Wednesday • 7/17/2024 •
Wednesday of Proper 10
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Deuteronomy 3:1-13; Romans 11:25-36; Matthew 25:31-46
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)
A couple of rich truths to take in from Jesus and Paul today.
From Jesus. The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ — Matthew 25:40. Wow! The King so identifies himself with his subjects that he receives service to “even the least of them” as though it were service to Himself. It blows the mind. What a value that places on each and every person who comes into my path today. I can barely take it in. May I, as our baptismal covenant dares to say, “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [my] neighbor as [my]self.”
From Paul. The apostle Paul wants to inculcate a similar sensibility—seeing Christ in the other— among the Roman Christians, especially the haughty Gentile Christians he has pointedly been addressing in Romans 11: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. … do not boast over the [Jewish] branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. … do not become proud, but stand in awe” (Romans 11:13, 18, 20).
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In today’s paragraph, Paul unpacks something he calls a “mystery,” how God is saving “all Israel” (Romans 11:25). It’s a thorny mxfatter, but it is tremendously practical. It’s a call to a deeper love for Christ in the people he has come to redeem.
Paul says that “all Israel” will be saved (Romans 11:26). To cut to the chase, Paul’s “all Israel” consists of a full number of Jews (Romans 11:12, “their fullness”), plus a full number of Gentiles (Romans 11:25, “the fullness of the Gentiles”).
Notice that the second word in verse 26 is “so,” and not, “then.” Grammatically, Paul is saying, “in this manner” all Israel will be saved, not “after this” all Israel will be saved. Some interpreters wrongly—very wrongly, in my view—think that Paul means that after a period of time in which God brings in “the fullness of the Gentiles,” he will reverse course (say, by “rapturing” the Gentile church up to heaven) and begin working again among Jewish people to save “all Israel.” No, that’s not what Paul is saying. What he’s saying is that a partial hardening of Jews is the mysterious means by which God is saving Jews and Gentiles together right now, in an Israel that has been reconstituted in and around Jesus Christ.
In this Israel, Jew and Gentile are equally members of the “olive tree”—fellow citizens of Israel and members of the household, fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, fellow partakers of the promise (Ephesians 2:19; 3:6). Paul’s “all Israel” is the “Israel of God” that he has also referred to in Galatians 6:15—all the sons and daughters of Abraham: “children of God through faith … baptized into … and clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). Earlier in Romans 11, Paul had put it in terms of natural branches (the Jews’ “fullness”) who simply belong there in the first place, plus the wild branches (“the fullness of the Gentiles”) who are grafted in—both groups belong in the “olive tree” that is Paul’s “all Israel.”
The way in which this “all Israel” emerges is the process that Paul is describing here. “All Israel” comes to fruition through the proclamation of the good news of redemption in Jesus Christ. By the unexpected arms-wide-open reception of the gospel by the Gentiles and the equal-and-opposite closed-hearted rejection of the gospel by Jews, both groups have been put on the same footing. Both are equally in need of God’s mercy: “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:32).
Both, in a word, have become outsiders who need a way back in. The good news is that the way is open. The way is Jesus Christ. Natural branches that have been broken off can be grafted back in simply by the obedience of faith (Romans 11:23)—and this is Paul’s urgent hope for Jewish nonbelievers. Conversely, wild branches who have been grafted in, but who scoff at those who have been displaced, can be broken off again simply by the lack of faith that their pride expresses (Romans 11:21)—this is Paul’s desperate warning to anti-Jewish Gentile believers.
This is Paul’s “sheep” and “goats” passage. What’s not always appreciated by interpreters of Romans 11 is the fact that Paul is less concerned to solve a theological problem (what’s God’s big plan for Jews?) than he is to address the lovelessness of the Gentile Christians in Rome.
Jesus redefines love for the neighbor as love for his own Person. Paul redefines the people of God around Jesus, making the honoring of Jesus all about honoring the fullness of his people—Gentile and Jew alike.
I pray you and I live in these rich truths.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+