In a book entitled Disunity in Christ, Christena Cleveland writes of a discovery that is familiar to many Christians. It doesn’t take long for us to learn that not everyone is a Christian in the same way that I am a Christian. She says,
“When I first began walking with Christ, I felt an immediate and authentic connection with any other Christian who crossed my path. Orthodox, Catholic, charismatic, Lutheran, evangelical, black, white, Asian– didn’t matter we were family… But as I walked with Jesus, somehow my “growth” had been coupled with increasingly stronger opinions about the “right” way to be a follower. I started keeping people I didn’t enjoy or agree with at arm’s length.”
In straight forward prose she describes locating, categorizing and gracefully shunning those with whom she disagrees. The practice is familiar to most of us.
When we read Paul’s letter to the Romans we are reading one of the most studied books in all of the Bible. In this epistle the greatest theologian in the early church gives the church the fullest and clearest expression of what he believes, but don’t be fooled into thinking that Romans is simply a work of theology– an essay on the beliefs of Paul. All theology– at least all good theology, is practical theology. It gets down into the warp and the woof of our daily life. The book of Romans is good, practical theology that gets down into the reality of life. It is ecclesiology. It is about the church. It is to and about a real church, facing real problems. It was delivered by the hand and in the voice of a real person– Phoebe. The church that heard Phoebe deliver the letter was a mix of Jews and Gentiles but, the names of two groups that are more important to what is going on in the church quickly appear– the weak and the strong.
Similarly to the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 8) there is division around how the Roman church should live out faith, particularly in regard to eating and holidays (Romans 14). One group keeps kosher and the other does not. One group observes certain religious holidays the other does not. One group is likely tempted towards acts of political rebellion. As is always the case when divisions arise part of the church in Rome wants to locate, categorize and gracefully (or perhaps ungracefully!) shun the other part. Sound familiar? Paul calls the group that doesn’t keep kosher the strong and the others the weak. Surprisingly Paul is quite comfortable with the some rather deep disagreements in the church. He never really works at convincing either side to change their practice when it comes to rituals such as eating kosher and observing particular days. He does not try to work towards unified agreement on these particular issues. What he does do is try to change the way they think and behave towards each other and he does this by exploring the gospel from beginning to end. The weak have been judging the strong and the strong have been despising the weak (Romans 14:3). It is these attitudes towards each other that must be adjusted and the way to adjust them is to help each group come to a fuller understanding of the gospel.
In the introduction to his letter Paul reminds the strong (who despise the weak) that the faith to which they cling is deeply routed in Judaism. Deeply rooted in other words in the tradition which they despise. The gospel was promised by the prophets. Christ is descended from David. Yet, before any of the despised “weak” can jump and say, “See! This is what we have been saying all along!” Paul presses on. He writes of the broad scope of the gospel. He himself has been commissioned to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations (Romans 1:1-6). The history– indeed the very nature of the gospel, is about bringing wildly different people together. Paul does not want everybody to eat kosher. Neither does he expect everybody to join the camp of the strong. The only umbrella that he seeks to bring these different groups together under is the gospel. There will always be those whose practice of Christianity is different from our own, but the better all of us understand the gospel the better we will be able to walk and worship together.