romans 1 – Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. (New International Version)

Gratitude, service, prayer, encouragement, and duty. These are the qualities which defined the Apostle Paul; he sought to embody them every day of his life.

These virtues can define us, as well. If we seek to develop and exhibit each one, then we will find true community and satisfying relationships. And these very qualities were what Paul longed for in the Roman Church – because the believers were too often characterized by ingratitude, serving only those who were like them, a lack of prayer, discouraging others, and a warped sense of duty.

Jews and Gentiles were together in one church. It wasn’t going to be easy to get along and work side-by-side, but Paul was absolutely committed to it. Since the Apostle was both a Jew and a missionary to Gentiles, his heart deeply desired a mutual ministry in which the Christians thoroughly loved one another and had each other’s backs.

Gratitude

For that to happen, the practice of thanksgiving is needed.

We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 4:14-15, NIV)

In truth, gratitude is a spiritual practice which requires cultivation and attention. One of the best ways, in my opinion, of doing this is to keep a gratitude journal – actually hand writing what we are thankful for each day. And, when it comes to others, developing the habit of saying the words, “Thank you,” “I am so grateful,” and “You are so kind, I appreciate it.”

It’s hard to be a spiritual curmudgeon and grump through life whenever gratitude shapes our relationships. Gratitude has the practical effect of curbing our critical tendencies; it helps us as value people by thanking them often and clearly for who they are.

Service

To serve God and others is a way of offering resources, time, influence, and spiritual gifts for the betterment of humanity. This is how we love our neighbor as ourselves.

“Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
Jesus (John 12:26, NIV)

By orienting our lives around service, we begin to see other people’s needs and meet them – since we are taking the time and energy in getting to know them. As servants, we learn to “walk the talk” and embody what we profess. And, if we couple service with gratitude, we are able to whistle while we work and avoid bitterness.

Prayer

We all pray and pray for others. The real trick is to remember one another in prayer and persevere in it. For that to happen, we must allow God to heal our distracted selves and bring integrity to our fragmented lives.

“We should make a gift of our hearts, emptying them of ourselves, that they may be filled with God. Our almighty Father becomes one with us and transforms us, uniting Creator and creature.”
Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582)

By centering our identity firmly in Christ, we open ourselves to remember and intercede for others.

Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. (Ephesians 6:18, NIV)

Along with gratitude and service, our prayers take a focused shape of supporting others in need of healing, care, courage, patience, etc. And we replace any tendency to control or manipulate with a prayerful trust in God.

Encouragement

The Apostle Paul had a deep longing to help others grow into their God-given potential. He sought to empower others by sharing his life with them. Paul desired everyone to give themselves for the common good of all.

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:12-13, NIV)

None of us can make it in life without the help and encouragement of others. So, we need authentic relationships for mutual help and support, to learn from each other, and garner wisdom from those who have walked with God many years.

Encouragement is greatly moved along when gratitude, service, and prayer accompany it, so that an encouraging community of people are a loving group of folks for whom others want to be around.

Duty

A sense of obligation is a good thing. It turns our privilege and power into a force for good in the church and the world. In reality, we are stewards of God’s gifts and resources given to us. This enables us to have a healthy practice of duty to our fellow humanity.

Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-20, NIV)

Through infusing our duty with gratitude, service, prayer, and encouragement, it becomes a delight to freely give of ourselves and our stuff, without a begrudging attitude. Generosity becomes a way of life, and we avoid becoming unhappy misers.

“If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small.”
C.S. Lewis

Conclusion

In the Roman Church of Paul’s day, the relational dynamic had not yet broken down to the point of Schadenfreude, that is, actively delighting in another’s misfortune – but they were on their way. To mitigate and stop this from happening, Paul modeled a genuine spirit of thanksgiving, loving service, remembering prayer, healthy encouragement, and generous duty.

We would do well to follow his example of virtue, and be shaped by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Generous God, I give thanks to you for the gifts you have given me – life, family, friends, time, talents, and possessions. All that I have comes from you. Help me to remember this and rejoice in your goodness.

Walk with me, my God. Help me on my spiritual journey, so that I may constantly renew my relationship with you and all the good people in our parish and beyond.

Renew in me your Spirit. Give me the strength and courage to become a better follower of Jesus, in whose name I am bold to pray. Amen.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who by their injustice suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made.

So they are without excuse, for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (New Revised Standard Version)

Exchanging Good for Bad

Nature abhors a vacuum. Everything is filled with something. If one thing is given up, another thing will take its place. Change is actually more like an exchange of one thing for another. Something is taken out, then replaced with something different.

