A reading from Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 15, verses
one through 13. We who are strong have an
obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to
please ourselves. Let each of us please his
neighbor for his good, to build him up.
For Christ did not please himself.
But as is written, the reproach of those who reproached you fell
on me. For whatever was written in
former days was written for our instruction that through
endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures,
we might have hope. May the God of endurance and
encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one
another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together with you,
may with one voice glorify God the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Therefore welcome one another as
Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.
For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the
circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to
confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order
that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy as it is
written. Therefore I will praise you
among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.
And again it is said, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people, and
again praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the
peoples extol him. And again Isaiah says, the root
of Jesse will come, even he who rises to rule the Gentiles, in
him will the Gentiles hope. May the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace and believing, so that by the power
of the Holy Spirit you may be, you may abound and hope the word
of the Lord. Good morning, Church.
It's good to see you all. Thank you.
OK, OK, so as Father Aaron mentioned, I was in the
classroom for quite some time. And a phrase I often hear in
schools, especially when exams get handed back, as you can
imagine, you can probably guess, hey, what'd you get?
What'd you get? What'd you get?
Right? It was so pervasive in the
schools I taught at that I actually had a ban it for my
classroom, you know, and pause a given lesson to invite my
students to unpack. What is at the root of this
impulse to ask that question constantly.
So many of us fall into the trap of wanting to keep tallies where
people are at, right? How they doing.
We compare ourselves to that individual as standard and
depending on where we land on a given day, right?
We feel like pretty incredible about ourselves sometimes.
And that's maybe even a little complacent.
Maybe we're really anxious, like I need to catch up, I need to do
better, or even despair. Maybe I'll never measure up,
right? And then we start spiraling.
All of all of this tense us into isolation when we're weak.
So whether we're on a high or low point, trying to keep the
show going on our own is exhausting, isn't it?
And frankly, it's unsustainable. And this is true of all of our
identities because we carry a lot with us, right?
As students, athletes, artists, employees, supervisors, as sons,
as daughters, parents, for sure, right?
And even as Christians, we tend to treat the Christian life like
a solo performance. There's a lot of pressure when
we do that. It's one more area where our
personal discipline, successes and failures rests on our
shoulders alone. And this tension is exactly what
Paul addresses in his letter to the Roman Christians in our
passage today. The temptation to make faith
about us, our performance, our highs, our ability to stay
strong. As a good friend put it for me
recently, as I was kind of talking it through with her, she
said when we do that, we can find other people's problems and
struggles are drained and we can also find their strength
intimidating. We need God to change your
hearts in those cases, for sure. So returning to this image of a
soloist on a stage, sometimes a solitaire voice is strong and
resonant. Listeners are compelled by it,
whether it's pained or uplifting.
The message of a song is clear and we are so moved by it.
Other times it's hoarse. Perhaps a singer is sick.
The song is hard to hear and thus the message cannot be
heard. The singer needs to rest.
Perhaps they can't hit the high notes that day or having trouble
projecting across the room. They need more voices to bolster
the sound. A singular singer can truly
achieve much with their instrument.
It can be quite beautiful, but as a human being, there are
limits, right? There's days of weakness that
come with days of strength. But God's vision is more
beautiful than that. God's vision for the Kingdom is
a chorus. It's not a room full of
soloists. We are, as it says in verse 6 on
page 10 and 11 in your bulletin, with one voice.
We are two. With one voice, glorify the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Indeed, Romans 15 reveals that the goal is not to eradicate the
weakness. That's very countercultural,
don't you think? It's to work together to build
one another up, to strengthen the body, this body right as a
whole. We are all, every single person
in this room. Members of a chorus who sing out
of an outpouring of celebratory praise, not individual
performance. And when we live in harmony like
this, we glorify God. Our harmony is God's glory, and
I find that so stunning. It's our joy, our peace, our
flourishing together that brings God glory.
That's how he designed it. That is so beautiful.
This vision is in direct contrast to so much of the
messaging that we, and frankly Paul's Roman Christians in his
context, receive in our daily lives.
Isn't it because society praises us strong, the independent, the
soloist virtuoso? And in fact, earlier in his
letter, in Romans 12, Paul writes this.
Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the
good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
And immediately in that same chapter, he follows this with a
reminder that the church is many in one body in Christ.
I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly
than he should think. Instead, think sensibly as God
has distributed and measure of faith to each one.
Now, as we have many parts in one body and all the parts do
not have the same function in the same way, we who are many
are one body in Christ and individually members of one
another. This integrated body is at the
heart of today's message. 2 Paul opens in chapter 15.
