Who are you?

When you tell people who you are how do you start?

For years I was Michael’s mom, or Janelle’s mom, or Jonathan’s mom. I have often been introduced as Ken’s wife, or Ann and John’s daughter. If you didn’t know me and met me in my current role, you would most often hear me introduce myself as Joyce Yanishewski, minister at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Thunder Bay.

How one is introduced is predicated on what information is needed in a certain circumstance. If one needs to know that I am a parent they may not need the other information. When it comes to who to contact in case of an emergency, well, Ken as my husband is going to get the call. If you want pastoral care, you are not going to be concerned about whether or not I have children or a husband but the knowledge that I am a minister definitely comes into play.

So it is with this ancient letter written by the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome. Now we are going to be spending the month of October looking at the first half of this letter so a good place to find our grounding is with the introduction in these first verses of the scripture. It is here that Paul sets out who he is and why it matters.

Ancient letters had formulas much like form letters today. How one writes a letter depends on the type of letter and in this case, Paul is structuring the letter based in the practices of the day. So he starts with introducing himself. A letter today is addressed to the recipient, for ancients you started with yourself.

What is not initially apparent to those of us so far removed from the time in which this letter was written is just how subversive it is. This is a time in history when the Roman Empire is strong and getting stronger. They held control, they had the power. It was a system of honour and shame, of rulers and servants and slaves which is why the letter uses that kind of language. Don’t get bogged down in those words of rulers, servants, and slaves, especially as the connotations have changed since those early times.

In the time of this empire everyone was expected to pledge their allegiance to Ceasar. And Paul began his letter not by pledging allegiance to Ceasar but rather saying he was a servant of Jesus Christ. We don’t realize how dangerous that statement was until we see it in light of the cross. People who didn’t obey and do as the Roman authorities expected could suffer severe punishment. The worst punishment being hung up on a cross to die.

Yet for Paul the most important thing he could say, the best way to introduce himself was not really to say much about himself at all, except for how it related to his relationship with Jesus Christ. He was a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

Now Paul was writing to the followers of Christ in Rome, but this was not some homogenous group. This was a very diverse group of people. Some were Jewish, some were gentiles, in other words, any one who was not Jewish was considered to be a gentile. There were the rich and influential but for the most part Paul would have been writing to people who were servants and slaves. But don’t think for a moment that the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians necessarily got along with each either. There were many suspicions on all parts, especially the Jewish Christians about gentiles.

And to clarify some information here, Jesus was Jewish. He never was a Christian. It was sometime after Jesus’ death before the word Christian began to be used to describe followers of Christ. Those first followers were all Jewish. They never imagined being anything else. They just believed that in Jesus the promised Messiah had come. The Jewish people had been waiting for such a Messiah since the time of King David’s death. The difference between Jesus and what they expected was that they were looking for a strong leader who would deliver them out of the clutches of whatever oppressive regime they were under. In Jesus time it was the Roman Empire. And well, Jesus didn’t do that, at least not in the way they were hoping for and expecting.

Even the disciples that had journeyed with Jesus for three years thought that Jesus had come to overthrow the Roman government. It was not until Jesus’ death and resurrection that they began to really put two and two together about what Jesus had been saying to them and teaching them about the kind of kingdom, the kind of empire that Jesus was the ruler of. This kingdom being one in which peace, hope, joy, and love were the basis. Where compassion and justice, care for the least of people in society, were the hallmarks of a good and faithful servant.

The Roman authorities never understood. They just saw in Jesus a man who had a following and that kind of thing could not be tolerated. Jesus would be made an example of. Actually, even the Jewish authorities had no stomach for Jesus because his way of being, of leading, was a threat to their authorities as well, and we know how power wants more power. So the Jewish temple authorities worked in cahoots with the Roman government to rid themselves of Jesus. This even though they did not want to be under Roman rule themselves.

Jesus was going to have to pay a price for the way he posed a threat to the status quo. Jesus was put to death on a cross because it was the most shameful way anyone could die. You were stripped of your clothes, beaten, nailed to a cross and left where everyone could watch you die. You became a non-person, showing all who passed by that Rome could do this to you.

And this brings us back to what Paul is saying about himself. He is a servant of Jesus Christ, but not only that, he states that he is not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek or gentile.

Paul is saying, though Jesus died the most shameful death, experienced the worst that the Roman government could do in order to dehumanize a person, Paul was not ashamed of Jesus and not ashamed of the good news that is the story of Jesus.

Let me share with you a definition of what the words gospel, good news, message, or word mean when speaking about our faith. I take this definition from writing by N.T. Wright a much-respected teacher and preacher who has been teaching about and studying scripture for decades.

All that we will hear in this letter to the Romans rests on knowing what Good News is, what the Gospel is. Wright’s explain this in regard to Paul’s writing,

The idea of ‘good news’ for which an older English word is ‘gospel,’ had two principal meanings for first-century Jews. First, with roots in Isaiah, it meant the news of YHWH’s long-awaited victory over evil and rescue of his people. Second, it was used in the Roman world of the accession or birthday, of the emperor. Since for Jesus and Paul the announcement of God’s inbreaking kingdom was both the fulfilment of prophecy and a challenge to the word’s present rulers, ‘gospel’ became an important shorthand for both the message of Jesus himself, and the apostolic message about him. Paul saw this message as itself the vehicle of God’s saving power. ^[1]

The letter to the Romans is about Jesus and the saving power that Paul experienced and was giving his life for. Just a reminder that in the book of Acts we read about Paul, who then was named Saul as a persecutor of Christians. He did a complete 180 going from persecutor to be persecuted. One who did harm working as an authority to one who was a servant, which is what can happen when we encounter Jesus in a profound and powerful way.

It was why Paul was willing to pledge his allegiance to King Jesus and why he was not ashamed of Jesus and the message of Jesus. Paul had a life changing and life-giving experience of Jesus and he was willing to risk everything in order to share with others the message of Good News, where lives could be changed, people made whole, ushering in a peaceable kingdom where power and authority looked to the well being of all.

We cannot grasp what is being put to us in this ancient letter without understanding the risks of what it meant to be a Christian at this time. The whole of the letter will continue to expound on this and other key themes.

For us now though, what is the take away? As we partake of communion and remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, as we eat the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation, how do we experience Jesus in our own time? How do we live out our lives as followers of Christ? Hearing these things as individuals but also as a community of faith, and part of the global church, are we able to say as Paul did, that we are servants of Jesus Christ? Are we able to say that we are not ashamed of the gospel? Have we experienced the power of God for the salvation of everyone who has faith?

So many questions, but questions that are for us to ponder, to reflect on as we partake of these visible signs, the bread and the cup, visible signs of an invisible grace. May this moment and the coming days help you to see the grace of Jesus in your life, the impact of the gospel on how you live, and inspire you more and more to be a servant of Jesus and to serve others, and to learn more and more who you are in Christ, with Christ, and through Christ. Amen.

[1] Wright. N.T. Romans For Everyone: Part 1, Chapters 1-8. Woth Anniversary Edition with Study Guide. Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky. 2023. Page124.

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