31. “Navigating Differences in the Body of Christ” (Romans 14)

 

This fall, in our study of Romans, we’ve been talking about community and connection. We’re in a time when we as a nation are deeply divided by opinions, by tribes, by political parties, and when loneliness is far too common. Real, personal community is increasingly rare. And it’s hard to be optimistic about the solutions our leaders are offering: education about being sensitive to others, new economic policies trying to help even the playing field, new laws and regulations about hatred or racism…while perhaps important, none of these are going to make our country a place where people love each other and are connected to each other. So what can?  

Scripture, we have seen, tells us that there is a solution, that we actually can find a way to more connected to each other, that we can experience true community. The way toward each other goes through Jesus. As we’ve been saying, Jesus’ resurrection initiates a new kingdom, a new reality, and the church, the people of Jesus, is where that new reality is beginning to emerge. When churches keep Jesus at the center, real community happens. As we learn to trust in Jesus and obey him and allow him to change us, Jesus connects us to each other.  

Well that sounds nice in theory. In the abstract, sure, “the way toward each other goes through Jesus.” But does it really work? If so, how?

Well, I’m so glad you asked! Because in this morning’s we find a real, messy situation in the Roman church, the kind of thing that makes community impossible. If we take time to understand what’s going on, and how Paul instructs them to work through this, we will learn important things about how we, through Jesus, can experience the community we are meant for.

Verses 2 tells us a bit about this situation. “One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.” And then in verse 5, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike.” So what’s the problem with that? I mean in our church we have people with different diets, and different ways of spending Sundays, but that doesn’t mean we’re about to experience a church split. Why is this a problem for them?

The key here is in understanding that these actions are not just about personal preferences. They’re related to identity, and identity is where the fault lines are established.

The people Paul is talking about here aren’t vegetarians but Jews wanting to remain kosher. Because the meat in the Roman marketplace wasn’t prepared according to kosher laws, they were stuck eating only vegetables. Kosher food laws were part of God’s way in the Old Testament of helping his people remember that they were set apart as his. Similarly, God gave Israel the Sabbath (quote) “As a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord who makes them holy.” These were not mere practices—they were ways that faithful Jews maintained their sense of identity as God’s holy people.  

So why isn’t everyone in church eating only vegetables and setting apart Saturdays? Because Jesus changed everything. When Jesus rose from the dead, the new reality he brought meant that a person no longer needed to become a Jew in order to belong to God’s special people; God’s people are now simply anyone who belongs to Jesus. And so the food laws meant to create a distinction, they’re not needed any more. Same with the Sabbath, which Paul in Colossians says was “a shadow of the things to come, where the substance belongs to Christ.” With the death and resurrection of Jesus, Jewish identity markers of kosher eating and Sabbaths are no longer required.

Which, for the Gentiles, was a wonderful thing. We don’t need to become Jews to belong to Jesus. We don’t need to be circumcised or learn new diets or whatever to become part of his kingdom. But for Jews, this was kind of hard.

Imagine if for all your life, the distinguishing mark that defined you, your family, your whole community—the way you showed your faithfulness to God was in being strict with what you eat and how you observed Saturday. These things would be part of who you are, how you thought of yourself—perhaps even part of what gave you confidence that you were truly part of God’s people. How hard would that be to suddenly treat these things as optional, unimportant?  

This is why Paul speaks of those who eat only vegetables as the person who is “weak in faith” in verse 1. He’s speaking of people, in this case, Jews, who are struggling to take hold of what the gospel says—that you don’t any longer need to do these things to maintain your identity as God’s people—that Jesus is enough. 

And let me add another wrinkle to this. The church of Rome would have begun as a Jewish church—people who heard the gospel in Jerusalem at Pentecost and came back to Rome changed. Early on it would have been Christians who maintained their Jewish identity and customs. And as Gentiles started coming to church and believing in Jesus, they would have been expected to assimilate into the largely Jewish culture and even join with the Jewish practices. But then, in AD 49, the emperor Claudius for reasons not entirely clear commanded that all Jews leave Rome, leaving only Gentiles in this young Roman church. Suddenly Gentile Christians, young in the faith, were forced to take roles of leadership, to figure out how to continue to care for its members and share the news of Christ with others. And they succeeded, and more Gentiles joined Christianity, and the church grew—and, of course, it became increasingly Gentile in its culture.

5 years later, Claudius died, and Jews were allowed back in, and just imagine what the returning Jewish Christians would have thought upon returning. What have they done with our church? They’re having steak during potluck dinners! They’re playing sports on Saturday afternoons! Don’t they see how compromised, how worldly they’ve become? The Jews would have felt like they were the mature ones who knew what it meant to be part of God’s people. They needed to get back in charge and to fix these things. Meanwhile the Gentiles would have gotten frustrated. “Guys, it was going better before you returned. We don’t need your sense of superiority!”  