We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the
failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
Let us, let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to
build him up versus 1 and 2. The baseline assumption here is
that members of the body will be weak at times.
In fact, Scripture, as it says in verse 4, was written for our
instruction that through endurance and through the
encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.
Faithful endurance and encouragement give us hope.
There's recognition here that we have things to endure.
Oh man, do we ever, right? And that we need encouragement
and support to bear challenges and persist through them.
That's built in, right. So I invite you to take a moment
now and consider what are what are the things that you need to
endure lately? And you could think through all
the areas of your life. It might be physical, it might
be interpersonal, it might be deep within your heart.
In what areas of your life would you love some encouragement?
And also consider what would it look like for you to accept
edification from someone else in those areas?
Because for some of us, it's really hard to accept it, right?
In fact, the English language, this translation in this first
verse is really revealing of our fallenness in some notable ways.
Let's look at it. Words like obligation bear with
and failings of the weak that those words have some tough
connotations in our society. Some of us might read that and
think, oh, that's nice of Paul to to call upon the strong to
take on the burden of those who are weak.
But man, I don't want to be a burden on people.
I don't want people to feel obligated to build me up.
Does some of you think that sometimes?
So we may suffer in silence and not ask for help or prayer.
Or if our struggle is in the open, maybe we're not willing to
accept the help. It's OK, right?
Perhaps we hide and isolate ourselves from the body instead
in the name of not wanting to be a burden.
I definitely did there. But this is not conservation for
you or for me or for any of us. Actually, the original Greek is
so much more beautiful and positive than that.
So let's dig into it. We who are strong, OK?
The Greek word for strong, Dina toy, can come in many forms,
right? As we know, strength comes as
wealth, influence, conviction, your faith.
And interestingly, in the Greek, these are not moral categories.
This is not about being like a good Christian versus a bad
Christian. The strong bear responsibility
not because they're better, but because they currently have
greater freedom and capacity to care for other people.
We who are strong have an obligation.
OK, Well, Filaman, literally, we owe it the obligation.
It's a kind of love that that Father Aaron talked about last
week. It's the kind of responsibility
for others that one willingly undertakes in love because our
strength is not our own to keep. We owe it to those who have
less, and thus we give it joy joyfully.
We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the
failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
Here the failings of the weak a do not do not ton.
I can never pronounce that one denotes lack of strength, not
lack of virtue. The weak are not yet formed in
their convictions, not yet capable of exercising freedom,
not yet steady in faith. Maybe things are just really
hard right now, right? The term is tender.
It's not derogatory. There's so much love in here,
right? In Rome, pleasing yourself was
the goal to gain status through self determination.
Doesn't that sound familiar? Our society definitely elevates
that too. Paul points out, however, that
God's vision orients our goals away from self-serving to self
giving. Paul uses scripture to show that
Christ is our example of this. Of course, verse 3, for Christ
did not please himself. Christ frankly had all freedom,
all strength, all rights, but he used none of it for his own
comfort. This is radically different from
what society expects and thus piques people's interest and
curiosity. He stood out as we are called to
stand out. It opens a door for others to be
welcomed into this hope, this radical, different hope that
Christ brings. Paul continues in verses 5
through 6. May the God of endurance and
encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one
another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may
with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Scripture reminds us that
endurance and encouragement come from God, not ourselves.
Thank God, because if encouragement comes from God,
then no one can boast and being the strong one on a given day,
and no one needs to hide when they're weak.
How beautiful that built into glorifying God.
The purpose of our lives is US living in harmony with one
another. That's amazing, right?
Built into God's vision is building one another up for one
another's good. By caring for others when we're
strong and by accepting care from others when we're weak, we
fulfill God's design and thus glorify Him.
I mean, come on, right? Like, God truly wants what's
best for us. And for me, a clear illustration
of this is what can happen in a Citigroup or a small group Bible
study. When we first moved back to
Chicago in 2018, despite having grown up here myself, it felt
really hard to find community, to be honest with you.
Everyone's super busy, right? A lot of relationships felt
really like touch and go. And as a relative introvert
myself, I kept waiting for others to welcome, like, welcome
me in, invite me, reach out to me.
And so for years, I felt very much in the fringes of pretty
much every community I was a part of, including Emmanuel.
And I had heard various times, as many of you have, right, that
the way to become part of a community is a serve in it.
I knew that up here in my head, but my heart wasn't quite open
to it because I felt a little bit awkward.
You know, I felt kind of shy about it, self-conscious maybe.
And our apartment, those of you with kids, you know, as I
cluttered with kids stuff, right?
