, Matthew not only has this woman address Jesus as “Lord” each time she speaks, but also adds the phrase “from their lords’ table.” In these recurrences, the Greek kyrios (“lord”) sounds similar to, yet contrasts in meaning with, kynarion (“dog”). Matthew thus reinforces the wordplay from Mark’s version by having the Canaanite woman first acknowledge Jesus’s words (nai kyrie, “Yes, Lord”) and then reframe them with a different insight (kai gar ta kynaria, “in fact, the dogs …”).

This woman’s respectful persistence, wisdom, and endurance in the face of silence, rejection, and humiliation prompt Jesus to change his mind and praise her great faith, enabling her daughter’s healing—starkly contrasted with the woman’s own unwavering resolve from beginning to end. Details of her actions add further nuance:

As a gentile woman, she addressed Jesus with the Davidic title and “knelt before him” (verse 25), a clearly worshipful gesture (proskyneō) edited from Mark’s prospiptō. Moreover, when extracted from the narrative and read together, her words follow the form of a lament psalm, leading O’Day to call her a “full heiress of Israel’s tradition of lament.”³ Just as the lament psalm typically ends with assurance of God’s response, this narrative concludes with the Canaanite woman’s faith in God’s mercy, which prevails over the stereotypes attached to her identity.

No longer Israel’s enemies or “dogs,” she and her daughter are now understood as God’s “children,” which corrects and expands the definition of “the house of Israel” (verses 24, 26).

Matthew turns Mark’s exorcism story into a story about faith overcoming entrenched social divisions. This redaction reflects a significant shift within Matthew’s community. Written one or two decades after the destruction of the Temple (70 CE), Matthew’s gospel reveals how a law-abiding community whose mission had been directed toward Israelites alone (5:47; 6:7, 32; 10:5–6; 15:24) came to open its doors to the gentiles.⁴

Originally associated with the Pharisees, the Mattheans were in the process of leaving the larger collectivity, not simply because they believed Jesus to be the Messiah; rather, amid the postwar reconfiguration of Jewish life, in which the Pharisees emerged as a leading group, Matthew’s community, having encountered Mark’s gospel, came to understand its historical situation eschatologically as “the dawn of the new age,” when the gentiles come to Zion.⁵

In this context, Matthew’s community parted ways with the nationalistic ideology of a royal Messiah for the Jews. Limiting Jesus’s Davidic title to the identity of a healer (9:27; 15:22; 20:30), Matthew understands him as God’s servant fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy, in whose name the gentiles hope and to whom justice is proclaimed (12:17–21; Isaiah 42:1–4). Just as Jesus crossed over (anachōreō) the ethno-geographic border, Matthew’s community—now taking refuge in a new settlement—is encouraged to cross over the ethnic and social boundaries by welcoming gentiles.

The petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, once uttered by Matthew’s Jewish members, are now actualized in the lives of gentile believers (15:28, see also 8:13). The Canaanite woman hears, “God’s will be done [genēthētō]” for her as she wishes; on earth as in heaven, she too finds her share in God’s daily “bread” (6:10–11; 15:26, 28).

Notes

1. Elaine Wainwright, “Crossing Over; Taking Refuge: A Contrapuntal Reading,” HTS Teologiese Studies /Theological Studies 70, no. 1 (2014), Art. #2720, 6 pages.
2. For convenience, this commentary refers to the gospel writers as Matthew and Mark and uses masculine pronouns, without implying biographical certainty.
3. Gail R. O’Day, “Surprised by Faith: Jesus and the Canaanite Woman,” in A Feminist Companion to Matthew, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 114–25, here 124.
4. Ulrich Luz, Studies in Matthew, trans. Rosemary Selle (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 3–17.
5. Anders Runesson, “Rethinking Early Jewish-Christian Relations: Matthean Community History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict,” Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 1 (2008): 95–132, at 126.