Can you imagine the tension, the disagreement this might have caused? It’s not hard to imagine meetings, even conferences, where Jews rallied together around the goodness of kosher practices and Sabbath celebrations, while the Gentiles would have had their own “Freedom in Christ” conferences. Because this wasn’t just about spiritual disciplines. It was about identity—about practices (or the lack thereof) that gave individuals a sense that they belonged to God’s people. And if you want to see divisions in a community, it’s almost always along the fault lines of identity.

We see it today, in very similar forms, don’t we? There’s the old generation versus the new generation. There’s the desire to protect and hold on to the past versus the openness to what’s new; there’s a kind of fundamentalistic strictness versus an emphasis on freedom; there’s ethnic division between the majority and the minority cultures. All of these are ultimately questions about identity—about who are and what defines us. 

And we don’t know what to do with these questions today. Our culture really likes to use the word “tolerance,” but we’re discovering how inadequate that idea is. Tolerance just seems to mean, “We’ll keep our distance from each other.” It’s definitely not the same as community. And of course, when those differences are incompatible—when it’s impossible for both sides to have their way, then tolerance becomes a fight for control. Community seems impossible.

But here we find Paul holding out a different way, a different way made possible through the reign of Jesus that is breaking in through the church. 

Verse 1: “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.” Gentiles, Paul says, yes, these conservative Jews are no doubt frustrating to you with their opinions. Yet, as they’re coming back to Rome, welcome them back into the church. And welcome them in such a way that it doesn’t just become a shouting match over which side is right.

Paul goes on to describe what this looks like in verse 3, and it goes both ways: “Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats.” Gentiles probably want to have nothing to do with Jews, since they’ve been doing fine these past few years without them; or if they allow them in, they’d like to basically treat them as second-class citizens. And Paul says, “No, you can’t despise them; you need to welcome them.” And similarly, as Jews join back in, they will want immediately to reform the Gentiles and will look down on any who don’t share in their strictness, and Paul says to them, “No, don’t judge the Gentiles.” Why? “Because God has welcomed him.” God through Jesus, has welcomed the Gentile with his Gentile customs. You can’t try to make them into Jews.

Paul is being clear here about who is technically in the right here—the Gentiles are correct; God has now declared the Gentiles welcome, and those holding on to Old Testament customs are “weak in faith.” 

But notice that Paul doesn’t just leave it there. He doesn’t just say, “Jews, you’re wrong; Gentiles you’re right, problem solved.” Because the problem is not just about interpretation of a tricky issue. The problem is about identity—and that goes on both sides. It’s not just that the Jews are concerned about the Gentiles. They are judging them as inferior. It’s not just that the Gentiles disagree with the Jews; it’s that they despise them as inferior. The problem, the real reason for division, is a misplaced sense of identity that gives both sides a sinful pride. 

There’s a theory in sociology that for group cohesion to be established, a binary almost always has to be created. A sense of belonging to a tribe, a community seems to need also a sense of those other people out there. A community will feel encouraged and strong and connected if we feel we are the good guys. But to do that, we also have to establish a group who are the bad guys. Throughout human history, people view themselves as part of a group that is “better than” by establishing a different group who is “worse than.” We’re the civilized, they’re the barbarians. We’re the lovers of freedom, they’re the godless commies. This is what’s pulling us apart as a nation now, right? Whichever side one is on, the other people are terrible and corrupt. The need to be the “good guys” drives us to make the others “the bad guys.” Which is, if you think about it, a sign of insecurity: the way we try to become sure we’re okay is by making others not okay.

That’s what is going on here as well: both Jews and Gentiles are seeking to find a sense of self by making the outgroup inferior, the bad guys, those who don’t belong.

As Tim Keller has written in his book Making Sense of God, the only way past this tendency, the only way toward real connection with each other who are different, is to find a sense of self, an identity that combines two traits that rarely go together. “We need a radical humility that in no way can assert superiority over the Other. We must not see ourselves as qualitatively better.” In other words, we need to be able to say, “That person is like me.” “But,” Keller goes on to say, “at the same time there can be no insecurity, for insecurity compels us to find fault and to demonize the other, to shore up our own sense of self. So that humility must proceed not from our own emptiness and valuelessness but from a deeply secure and confirmed sense of our own worth. Only then will I not need to think of others as worse than they are or myself as better than I am. Only then can I accept them as they are.” 

You see why that’s a challenge, right? If I feel like a failure, I will in my insecurity look for something that makes me feel better than someone else. Yet, on the other hand, most of the time we gain a sense of security from feeling like we’ve achieved, which, of course, makes us feel better than. And yet, somehow, combining both humility and security is the only way of getting past that tendency to make a binary where we are good guys and those others are bad guys. 

So what does Paul do? He reorients both Jews and Gentiles by asking them a basic question about their identity. Verse 4: “Who are you to pass judgment: who are you? 

He offers 2 answers. Skipping down to the bottom, Paul says, “You are people who will be judged by God.” Verse 10, notice what he says: “We will all—that is Jews and Gentiles alike, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. And then again in verse 12, “each of us will give an account to God.” 

