The Shape of a God-Story: Mercy (Romans 9-11)

Introduction: A Mercy Story

Picture the scene. It’s a hot day. And a Jewish man, with a long beard, and long robes, is sitting in a small tent that he’s made. The man is grumpy. Super grumpy. And you can see it on his face as he stares across the way at the city, just to the west of him. The city is full of noise as joy and celebration fill the air. The louder it gets, the tighter the man clutches his chest.

The man sitting in his tent is watching his success play out. He is a mighty prophet. So mighty that with just a few words an entire city just turned to his God. And God relented of the destruction he was going to bring.

And so the prophet cannot enjoy his moment. It doesn’t feel like his moment. It feels like a slap in the face.

He’s bitter and he’s angry. He just knew God was going to be merciful. That’s why the prophet ran away from the city in the first place. He fled the complete opposite direction. Until God stopped him in his tracks and led him back to this place, for this moment.

God made him come here to preach in Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrians. The enemies of God’s people. How could God do this to Jonah? How could God do this to the Israelites, the people God loved?

This mercy toward Assyria… It just feels like too much.

The short book of Jonah ends here. With Jonah’s bitterness and anger.

But I want to know… what happens next? As Jonah continues to sit out in his tent. How long until some people from Nineveh realize they need to know more about this God that just spared their lives? How long until these people go looking for this mysterious prophet who came and went?

And what does it look like when this group leaves the city and finds Jonah sitting in his tent and they beg him to tell them more about his God. Who is this God? And what is He like? How can they know Him and thank Him and please Him?

As you can probably imagine, Jonah isn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to teach these people. But these people don’t know where to start. And although he doesn’t want anything to do with them, they seem to realize they need him. And so a strange little community starts there at the outskirts of the city. A reluctant Jewish man and a group of gentile believers who have put their trust in his God.

What is God to do with such a motley crew?

As I picture it in my imagination, I can see God sending a teacher to this newly forming community. And the teacher comes from a long way off with a single command: “Welcome each other as you have been welcomed by God.” But this teacher understands, “Welcome each other,” is easier said than done.

As Jonah has already proven, it’s easy enough to follow the letter of the law without having your heart and life changed. Jonah obeyed God’s command to preach to the Ninevites. But Jonah hasn’t loved these neighbors as himself. Jonah has not welcomed these followers of God.

And these newly delivered Ninevites, gathered around Jonah’s little tent, are already wondering if they really need this strange man. He won’t eat any of their food. His clothes are bizarre. His hair is oddly styled. Although he speaks their language, it is with a heavy accent. And he seems to think he’s too good for them.

And so this teacher sent to them by God understands Jonah and the Ninevites need more than a command. They need a change of heart. The kind of change that can come only with mercy. And they have both received God’s mercy. More of it than they could ever fully comprehend. So much mercy, that if they knew the full story, their brains and hearts simply couldn’t handle it.

But right here, in this moment, as motivation to welcome each other, they need to hear the story of God’s mercy again. Not only God’s mercy to their own group, but also God’s mercy to the other.

These mercy-shaped stories are what make up the teacher’s curriculum.

And when I imagine this scene, Jonah and the Ninevites not exactly sure if they want to welcome each other, it is Romans 9-11 I picture flowing from the teacher’s lesson plans. Because this is exactly what Paul is trying to accomplish in these three chapters. He is telling two mercy stories to two groups that need to welcome each other because they have been made one in the Lord.

Romans 9-11 breaks down easily into three parts.

Part 1: Romans 9:1 through 11:10. This is Paul’s message for the Jewish Christians.

Part 2: Romans 11:11 through 11:32. This is Paul’s much shorter message for the Gentile Christians.

And then Part 3: Romans 11:33 through 35. This is what happens when you are transformed by mercy. You worship and give God glory.

Part 1 - Romans 9:1-11:10 - “A Scripture-Shaped Story”

This first section is by far the longest. In Romans chapter 9 through 11 verse 10, Paul is speaking to the group he will later call the Weak. This group is made up of mostly Jewish followers of Jesus. Which is why this section is overflowing with references to the Jewish Scriptures. Paul names the names, and he references stories, and he uses insider language, and he quotes Scripture. These chapters are overflowing with Jewish themes and symbols and ideas and stories.

