Chris Taylor’s Sermon – 2/5/2012
Romans 11:25-36
Some or All?
I’m sure that video of kids choosing sides for a game brought back memories for many of us. Am I going to be the first or second? Am I going to be the very last? I was amazed to discover a couple of weeks ago that for the All-Star game in the National Hockey League the sides are actually chosen up. I know, that shows my hockey ignorance, but come on – isn’t there something wrong when grown men who are recognized as the very best in their field can still be exposed to the humiliation of being chosen last?
Several weeks ago you all were invited to submit questions for the pastors. Beginning this morning, we’re starting to answer them. I got the first one, which I think is a great question, “What will happen to my Jewish friends when they die, or on judgment day?”
What do you think? Is God like the captain of a team saying “I want this person and that person, but no, I don’t want that one over there”? Does that sound like God to you?
Gandhi was one of the most respected leaders of the twentieth century. He led the struggle for independence in India, and did it in a way that no one thought was possible: by non-violence and passive resistance. His teaching became the basis for one of our own great leaders of the last fifty years, Martin Luther King, Jr.
When he was a young man, practicing law in South Africa, Gandhi was actually drawn to the Christian faith. He studied Scripture intently, most especially Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He was open enough to the possibility of becoming a Christian that one day he actually visited a church. As he started up the steps, however, a white South African elder barred his way at the door. “Where do you think you’re going, kaffir?”
Gandhi replied, “I’d like to attend worship here.”
The church elder snarled, “There’s no room for kaffirs in this church. Get out of here or I’ll have my assistants throw you down the steps.”
This was an elder of the church, a leader in the community that bears Jesus’ name. His actions that day pushed one of the great spirits of the 20th century away from the church. What a terrible thing when we allow our prejudices to re-shape the gospel with which we have been entrusted.
So let me start by saying I like the question “What will happen to my Jewish friends”. I like it because first of all, this person actually has friends of another faith and clearly cares about them. There was a time, not that long ago, when a lot of Christians in this country shunned Jews in much the same way that whites shunned blacks no matter what their faith. There were a lot of places where Jews simply weren’t welcomed. In fact, there was even a movie made about one of those communities back in 1947. It was called “Gentleman’s Agreement”. It starred Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire, and it focused on Darien, Connecticut. The “agreement” was an unwritten understanding among the realtors there that Jews would not be allowed.
Jesus was a Jew. So were all the apostles, and all the people who first embraced the Gospel. In fact, at least initially they all continued to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem and in the synagogues of the communities where they lived. But as those first decades passed and the Christian and Jewish communities became more and more distinct from each other, the question naturally came up, “What about the Jews?”
Here in his epistle to the Romans Paul specifically addresses that question in the ninth, tenth and eleventh chapters, and it is in this eleventh chapter that he finally comes to his conclusion. Take a look at the first verse: “I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”
God chose the Jews – a choice that goes all the way back to his covenant with Abraham. God isn’t going to turn away from that covenant. That is not the faithful, loving God that we meet in Scripture. No, in God’s perfect time, Paul says (verse 26 of our text), “All Israel will be saved.”
Not some of Israel, but “all Israel” by which he means all the members of God’s covenant community. All the Jews. Continue on here, verses 28 and 29, “as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” God isn’t going to go back on his promises. The Jews will always hold a special place in the heart of our Creator.
Well what about the Hindus? What about the Muslims? What about all the people in this world who never heard the Gospel or never had the chance to turn towards Jesus? Scripture is clear about those for whom Jesus died, 1Timothy 2:3-6:
This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all [emphasis added]…
This is consistent with Jesus’ own understanding. In his conversation with the Jewish leader Nicodemus he said (in two of the best known verses in all of Scripture), “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16, 17; emphasis added).
The world. That means everybody: Christians, Jews, atheists, Muslims, Buddhists; everyone, everywhere. Jesus died for all, not just a select few. If God is the team captain, then, God isn’t saying “I want this one and that one and that one over there.” No, what God is saying is “I want them all!”
Now at this point some of you may be thinking, “Yes, in those very same verses didn’t Jesus limit those who would be saved to those who actually believed in him?” That’s true, and again, that’s in keeping with the rest of the New Testament witness. In his epistle to the Ephesians, for example, Paul speaks of that mystery of God’s intent which has now been revealed, “to gather up all things in [Jesus], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:9, 10). All of history, in other words, is moving towards that day when everyone and everything will be united specifically in Jesus. Again, Philippians 2:9-11:
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
What is God’s goal for humanity? Quite clearly, that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
What that means for us is that we are called to preach Christ exclusively. As Jesus himself put it, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). We don’t preach Jesus as one way among many. We preach him as the one and only way to the Father.
So we are called to preach Christ exclusively, yet at the same time we recognize that the God revealed to us in Scripture is an inclusive God. God loves all humanity. God longs for all humanity to be drawn back into communion with him. That is clearly God’s goal.
We have to recognize the theoretical possibility that some people will choose a life apart from God (the very definition of “hell”). God will always respect and preserve their freedom of choice. But God has all eternity to be at work in their lives. God isn’t limited by linear time, or by our few brief years upon this earth. And at the same time, Jesus is so much bigger than those boundaries within which we tend to confine him. Surely Jesus, who died for all humanity, may even now be at work in people’s lives in ways and forms that we don’t understand; at work in their lives and revealing himself to them even though they profess a different faith or have never seen a single page of Scripture.
Our role, then, is very clear: it is to live as Jesus did and faithfully proclaim him. Our role is to love those that we encounter no matter what the color of their skin, no matter what the faith that they profess. It is to love them and respect them, right where they are, that they, too, might come to know how deeply they are loved and cherished by their Creator.