You Jews and you Gentiles creating in your own mind a sense of superiority by comparing yourself to the other, but do you realize how ridiculous this is? The only judgment that matters in the end is the one rendered by the God of the universe. And do you actually think that eternal holy Creator of the universe will in that moment say, “I’m so impressed with your kosher eating you’re so much better than those guys” or “I really admire your superior understanding of freedom.” Here’s one thing I feel pretty confident about. Whatever it is that gives you or me a petty sense of superiority: maybe we do something better than others, or we have better opinions than others—whatever that is, it will feel utterly inconsequential before the throne of Almighty Judge of the universe. Do you see what Paul is doing? By reminding them and us of the simple fact that God is our judge, he is helping us all to see that we are utterly foolish to assert superiority over the other.

But there’s another thing that he says about the identity of Christians. Notice the second half of verse 8: “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” What do we confess on Sundays is our one comfort in life and death? “That I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood.” Do you hear what that’s saying? It’s an identity statement: I belong to Jesus—that’s who I am. And because I belong to him, I am secure. I can know that as I appear before God’s judgment, I don’t need to be afraid—not because of anything I have done, but because I belong to Jesus. He is my Lord, and he has saved me and paid for me, and so I never need to fear again.

Do you see what Paul is doing here? He’s saying, “Brothers and sisters, Jews and Gentiles, none of those differences that feel big to you will be what causes you to stand in God’s judgment. You have no basis to feel superior to the other. And you don’t need to find a reason to feel superior; you don’t need to create a good guy bad guy binary, because you both belong to Christ and are utterly secure in him. You can welcome each other, even despite the differences. 

When our sense of identity changes to where it should be: in belonging to Jesus with him as our master, something important happens. Our attention changes. We stop focusing on our differences, on comparing ourselves to others. Instead, our gaze turns in a far better direction towards how we can be faithful to our loving king. We see that in our passage in three ways: 

First, verse 5, as those who belong to our Lord, “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” When we stop playing the comparison game with Christians who are different, we are given the space to be open and ask a really basic important question: “Have I understood Jesus rightly in this area? Am I right in thinking that my Lord wants me to treat this day differently or eat differently? Have I understood Jesus rightly in thinking that I should be strict in this area or that I have freedom in that one? Every difference we encounter within the church can be an invitation for us to think more carefully. Our goal is not to be proven right; it’s to get it right, to serve Jesus as faithfully as we can. We keep thinking and learning so that we can serve Jesus with better understanding and confidence. 

And secondly, as those who belong to Jesus, our goal becomes doing everything for Jesus, in service to him. “The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord.” If you’re being strict about something, it is to be done with the goal of serving Jesus. But also if you are choosing to exercise freedom, this too is to be done thinking about how to honor the Lord. The goal of Christian freedom is not just to assert our rights: “I will eat meat; I will drink alcohol, or whatever.” The goal is to honor Jesus.  

And then, thirdly, when we are living with a right sense of identity, as those who belong to Jesus, our choices are accompanied by gratitude. “The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. This is perhaps one of the most important indicators of whether or not we have our identity in the right place. When our actions are done out of a sense of obligation, as something that makes us feel superior, they will be accompanied both by a sense of superiority, and also at times a sense of resentment: why can they get away with things that we can’t? But when our attention is on belonging to Jesus, we are able to do whatever, even when it’s sacrificial, with gratitude. We give thanks, because we know that whatever our Lord calls us to do is good for us. We give thanks because this is an opportunity to love and serve the one who has loved us. 

This, Paul is saying, is how you find community with each other, even amidst your differences. It can only happen when you find your identity not in those differences, but in belonging to Jesus. 

Let me be honest. This can be a messy thing: as we’ll continue to see in the coming weeks, it was a messy thing for Jews and Gentiles seeking to be together. And yet, even despite the mess, what we’re talking about is real.

I mean, we’ve seen that here, haven’t we?

Let me take us back 4 years to a time many of us would like to forget, 2020. As you might remember, in our country there were some fairly strong opinions about this Covid 19 thing and about what we should do about it. Some were pro mask, some stridently anti mask; some pro-vaccine, others anti. And it seems to me that it became about more than just opinion—in our nation it became an identity marker. We who wear the masks are the good guys who care about others. We who don’t are the good guys who won’t be paralyzed by fear.

Now I happen to know that in our church there was a diversity of views in the congregation and even among the church leaders—which is good right? But also hard. Every leader of every organization during that time will tell you the same thing: whatever choice they made would be wrong in many people’s eyes. It was an impossible job. And yet, in this church, I saw something truly beautiful. We, as you might remember, after being outdoors for as long as we could, decided in the late fall to move indoors so we could keep meeting, and to do so with masks. And some of you were really nervous about coming together and singing together in that context. And yet you came anyway to join with us. Others of you really didn’t like masks and would have far preferred to go without. Yet you chose to wear masks out of love for the more cautious, so that we could be together. In a time driving so many people apart, God kept us together, and I believe the reason was simple. Because, by his grace, we understood that what defined us was not our different Covid stances or practices. What defines us is that we belong to Jesus and are secure in him, and so we can love each other in this way. 

 

The way toward each other goes through Jesus. Let’s turn to him now.