The references are relentless.

And it reminds me a little bit of how I often felt when I first joined Jane’s family. A few years ago, Jane’s family through her maternal grandparents was pushing like 45 people strong. And most of them get together at least once a year to go to the beach or celebrate some holiday. I slowly learned all the names. Jane would quiz me as we would drive to whatever gathering we were on our way to. I also started to pick up the family stories. Had we lived up in Oregon, I probably would have picked them up faster.

But for a good while, I felt a little out of the loop as Jane and her parents would rattle off the names of cousins and great grandchildren. Jane’s family even has a bit of a shorthand for how they reference certain stories. All someone has to do is say, “Remember the time Grandma...” and everyone is laughing. In fact, all someone has to say is, “Yoohoo, Mr. Conductor...” and the room explodes. You didn’t even have to be there to know the story and enjoy it.

I’m now part of some of the stories. I was there for some. I’m the subject of others. But mostly, I’m just in the know.

And just over the last couple years, as Jane’s sisters have gotten married, my role has changed. I realize I’m like fully in the family. And as men marry into the family, they want my help and experience as they get up to speed and learn the names and discover the stories themselves.

Paul is just talking to his family from Romans 9 through 11, verse 10. He’s telling the family story, as an insider. And he recognizes that there are a bunch of outsiders overhearing this. And most of it means nothing to them. And that’s okay. You have to start somewhere. He’ll speak to them directly in chapter 11.

But in Romans 9:4 he lists off the family heirlooms. “They are the Israelites,” he says, “and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs.”

You can imagine a family member boasting about these. And an outsider having no idea what any of these things are.

And then in verse 5, Paul hits the high point of the family’s reputation. Paul says, “And from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” Paul is saying, that Jesus, the king of creation, the very same Jesus who has delivered Jew and Gentile has come from the family of Abraham. Just like a family that brags a little that some famous celebrity or athlete is from their family. Paul is tapping into this family pride. “The Messiah comes from us.”

And then Paul goes on a sort of hit parade of the great family members.

Paul names Abraham and Sarah, and their undeserved child of promise. Paul names Rebekah and Isaac and God’s choice of Jacob over Esau to serve His purposes, for no reason other than that God is free to choose. Paul references Moses and Pharaoh. Moses chosen to lead God’s people into freedom. Pharaoh, chosen by God, so God could show off his power. Paul then quotes from Hosea and Job and Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Psalms.

This first part is the very definition of an insider’s meeting. And it’s important for us to keep this in mind.

What happens when a bunch of Gentiles, new to the faith, new to Jesus and to the God of Israel, new to all these names and stories and ideas, read these two chapters without a Phoebe around to explain, or Priscilla and Aquila in the group to help answer questions? What happens when a group of people who aren’t fluent in the Jewish Scriptures get their hands on texts like this?

Well… they can do a lot of damage. These passages become a dangerous weapon in the hands of someone who doesn’t know the story of Israel’s God.

If you trace the history of the Church, you discover that pretty early on in the 2nd century a clear division is taking place between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. As more and more Gentiles came to trust Jesus, they had more and more influence over the Church. And they began to see less and less need for the Jewish Christians.

So that by the time of the 4th and 5th centuries you have theologians and church leaders who are reading these passages without any help from Jewish brothers and sisters. There is no one to explain the back stories. And when these Gentile Christians go back and read the stories for themselves, they read them based on what they have already decided Paul thinks about them.

But this is the wrong direction. By the time you’re reading Paul you should already know these stories. Or you should have someone around to explain them.

For example, if you come to chapter 9 verse 13 and read, “As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,’” and you get nervous… you’re not reading this passage as an insider, as part of the family. But you still don’t know the stories.

See what happens is, we go back and read the story of Jacob and Esau and we imagine a story where Jacob is supposed to be the good guy that God loves and Esau and is supposed to be the bad guy that God hates. But Jacob is pretty rotten throughout and Esau is surprisingly forgiving.

