Peace: Reconciling Love - October 19, 2008
Sermon Notes for Romans 12:19-21
Key Verse: Romans 12:18 Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.
The twelfth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome is where you can find one of the primary discussions of spiritual gifts in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 12 is the other). In Romans, Paul discusses these spiritual gifts in the context of differentiated but connected parts of a body, working together because “each member belongs to all the others” (verse 5). In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul stresses the unity of the various spiritual gifts in the same Spirit who distributes them, and then goes on to use the body metaphor, stressing that God has placed the diversity of parts in the Body of Christ, and that there should be no division in the body.
This context of mutual interdependence is crucial in understanding why Paul would cite Deuteronomy 32:25 and Proverbs 25:21-22 at the close of Romans 12. Apparently, this mutual interdependence involves “enemies” within and beyond the church. The scope of love and peace of the Body of Christ extends into the world beyond the gathered community of faith, according to Paul. Perhaps Paul had primarily in mind the Jewish community, which was fast becoming separate from the people who followed the Way of Jesus the Messiah. In 1 Corinthians 12:13, he uses a version of the famous Galatians 3:27 passage “whether Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free”; he does not explicitly state this connection in Romans.
Two other verses in Romans 12 do point to Paul’s recognition of a wider arena for Christian love and peace: in 12:2 Paul writes: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And in 12:17, Paul warns believers to “Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.” These verses indicate that by “enemy” in the verse 20 reference to Proverbs, Paul has in mind both people within and beyond the walls of the church. This connection will be vital in coming to terms with the injunction to feed and to give drink to our enemies.
Notice how different (though related) this quote from Proverbs is from Jesus’ bold Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:43-48 where he commands his disciples to “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” Perhaps this is why modern translators attempt to soften the “burning coals” that our kind acts will heap onto the heads of our enemies in Proverbs and Paul. The NLT calls them “burning coals of shame” and Eugene Peterson (in the Message) paraphrases them as “your generosity will surprise him with goodness”. But whatever the motivation for this change of attitude toward our perceived enemies, feeding and giving them something to drink departs radically from the Torah injunction to injure our enemies as they have injured us (see Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20 and Deuteronomy 19:21).
Clearly this kind of behavior is what Paul has in mind when he calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and to live in peace with everyone. The fruit of the spirit to which we turn our attention today is peace, the practice of which requires us to “offer [our] bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). Proverbs 25, which Paul quotes, mentions the process of burning that a silversmith uses to remove dross (impurities) from silver. This metaphor implies that the way of peace involves pain (like the way of war), but that unlike war, the pain of peace (like Jesus’ offering of his body) brings renewal and hope for our broken world.
Questions for Reflection
- At present, the United States is at war with Afghanistan (in its seventh year) and Iraq (now in its fifth year), part of what our present administration calls a war on terror. How do you interpret this scriptural call to “live at peace with everyone” and to care for (perhaps even to love) our enemies, in this present age? If our present policy of war looks more like “repaying evil for evil” and “conforming to the pattern of this world”, how might we behave as a Christian nation (under God) if we offered our bodies as a living sacrifice and were transformed by the renewing of our minds? What might feeding our enemies look like?
- Now think more about your relationships closer to home. How does Paul’s call to “live in peace with everyone” ask you to behave differently at home—at Skyline—at work—in your neighborhood and in our community? How do you relate the Proverb about feeding your hungry enemy to the second thing we ask for in the Lord’s prayer (after daily bread)?
- Paul had a complex relationship with the Jewish people, from whom he became increasingly estranged in the course of him ministry. Perhaps no other passage relates this complexity better than Romans 9:1-5. These “enemies” rioted in the towns where Paul preached the Good News of Jesus (always in the synagogue first), beat him and stoned him. Do you know any lifelong “enemies” to whom you are profoundly connected (as Paul was to the Jewish people)? How does the love and grace of Jesus transform and renew this relationship?