On national and international stages, debates over who does and can belong to communities rage in often violent ways. These contests over community membership frequently arise in moments of transition or crisis. Within contemporary American contexts, some segments of the population are redrawing the boundaries of citizenship in ways that resonate with more exclusionary eras in this nation’s history. Religious rhetoric, biblical ideals, and theological tropes are often invoked to support and oppose these exclusionary movements. Our passage in Isaiah 56:1, 6–8 records an ancient community’s understanding of who God admits into the nation and what is required for them to join in a moment of national transition.

Contested spaces

Isaiah 56 begins what many scholars describe as “Third Isaiah.” This collection of prophetic oracles was likely compiled in the late sixth to early fifth century BCE. This era is often described as “postexilic”—the era immediately following Neo-Babylonian conquest. During this era, many deported Judeans returned to Jerusalem and its surrounding areas to begin rebuilding a community decimated by imperial conquest. The culture clashes between those deportees returning to Judah and the Judeans who had remained in Judah produced intense debates about the requirements for community membership and religious fidelity to God. 

During this postexilic era, many biblical texts like Haggai, Ezra-Nehemiah, and “Third Isaiah” preserve these intra-community debates. For our passage in Isaiah 56, the writers advocated for a decisively inclusivist perspective on community membership and a relatively minimalist approach for identifying the core values of “religion that is pure and undefiled before God …” (James 1:27). 

Divine directives

For the writers of Isaiah 56, admission into God’s community is contingent upon a few ethical (rather than ethnic) requirements. In Isaiah 56:1, the Lord commands that the faithful members of the community must “maintain justice and do what is right.” Throughout biblical literature, justice and righteousness are often linked as foundational elements of God’s reign and the hallmarks of a blessed individual. Before continuing the ethical requirements for membership in God’s community, Isaiah 56:3–5 announces that foreigners and eunuchs—two classes of people who could be targets of exclusionary policies—have a secure place within God’s reconstituted Israel. 

The eunuch is told that if they adhere to Sabbath regulations and follow divine laws (56:4), they will “not be cut off” (56:5). The wordplay and imagery of the promise to eunuchs that they will never be “cut off” highlights the restorative elements of this new community. For these writers, the promise of inclusion and protection relates directly to the places of harm and exclusion a eunuch may have experienced. In contemporary church contexts, what might it look like for our communities to provide healing to our members at the same places where the hurt occurred?

Isaiah 56:6–8 focuses on the foreigners who are incorporated into the community and its cultic (in other words, religious and temple) life. In these verses, God does not explicitly require anything of the nation of Judah. Isaiah 56:6 describes the actions the eligible foreigner must perform. The next verse (56:7) describes how God will treat the foreigners and their offerings. According to this verse, God will accept foreign people and their offerings into the religious life of the nation. 

Finally, Isaiah 56:8 concludes with a description of God as the one who gathers “the outcasts of Israel.” These closing verses make it clear that God owns all religious and cultic paraphernalia that is the basis for admission into the nation. Notice how often God uses the pronoun “my” to describe the key components affecting entry into the community—“my covenant,” “my holy mountain,” “my altar,” and “my house.” For these writers, God controls admission because God owns and sustains the community. In our contemporary contexts, how would focusing on God’s ownership of our religious communities affect how we police their boundaries?

Nobody left behind

As mentioned, our passage was likely written around the same time as Ezra-Nehemiah. Despite their temporal proximity, these books offer contrasting answers to the question of who belongs to Judah. Ezra 10:2–4 suggests that the removal of foreigners is necessary for God’s favor and national prosperity. In contrast, Isaiah 56:7 announces not only that foreigners are welcome in the political entity of Judah, but also that they can participate in the cultic life of the nation. The vision of a new nation and revitalized religious life requires that God’s house be “a house of prayer for all peoples.” 

Here, foreigners are not a problem to be solved or removed. Rather, the presence of foreigners is evidence of a divine promise fulfilled. According to Isaiah 56:6–8, the openness of the community and its cult to all who “love the name of the LORD” (56:6) is a hallmark of the postexilic nation. This new nation is no longer defined primarily by genealogy or geography. Instead, the nation consists of all dispossessed who pledge loyalty (in other words, love [Hebrew ahab]) the LORD and obey his commandments. 

