Commentary on Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

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).