We have exchanged:

Behavior that attends to the common good of all persons, for self-interested behavior to what is good for me and my family and/or group
Good deeds done from a pure heart, for good deeds done from an impure heart which give me an advantage or leverage over another
Steadfast committed love of others, for hustled love that gets discarded whenever things get hard
Submission to one another out of a sense of sacred reverence, for disobedience to anyone I don’t like
Dignity of being an image-bearer of God for the shame and ignominy of self-image
Majesty and worth of all persons in the world, for becoming masters of small worlds

And that’s not all, there’s more. We also have a nasty tendency to replace:

Freedom for shackles
Virtue for vice
Morality for immorality
Justice for injustice
Goodness for ungodliness
Truth for a lie
Wisdom for foolishness
Immortality for mortality
Honor for dishonor
Devotion for disregard
God for gods

These are all very poor replacements. In fact, the exchanges are so dark that they leave us in a state of guilt before God and all creation. Indeed, we all have sinned and fallen short of our intended purpose on this earth.

Guilt and Shame

Our response must not exchange guilt for shame because they are different words:

Guilt is assigned by God so that repentance and reconciliation might happen.

Shame, however, is introduced by us; we are the ones who label ourselves as a bucket of pig slop, not God.

Guilt is a function of the conscience, letting us know when we have said or done something wrong or hurtful; it is specific to a particular action or lack of action.

Shame, however, is a function of the “inner critic.” It interprets bad words or actions as we ourselves being bad, focusing not on actions but on our very personhood in the form of judgmentalism leveled at myself.

Guilt says, “I have done something bad.”

Shame, however, says, “I am bad.”

Guilt serves a redemptive purpose through alerting us that we need to deal with a wrong.

Shame, however, damages our spirits through telling us we are flawed and unworthy of love and connection with others.

Because guilt and shame are not the same, they need to be dealt with in different ways.

Guilt, if not faced and dealt with, becomes gangrene of the soul. Over time it festers and poisons our spirits, leading to significant emotional and sometimes physical problems. Forgiveness (both in apologies and in forgiving oneself) is the primary tool in dealing with guilt.

Shame, however, lives in the shadows and feeds on secrets. If shame persists, we withdraw from others and experience grinding loneliness. Therefore, the path out of shame is to openly name your shame and tell your story – thus taking away shame’s power and giving it back to yourself. Vulnerability is the tool which erases shame.

“Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged and healed.”
Brené Brown

Emotional Creatures

In the absence of light, there is darkness. Purging oneself of belief in God merely means that another god will take her place. Scripture labels this “idolatry.”

What’s more, in the absence of feeling, in the quest to absolve oneself of unwanted emotions, there still remains emotion – because humans are emotional creatures.

People mostly rid themselves of any god concept because of how they feel about it. In fact, we do just about everything in life based on our emotions. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. We get into problems and fuss about emotions mucking up things, only because we never faced those feelings to begin with.

A person will never know God unless they understand this. The worship of God and the practice of Christianity is not only to engage the mind and the spirit, but also the body and the emotions.

Emotions and feelings are not like foreign microbes that enter the body as unwanted interlopers. They didn’t enter humanity as part of the world’s curse, after Adam and Eve’s fall into disobedience. No!

Rather, we are our emotions, just as much as we are our body, mind, and soul. Therefore, every emotion which exists, resides in us, all the time. We cannot purge ourselves of our emotions any more than we can remove the heart, the brain, or the bowels, and then expect to live.

Denying our emotions, suppressing feelings, and leaving them unacknowledged is terribly unhealthy and will slowly kill us – because our emotions are vital to our very existence.

Getting Rid of God

There are millions of spiritually dead zombies walking the earth who have jettisoned God altogether – either deliberately or unwittingly – because they discarded their emotions, long before they exchanged the sacred for the secular.

We all sometimes get physically ill; it’s part of the human condition, and we all understand that. So, we go to bed, or to the doctor, or to the hospital’s emergency department – depending upon the severity of our illness. We even go to a physician when we are healthy, just to get a check-up and make sure everything in the body is working as it should.

We also all get spiritually and emotionally ill; it’s part of the human condition. But we all don’t understand that. So, we soldier on, going about our regular business as if everything is hunky-dory. We don’t attend to our emotional selves. We don’t slow down and address what’s going on, or go to a church, or go to anyone. Instead, we suffer in silence.

Just as it ludicrous to get rid of the body altogether whenever we get a disease, so we must not rid ourselves of God whenever we get spiritually and emotionally sick. We face the illness and deal with it. It might require surgery. Recovery will hurt. That’s all part of facing it.

Ignoring God is about as smart as ignoring a heart attack. It might go away for a short time, but it’ll come back with a vengeance and do you in.

Emotions aren’t to blame when things are rough. Neither is God to blame when bad stuff happens. Both our emotions and God are realities we must deal with.

Just like the force of gravity is always there and needs to be respected (by not simply walking off the roof of your house, believing you don’t need gravity anymore) so the person and the power of God is always here and we absolutely need to come to terms with that reality, instead of walking away.

What will you do?…

Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

Tag: romans 1