And frankly, I I'm working on this, but it generally makes me
anxious to have people over when things are a mess.
But my husband, Seth, and I knew from leading small groups
through inner varsity and college and participating in
various Bible studies through our, you know, over the years
that creating intentional spaces where people can grapple with
scripture together and pray with and for one another can be a
huge blessing to people. I think a lot of you in this
room know that. And if you haven't experienced
that before yet, I invite you to consider it.
So we opened our home and our city groups over the years have
become an extension of our family.
And some of you are in this room.
It fills my heart with song to see our older kids, Nina and
June look forward to Tuesday evenings.
They run downstairs to greet people at the door.
And they're learning godly hospitality and opening up their
rooms, sharing their stuff, you know, reading to the younger
kids and, and selecting the toys that they know the kids will
like ahead of time. And as the kids, I mean, it's
like crazy. There's like 10 kids in the in
our flat. Like the kids are running up and
down the halls. It's wonderful.
It's just like beautiful chaos, right?
They like drop by the table throughout the evening to like
grab snacks and maybe they'll curl up on some of our laughs as
we're talking. They get to listen to our hard
questions, right? They recognize that, oh, people
ask questions and they read scripture.
It's not just like knowing all the answers, right?
They listen and they notice. Hopefully you know how we follow
up on one another's prayer request.
Hey, how, how was that procedure?
How was that conversation? How do you feel this week about
this, Right? And this Christian life together
is beautiful. Not because everyone's a model
Christian, whatever that means, right?
But because we're living in our messy, chaotic, complex lives
together and supporting one another in it.
And in this way, we're all singing together.
And honestly, like, isn't that more compelling than everyone
posturing as having it all together, You know, being super
Christian or whatever, you know, or even oblivious to the
struggles of the person sitting across from them.
Our collective song is radiant not because every individual
singer is perfectly in key, but because we are singing a common
song of praise and welcoming others to join in our chorus.
To deny someone help, then, as the giver or receiver, is to
deny God His glorious song. It isn't about us, so it's not
making it about us. We make it hard for ourselves
when we do that right? So when we Peacock our spiritual
highs as a Christian Gold Star, even if we just do it on the
inside, we make it about us. When we hoard our strengths to
ourselves, whether it's our able bodiedness, resources, or
availability, we make it about us.
When we isolate ourselves from the body when we're weak, such
as by refusing care and support when it's offered to us, we make
it about us. Let's resist those temptations.
Instead, as Paul continues in verse 7, let us welcome one
another as Christ welcomed us for the glory of God.
The Greek word for welcome here, Proselyn banaspi, is a command
and has two parts that this is really cool.
The prefix prose is in the word. It signals movement toward the
other person. It's not waiting for them to
come to you. Also, it's not even just
tolerating them from a distance. It's actively stepping in their
direction and the route Lambano is like an embrace to take
someone into your care. Man, God is in language too.
It's just so amazing. Imagine what this kind of
wholehearted welcome can look like at church and also in your
day-to-day with anyone you come across.
Like, imagine them right now that people's faces that you
come into contact with all the time.
If we're to actively go to them and welcome them in and embrace,
what does that look like? How does that feel?
Have you ever experienced it? As Christ entered our situation
and welcomed us into life with Him, we are to warmly welcome
others into our lives too, and this welcome expands a community
beyond all boundaries. We need that now always and
actively resists society's inclination to cut off the weak
or exclude the outsider. And indeed, Paul was writing to
a diverse Christian community made-up of Jewish and non Jewish
gentile believers. There was tension amongst those
groups at the time, right? And he strings together passages
from various parts of the Hebrew Scriptures in the remaining
verses of this reading, like the laws of prophets of writings, to
emphasize how God's vision was always inclusive.
The rejoicing verse 11 was for all the peoples.
God's promise of salvation is for everyone because verse 13,
He is the God of hope. And while the particular
cultural tensions within Paul's Roman audience were different
from ours, today we have many of our own.
And like them, we need rescue from comparison and competition.
It's pervasive. So in addition to giving and
receiving care, who can you welcome?
And let's be honest with ourselves, what comparisons and
competitions do we need to let go of in order to welcome them?
Paul concludes with the benediction because he knows
that we cannot rely on our efforts alone to do this right.
We can only be united in care, harmony and worship through the
power of the Holy Spirit who sustain us, who sustains us as
we strive to, as written in verses 5 and 6, to live in such
harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that
together you may, we may with one voice glorify the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So likewise, I invite you
literally to hold your palms up to receive an extension of calls
blessing upon the Roman Christians to us today and into
the second week of Advent. May the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace and believing, so that by the power
of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Amen.