Within many Christian traditions, Isaiah’s vision of an inclusive community founded upon loyalty to God and ethical conduct rather than genealogy or culture is considered a precursor to the vision of the kingdom of God revealed in the New Testament. The gospel reading for this week in Matthew 15:21–28 echoes the themes Isaiah 56:1, 6–8 announces. Matthew 15:21–28 describes Christ’s encounter with a Canaanite woman, an ethnic designation that often disqualified one from admission into God’s chosen community (for example, Deuteronomy 7:1–5). Rather than being excluded and condemned, she is commended for her faith and Christ grants the woman her request (Matthew 15:28). 

For both texts, membership in God’s movement and community is not determined by national affiliation or geographical origins. At a time when ethnic, national, and racial divides are being exacerbated, the good news Isaiah 56:1, 6–8 introduces and Christ confirms in Matthew 15:21–28 is that membership in God’s community is open for “all peoples.”

Old Testament stories generally don’t describe the characters’ feelings, which is part of the artistry of the text. Because we are not explicitly told, we are invited to imagine biblical characters’ thoughts, feelings, and emotions. However, this section of Joseph’s story does share the inner life of Joseph as well as that of his brothers, when Joseph reveals to them that he is still alive, approximately 22 years after they sold him into slavery, and that he does not blame them for the past. This is a good reveal, an unexpected turn of events, and a reminder that God’s desire to sustain and bless God’s people will be fulfilled.

The story picks up in verse 1 after the previous chapter, when Judah’s lengthy speech includes details about the brothers’ remorse for what they had done to Joseph, and evidence that those brothers have changed over the ensuing years. Joseph, no longer able to control himself before those who are attending him, sends them away so that he is all alone when he makes himself known to his brothers. 

Before he is able to say anything, he weeps so loudly that he is heard by the Egyptians standing outside, and all Pharaoh’s household. The latter could refer to the location or to those who are associated with Pharaoh’s household. This loud, public weeping is the third time Joseph has wept since his brothers came to find food in Egypt (see also Genesis 42:24; 43:30), but on the previous two occasions he turned away from others to weep in private. 

Eventually—or amid the crying?—Joseph manages to speak in verse 3: “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” Notably, Joseph uses the first-person singular possessive, “my,” instead of the plural, “our.” It could be that Joseph is not quite ready yet to share the connection with his brothers, but it could also be that the Hebrew word ʾāḇî, “my father,” is more like a familiar name similar to “daddy” or the Aramaic abba. 

We can assume Joseph’s intense feelings because of his loud crying; verse 3 tells us the brothers’ intense feelings through their silence, and that they were “dismayed” at his presence. The Hebrew word here, bahal, has the sense of amazement, but without positive connotations, so it can also be translated as “terrified, troubled, anxious.” 

But next, Joseph bridges the distance between himself and them, commanding them to come closer to him. After they do, Joseph speaks further, saying again, “I am Joseph,” but now adding, “your brother, whom you sold into Egypt” (Genesis 45:4). At these words, their hearts must have sunk. But immediately, Joseph tells them not to be distressed or angry with themselves that they had sold him, because God sent Joseph before them to Egypt in order to preserve life. That “God sent” Joseph is repeated three times in Joseph’s speech in verses 5–8, and in verse 8 Joseph clarifies, “It was not you who sent me, but God.” In Joseph’s own words, his brothers may have sold him, but God sent him. 

This language fits well with the narrator’s previous repeated affirmations that “the Lord was with Joseph” (Genesis 39:2, 3, 21, 23) and with Joseph’s own willingness to see God at work in his ability to interpret dreams (see also 40:8; 41:16, 25, 28). But it is noteworthy that Joseph is the one saying that God sent him; Joseph himself is putting his terrible experiences into the larger framework of God’s plan. 

