Limapela Education Project
Faith in Action
This project aims to provide quality education to children in Zambia's Copperbelt Province.
We can learn a great deal from the cultural tensions experienced by the early Christian community in Rome, to help us face the multi-cultural challenges of contemporary church life. In this pastoral sermon, a ‘pep-talk’ preached to both the Classical and Contemporary Services at Greyfriars Presbyterian Church, Auckland, New Zealand, on 25 November 2007, Senior Minister Rob Yule explores the fascinating social history of ancient Rome to illuminate how Christians should respond to the cross-cultural challenges of today’s burgeoning cosmopolitan cities.
We are experiencing some very significant changes in Greyfriars at the moment. Perhaps the most far-reaching — and certainly the most challenging — is the change in our ethnic composition. What I used to describe as ‘one of the most European churches in the Presbyterian movement’ is becoming quite multi-cultural.
We now have a Samoan Community Minister, Ron Lau’ese, and following his coming, quite a large community of Pacific peoples worshipping with us. We have a half-time Korean Minister, Junghun Choi, beginning study in the other half of his time towards National Ordained Ministry in the Presbyterian Church. The Pacific and Korean peoples are noted for their strong Christian commitment — which augurs well for the future of Greyfriars, and perhaps too for the future of Christianity in secular New Zealand.
In March we did a count of the different ethnic origins of people in Greyfriars. This was part of a survey that Dunedin-based Cook Island minister Tokerau Joseph is doing for his doctoral research on the cultural composition of the Presbyterian Church throughout New Zealand. We found that we have people from thirteen different ethnic backgrounds in our fellowship. In descending numerical order, our church is made up of European New Zealanders, Samoans, Koreans, Niueans, South Africans, Cook Islanders, Chinese, Scottish, Tokelauans, English, Australians, Tongans, Indians, and Brazilians.
This exciting development means we are becoming much better placed to minister to the highly cosmopolitan and multi-cultural city that Auckland now is. But it also puts some big challenges before us, which could be summed up in Paul’s exhortation: ‘Accept one another, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.’ (Romans 15:7)
Why did Paul write like this, urging believers in Rome to accept one another?
A bit of social history of ancient Rome will explain why. In AD 49, the Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome, because they were continually quarrelling about someone called Chrestus — which sounds awfully like Christos, ‘Christ’, Greek for ‘Messiah’. You’ve heard the jibe, ‘Two Jews, three opinions!’ Nothing divides Jews more than debates about their Messiah. In a typical anti-Semitic reaction, Claudius simply rid Rome of all Jews. Two of those who were expelled were Aquila and his wife Priscilla, mentioned in Acts 18:2, whom Paul met in Corinth, and from whom he probably got his information about what was happening in Rome.
Soon after, in AD 54, perhaps ruing the economic consequences of their expulsion, Claudius’s successor Nero allowed the Jews to come back to Rome.
Let’s do a thought experiment.
Imagine you are a Jewish believer in ancient Rome. You came to believe in Jesus and helped start the church there. Your witness was so effective that Gentiles (non-Jews) joined the church. Then you — and all your fellow Jews, whether you were believers or not — were expelled, forcing Gentiles to step up and accept church leadership. Then another emperor lets you come back again, but in the meantime the Gentiles have taken charge of your church. All sorts of tensions arise in your community, because these newcomers don’t bother about things that were important to you — rest days, festivals or food laws, even though you could argue a good case for these practices on health grounds alone.
So Paul writes a comprehensive, caring, pastoral letter to help Jewish and Gentile believers in ancient Rome get on with one another. His advice to both Jews and Gentiles walks — on two feet! — through the letter:
The ‘good news’ of Jesus is for both Jews and Gentiles — it is God’s message of salvation, ‘first for the Jew, then for the Gentile’ (1:16).
Gentiles have sinned, but so also have Jews (1:18-3:31). As Paul sums up, ‘all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.’ (3:23).
Jews and Gentiles alike are justified by faith and have peace with God only through Jesus Christ the Jewish Messiah (5:1), not through anything they have done (3:28).
Then, in an extended but often neglected section, Paul shows that Jews and Gentiles have a mysteriously interwoven role in God’s purpose in history (9-11).
Finally, Paul concludes his letter with an exhortation that Jewish and Gentile believers — who are probably ‘the weak’ and ‘the strong’ respectively of chapter 14 — should ‘accept one another’ (5:7).
Accepting one another isn’t easy — especially when other cultures and languages are involved. So why should we bother?
Paul gives two compelling reasons:
‘Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you.’ (15:7b). Acceptance is costly. Our acceptance by God involved the sacrifice of his Son. Jesus died on the cross to bring about our acceptance and forgiveness by God.
John Stott says that ‘God’s acceptance of us is quite a good contemporary term for justification’ (Romans, p. 359). ‘Acceptance’ here is almost equivalent to the term ‘justification’ that Paul uses in chapters 3-5.
Accepting one another as Christ has accepted us is an even higher standard of behaviour than the ‘golden rule’, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself,’ which Paul quoted in 13:11. We’re to accept our fellow believers, whatever their race or culture, not just out of self-interest, but because it’s what Jesus did and desires we do too.
We’re to accept one another not just because of what Jesus has done for us in the past, but because of what God is still wanting to do among us in the future. ‘Accept one another… in order to being praise to God.’ (15:7c).
When Christians live in unity — despite all our differences of temperament, character, giftedness, social class, ethnicity or culture — it’s a powerful witness to society that God is real. Genuine unity is a miracle that points to God’s unifying work. It causes unbelieving people to take notice and acknowledge God.
Paul strings a whole lot of Old Testament quotations together to show that it has been God’s purpose all along not only to reveal himself as the Jewish Messiah, but to bring non-Jews into the community of faith. The coming of Gentiles to faith, prophesied long ago by the prophets and coming to pass in Paul’s day, is so that God will be glorified not only in Israel but throughout all the earth.
‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
All you nations, come and worship him.’
(15:11 CEV, quoting Psalm 117:1)
So, as we struggle with learning to love and accept newcomers who are ethnically and culturally different from us — and different from who we might have chosen to be our friends! — let us recognise that what is happening is for a higher purpose.
The church isn’t just for us to feel good. The purpose of the church is to display God’s glory, to bring God praise. Our struggles are for others’ salvation! Our pain is for God’s purpose! The church is God’s social workshop for the salvation of the world and the glory of his name.
Isn’t this what Jesus said? ‘Let your light shine before others, so that people may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.’ (Matthew 5:16).
Rob Yule, 25 November 2007
© 2007, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church