Or maybe we expect Jacob to be blessed by God and Esau to be neglected. But at several points in the story, Jacob has nothing and Esau has everything.

We read this language of love and hate and we forget this is another family’s insider language. We need to learn their language, not define it according to our experience. But what happens when we don’t have Phoebe around to ask what is meant by “Esau I hated?” We end up creating horrific doctrines.

We assume that if God could hate a man… and if God “has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills...” and if there are “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction...” then not only has God created some specifically for eternal life, those he loves, but God must also have created some people for the explicit purpose of eternal punishment.

I am with theologian Roger Olson in deciding this God would be a moral monster. And more than that, Paul, Phoebe, Peter, John, Prisca and Aquila would have been utterly horrified by the suggestion that God created some people for damnation.

The only way you get to that interpretation of this passage is that you never learned to read the Jewish Scriptures with actual Jewish people. We might be familiar with the Scriptures, but we learned to read them the wrong direction.

It wasn’t an accident that we spent a year in the Torah, a year in the Former Prophets, a year in the Latter Prophets, and a year in the Writings, devoting four full years to the First Testament before touching Paul’s letters.

For years now, people have been itching to jump into Paul. Asking when we’d get to his letters.

And now here we are. We’ve been in the letters for more than half the year. And if we’re being honest. We’re still not totally ready. So much of Paul seems unclear to us. And that’s because we simply don’t know the story he’s telling.

We’re not fluent in the story of the First Testament.

We don’t know the language, the characters, the symbols, the ideas. And so we start reading Paul, but we read him in a way that would have made absolutely no sense to Paul, or Peter, or John, or Phoebe, or any of the earliest followers of Jesus.

In chapter 9, verse 22, Paul describes God’s patience with those vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Paul then says that God has been patient with these vessels so that he can make known his mercy for vessels that he prepared beforehand for glory. He then adds that Gentiles will be receive this mercy. And those who were not God’s people will be called God’s people. And those who were not beloved… those like Esau, who were not loved like Jacob, will be called God’s beloved.

In Romans 9 through 11 Paul is telling the exact same story that James, the leader of the Jewish Christians, summed up in one sentence. In James 2:13, we hear “mercy triumphs over judgment.”

But because we didn’t learn to read the Jewish Scriptures as the unfolding drama of God’s mercy triumphing over judgment, we come to these chapters and we focus with laser precision on the judgment and we miss the mercy.

The reason I started with Jonah this morning, is that I think his experience helps us see how a Jewish person in the first century likely heard the gospel. Jonah knew the character of God. Jonah declared, “I knew you were gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”

Jonah wasn’t surprised when God showed mercy on the Ninevites. Jonah was angry about it. And he hardened his heart. He had forgotten that he had been a recipient of God’s mercy. He had forgotten that his people were no more righteous or moral or wise or strong or in any way deserving of God’s mercy than the Ninevites. He hated the Ninevites. He had learned to hate them. And the Ninevites had certainly earned that hate.

But it is Jonah’s hatred that makes him angry. And when God then tries to engage with Jonah, Jonah just digs deeper. God provides Jonah a plant and then takes it away. You could say that God piles on helping to make Jonah’s heart hard.

This is the way most of the first century Jews heard the gospel of Jesus. God loved the world.

God was blessing and delivering and redeeming GENTILES…

Esau was being received as a son. Beloved. Called “My people.”

This wouldn’t have surprised any first century Jew who knew their Scriptures. But… it would make them mad. For centuries, the Gentiles in every form had been ruling over them, oppressing them, crushing their spirits, mocking their worship. First it was the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Medes, and now the Romans.

The Gentiles would not let up. And the deep Jewish longing was that God would finally put the Gentiles in their place. Maybe God would finally crush the Gentiles, their armies, and their oppressive taxation systems. Please? Hopefully...

But instead, Paul is running around like Jonah… but instead of announcing destruction, he’s announcing the Kingdom of God is at hand.

And like the Ninevites who hear and repent, Gentiles from every nation, tribe, tongue, and people are turning. They are repenting of their idol worship. They are turning toward Jesus.