Genesis 45:5–8 is similar to how Joseph will say, in the remarkable concluding section of the Joseph cycle, when he forgives his brothers and breaks generational cycles of sibling resentment, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today” (Genesis 50:20). There, too, it is Joseph who says this about his own life, and not other (well-meaning?) people who are telling him that his suffering is for a greater good or that it “happened for a reason.” 

Again, Joseph does not pretend that his brothers did not sell him (Genesis 45:4) or intend to harm him (Genesis 50:20). But God used the cruel actions and harmful intents in God’s work to “preserve life,” that latter phrase also being repeated twice in Joseph’s speech in this lectionary text (verses 5, 7). 

Joseph also uses a phrase that has puzzled some, saying in verse 8 that God “has made me a father to Pharaoh,” but that can be explained as an idiom for authority, as are the subsequent descriptions in the verse, “lord of all his house and ruler of all the land of Egypt.” Joseph then switches back to talking about his literal father, urging his brothers to go to him and tell him to come to Egypt without delay. 

Joseph explains that the family can settle in Goshen, near him. This pastureland of the Nile delta, close to the border, was a place where, historically, nomads from Sinai were given permission by the Egyptian government to graze their flocks. There, Joseph explains, he will provide for them during the five remaining years of famine, “so that you and your household and all that you have will not come to poverty” (Genesis 29:11). The Hebrew could be more literally translated as “lest you legally lose all that you have.” 

Joseph tells his brothers that they can see that he is speaking to them directly—“It is my own mouth that speaks to you” (Genesis 29:12)—a reminder to us that the earlier communications took place through an interpreter (see Genesis 42:23), but at this point Joseph is speaking to them in their own language. 

The text concludes with more weeping, but this time it is mutual. Joseph weeps “on the neck of” his full brother Benjamin, who in turn weeps on Joseph’s “neck,” which suggests a close embrace where heads rest on each other’s shoulder; it also signifies deep emotion. And then, Joseph kisses all (the rest of) his brothers and weeps on them. 

Finally, after this, the brothers can speak with him, though what exactly they say is not mentioned (Genesis 45:15). But neither may their words be all that important. When Joseph first spoke, the brothers were silent because of their overwhelming feelings. It is only when Joseph kisses and weeps on all of them that the words are unlocked. Joseph’s sharing of his tears and feelings seems to be what enables the brothers to feel even more, and communicate back. 

This psalm is a favorite for several reasons.¹

Its repetitions and relative brevity make it memorable; its literary connections to other texts inform our biblical theology; and its aspirations for all nations and peoples to receive God’s blessings encourage a holistic understanding of God’s purposes on earth. Psalm 67 creatively integrates the priestly blessing of Israel and the ancestral promise of a blessing to the nations in order to project a renewed vision of the way things were meant to be from the beginning.

As clear as this thesis seems to be on the surface, the fact is that scholars have not agreed on matters as fundamental as the psalm’s translation and its setting and function. To be sure, these major issues do not sideline our attempt to incorporate Psalm 67 into Christian worship and preaching, but they can play into a more complete understanding of its powerful rhetoric. So, rather than separate my remarks into exegetical and homiletical comments, I instead will unpack the psalm’s message on three levels.

First, this psalm is a word of praise to God. Whatever we may think about the literary history and religious setting behind the final form of the psalm, we can derive insight and blessing from its “surface” message of praise. This is a community psalm of thanksgiving (or declarative praise) for a particularly abundant harvest with which God had blessed Israel (verse 6).² And, of course, it is not merely Israel that praises God for a given harvest. “The peoples” are twice enjoined to praise the Lord in a refrain that surrounds (verses 3, 5) the central prayer of the psalm, which invites “the nations” joyfully to acknowledge God’s guidance and justice (verse 4).

