Sunday, May 19, 2024
/Pentecost
Acts 2: 1-21; Psalm 104: 25-35,37; Romans 8:22-27; John 15: 26-27; 16: 4b-15
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Today we hear words from the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Rome. Paul wrote this letter, most likely, from the city of Corinth sometime around the year 58 CE, approximately 20-25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The reason why Paul wrote the letter (or if you want to get fancy the “epistle”) to Rome is because he wanted to introduce himself to some of the small, emerging Christian communities there.
Paul has yet to visit Rome on his journeys around the Mediterranean, and his other motive with this letter to Christian communities in Rome is- fundraising. He is asking for funds because he intends to visit Spain and begin establishing church communities there. While this letter is being sent to Roman churches by a carrier, who we believe to be a woman named Phoebe, Paul is on a boat sailing from Corinth to Jerusalem. Why?
Paul is going to Jerusalem carrying with him funds donated by his gentile congregations in nearby Macedonia and Achaia intended for the temple in Jerusalem, which will, sadly, soon be destroyed by the Roman Empire as part of their attempt to suppress a Jewish revolt against Rome. Paul is optimistic that the funds he is bringing to the Temple will help mend some broken relationships between him and other apostles who view his ministry with non-Jews (gentiles) with suspicion and grievance.
Paul’s gift to the temple doesn’t go so well, because – and scripture is vague about this – it appears that Paul brings some of his non Jewish (gentile) friends into an area of the Temple that was restricted for Jews only. This incites a riot in the Temple which results in Paul’s arrest. The result of Paul’s arrest is that he will not ever make it to Spain. Instead, he is imprisoned, and eventually sent to Rome where his story in the Book of Acts ends with Paul under house arrest. While the details of Paul’s death are uncertain, tradition suggests that Paul was martyred in Rome, during the reign of Emperor Nero, around 64 CE.
Which brings us back to this letter – Romans, the letter to churches in Rome Paul sent from Corinth, on his way to Jerusalem, where he is arrested and sent to Rome. Confusing, right? Perhaps not as confusing as what Paul wrote about in the excerpt from Romans today. In these few, brief verses from Romans today, we encounter Paul at his very best.
In these verses, Paul is describing the world as it is today – equating it with a woman about to give birth. If you have ever given birth yourself, or been with someone giving birth, you understand that it is…painful. The labor pains Paul describes are the labor pains of life. Things not going the way we might have hoped they would – like Paul’s collection he brought to the Temple that he thought would mend broken friendships and instead got him arrested.
Paul writes that even though the whole creation is groaning, at the same time we have the “first fruits” of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, what I prefer to call the Hebrew Bible, what was harvested first were the “first fruits” – these first fruits were the first portion of a harvest that were offered to God as a way of showing respect and gratitude for blessings received. Paul takes the idea of “first fruits” and applies it to the Holy Spirit – implying that the Holy Spirit is a first fruit offering of God to us.
The Holy Spirit, Paul says, is a foretaste of an eternal banquet promised for all of us. The role of a Christian is to live patiently expectant in a world that is groaning and in labor, a world where things rarely go the way we may hope or expect. If anyone has credit to write about being patiently expectant when things go wrong, it is the Apostle Paul, who wrote several of the New Testament epistles from inside a prison cell.
I don’t believe Paul’s imprisonment hindered his faith. Quite the opposite – I think his faith grew deeper because of it. “We hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience,” Paul writes in Romans. Paul knew the Spirit was given to him. Paul knew that the Holy Spirit would help him in his weakness. He knew that human weakness and uncertainty were the very place the Holy Spirit could do some of its best work. AMEN.