And some of Jonah’s brothers and sisters are angry about it. And some… who have put their faith in Jesus… are angry about it, but they are willing to give it a try. And it is to them… that Paul tells this story of God’s mercy. Mercy for Israel. Mercy for the Jews. And mercy for the Gentiles.

If you’ve been reading this passage over the last couple weeks and struggling, don’t give up! It just means you’re not reading as an insider yet. You aren’t yet fluent in the family stories of the Jewish Scriptures. Don’t worry. You’re in the family. But it takes time to really feel like you’re in on everything that’s happening. Stick with it.

Part 2 - Romans 11:11-32 - “A Symbolic Story”

Jump with me to chapter 11, verse 13.

“Now I am speaking to you Gentiles.” Sometimes it is really helpful when Paul just outright tells us who he’s talking to.

How is this part different than the last part?

There’s one direct reference to the Jewish Scriptures. Paul offers one symbol. And Paul offers one explanation for what is happening.

Imagine Phoebe is now turning to the Gentile Christians into order to spoon feed them. This is a bit like a children’s message in the middle of worship. Or maybe a book called “Mercy for Dummies.”

It’s short and sweet and clear. So clear in fact, that it’s fascinating how much trouble Gentiles seem to have with the rest of chapter 9 through 11. If we would just read this passage over and over, we might be ready to go back and read the rest of 9 through 11 well. Or at least better.

Paul gives us a picture of a tree. This tree is the family of God. The names we heard earlier, Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Jacob… these are the people who form the base of this tree.

But this tree has been busy. Or I should say the gardener has been busy. Pruning branches. Grafting branches in. Paul’s image is dynamic.

This was not our tree… but we have been grafted in through great care.

It is still not our tree. We would be wise to show respect to the tree. To be nourished by the tree. By the Scriptures and worship and covenants and glory. But we also need to be aware, if some branches were pruned… our place in the tree is not assured. We must remain in Christ.

But even if we are to be broken off… just as many of the Jews were before us… it is important that we notice both the kindness and severity of God. God can cut people off. But his intention, his purpose, his desire… is always and has always been to show mercy to all.

There is a great danger that we will grow arrogant and start assuming we belong in the tree, that we earned it, that must be special. And this short story is a quick warning. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Without God’s mercy, you would be nothing.

Part 3 - Romans 11:33-35 - “A Story of Glory”

Finally, we get to the final closing verses. Paul, in usual form, can’t help but burst out in worship and praise.

But I want to say something about the shape of his worship.

It comes in the form of questions… questions that suggest God’s too mind is too great to truly know.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counselor?”

Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

I want to suggest that you will have two very different experiences with this passage based on how you read chapters 9 through 11. For instance, if you read this story according to the pattern that assumes that before God made anyone He was busy assigning some to heaven and some to hell, you’ll read these lines of prose as a sort of shrug, “Who knows why God does what he does? Who are we to question him? We can’t possibly know his plans or purposes. But it must be for his glory. So… if he makes some people to send them to hell, it must somehow be part of his glory and goodness.”

Or there’s another way to read it. Chapter 12 opens up by appealing to the “mercies of God,” reminding us that everything we’ve just read about is summarized with this one phrase. But more than that, verse 2 tells us that we can “discern the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Paul is telling us clearly. We can know that God’s good and acceptable and perfect will is to show mercy to all. That doesn’t mean he will. It seems we can choose to be cut off. But this… clear knowledge of God’s mercy is what sends us into worship. After 3 chapters of meditating on the greatness and beauty and glory of God’s mercy, we shouldn’t be able to contain ourselves. We can’t help but give God praise.

But where our minds bump up against their limits is in grasping the true depth of God’s mercy. We are not a merciful people. Revenge and retaliation and bitterness are our natural disposition.

We have a hard time receiving God’s mercy. And we have an even harder time accepting God’s mercy for others, especially those who are clearly terrible and don’t deserve it.

And yet, Christ died for all. So that those who were not God’s people might become sons and daughters of God.

Do you know the mercy of God today? The mercy of God for you, a sinner? The mercy of God for other sinners? The worst sinners? This is the shape of the God-Story the Scriptures are telling. Is this story shaping your life with God?