Thus, whether it is Israel’s praise or the nations’ praise, they are “interwoven by means of the perspective of the world of the peoples.”³ Some scholars believe that this non-Israelite praise of God’s justice should be read in light of ancient Near Eastern traditions, where the sun god Shamash was known by the epithet “the one who leads rightly.” But in Psalm 67, even Shamash’s devotees acknowledge that Israel’s God oversees the proceedings of creation and history.⁴ Although inspired by the bountiful produce of nature, this psalm depicts the whole world joining in the worship not of nature itself, but of its sole Creator.⁵

Second, as we look a bit deeper, we engage this psalm’s word of blessing on the world. Here, we are reminded that the praise within the heart of the psalm is surrounded by prayers for blessing (verses 1, 7). At first glance, the blessing seems completely focused on Israel itself (“us” three times in verse 1 and once in verse 7). Craig Broyles rightly calls verse 1 “an echo” of the beautiful Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6:24–27, which was spoken by the priests upon the people of Israel.⁶

However, verse 7 goes on to link God’s blessing on Israel with the hope that “all the ends of the earth [would] revere him.” It is difficult to miss the echo of Genesis 12:3, wherein the ancestral promises of land and descendants were associated with another promise—namely, that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

This surprising theological conclusion is a game-changer for our interpretation of the psalm. Both the praise and the prayer speak to Israel’s vocation as the elect messengers of the divine covenant to all nations, who, after all, share a common ancestry as children of Noah. We therefore realize that the biblical theme of election “does not mean that God has his favorites but simply that he has a chosen channel of blessing for all.”⁷

Finally, and perhaps most subtle of all, we are confronted by this psalm’s word of challenge to the church. This multifaceted prayer comes home with surprising force by virtue of the “voice” in which it is spoken. What had always been a benediction spoken just by Aaron’s priestly descendants is here taken up by the people at large. Yes, they respectfully hint at the full language of the benediction, so as not to usurp the office of the priesthood. But what nevertheless comes across is a public theology challenging Israel’s inward focus.

And when proclaimed in Christian worship, this psalm speaks to the church’s need ever to be vigilant in presenting God’s desire for the world to join in praise with his people. Not only do these ancient words critique an ecclesiology severed from mission; they also remind us that mission is both universal in its geographic scope and prophetic in its concern for a world “torn by racial, ethnic, and national exclusivism and strife.”⁸

What strikes me most about this psalm is the fact that its wonderful spirit was not representative of the Old Testament. Throughout the canon, mention of the nations and peoples was typically negative.⁹ To find it here reminds the church that those who influenced the canonization of the psalms insisted on this poem’s inclusion. As heirs of their bold vision, may we insist on putting its hopes and prayers into action.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for August 17, 2014.
2. Some scholars avoid the traditional form category of “thanksgiving” and prefer the term “prayer,” based on the abundance of jussive forms (“may,” “let”). See Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51–100, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1990), 155.
3. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2, Hermeneia, trans. L. M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 153.
4. Hossfeld and Zenger, 156.
5. Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary, Old Testament Library, trans. Herbert Hartwell (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 473.
6. Craig C. Broyles, Psalms (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 278.
7. Broyles, 280.
8. J. Clinton McCann Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” in the New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 4 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 941.
9. An interesting way to connect this psalm with the other lectionary readings is to note how the gospel reading (Matthew 15:21–28) tells of Jesus’s venture into the gentile regions with a disturbing interaction.

As we continue our romp through Romans, a chapter per week until now, the editors of the Revised Common Lectionary are clear about the emphasis of proclamation from Romans 11. God is faithful. Has God rejected God’s people, the chosen people? Has God rejected Israel? No. That’s an emphatic NO. God has not rejected the people he foreknew, has known and loved all along, the elect. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

Are some disobedient? Yes. Do some reject God’s mercy, God’s love, God’s way of being in the world? Absolutely. Their disobedience, in fact, paves the way for the revelation of God’s mercy to the gentiles. Gentiles do not need the chosen people to be disobedient in order for God to be merciful to them, but their disobedience reveals God’s mercy to them, to all. And God’s mercy to all reveals to the chosen people God’s continuing mercy to them. It is a circle of God’s inclusive mercy.

Intellectually, we might accede to this theological calculation quite easily. It makes perfect sense. The circuitous manifestation of God’s love extended to all is revealed in inclusion as God continues to extend mercy to the disobedient. We can do these gymnastics of mercy in our heads and move on. In our lived experience, however, it is not so easy.

Who is in, who is out

The people of God have long struggled over who is in and who is out; who is worthy to receive mercy and who is outside the Wi-Fi range of God’s love. If I am in the range of God’s love, given my theological, biblical, cultural, ecclesial, and political perspectives and behavior in life, then those people must not be in. Those people must be out.

We tend to base our judgments on our rules for life, on formulas for prayer, on our determination of what constitutes obedience and disobedience. We tend to base our judgments on how one prays or worships, whether one lifts hands or bows or kneels, even how one dresses. We tend to base our judgments on sexual orientation, or gender identification, or political positioning, or a pyramid of sin from worst to that which is tolerable. And even that pyramid of sin tends to be based on the above realms of judgment. No matter where one stands on the spectrum of issues raised above, still there is a tendency to judge who is in and who is out.

Paul, however, does not talk like this. God does not reject God’s people. Not now. Not ever. God has promised to be our God and claims us as God’s people. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. They are extended to all. They cannot be taken back. God does not go back on promises made.

These verses conclude the discussion in Romans 9–11 about the elect. No, that is inaccurate. These verses conclude the discussion in Romans 9–11 about Jews and gentiles. No, that is still not right. Chapters 9–11 are about priority in God’s love—no. Still no. These verses conclude the discussion in chapters 9–11 about God’s mercy. “Mercy” appears nine times in chapters 9–11. The disobedient receive mercy when they turn to God and when they re-turn to God. There is no suggestion in these verses that there is an expiration date or a timeline for this mercy. There isn’t even a suggestion that God is bound to human time on this side of the veil.

Preaching angles

What does this mean for our preaching ministry?

1. The Christian church does not replace Israel. That view is called supersessionism. The supersessionist view is that Judaism and the Torah (the Mosaic law) reveal how impossible it is for human works to secure one’s place among the people of God—essentially, that the plan for God’s chosen people to remain God’s people by following the law is insufficient.^[1] God employed many strategies, so the view goes, to constantly woo God’s people back to Godself when the people wandered. God sent Moses and Miriam, Joshua, the kings, the prophets and prophetesses. Yet after returning to God, the people still wandered away again. All of this was in preparation for the true gospel when God would send Godself in the person of Jesus.

   The supersessionist view is that God got fed up with the chosen people, sent Jesus, Israel’s branch was cut off, and the gentiles and messianic Jews who followed Jesus replaced them. But Paul is clear that the original branch that rejected the root can always be grafted back again. God does not reject God’s people. God’s chosen people remain God’s chosen people.

2. The people of God remain a wandering people. A constituted nation-state is not the end goal of God’s calling and gifts and mercy. The rule of life is not politics; it is mercy. And mercy tolerates no territorial boundaries—not for the original wandering chosen people, and not for the people of Jesus Christ yesterday or today. The Christ who proclaimed his kingdom is not of this world.
3. What would our communities, our various spheres of influence, look like if our only lens was mercy? What would it look like for every interaction and every transaction to be guided by an absolute commitment to withhold judgment? Throughout Paul’s writings we see how God extends Godself to us in gracious, unearned, unmerited love. By extending mercy, God does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities (Psalm 103:10).
4. The metaphor Paul sets up characterizing the chosen people who are disobedient as broken branches, and the possibility for all others to be grafted onto the promises of God, requires that our hearts be open to any and all whom we meet.

Notes

1. For a brief discussion of post-supersessionism and two sermons illustrating this perspective, see Lisa M. Bowens, Scot McKnight, and Joseph B. Modica, eds. Preaching Romans from Here: Diverse Voices Engage Paul’s Most Famous Letter (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2023).