For the last few days I have been reading in Romans 9-11.  This morning I finished up the section.  Toward the end of chapter 11, Paul, who has spent nearly all of the previous couple of chapters talking about the Jewish people, shifts gears and focuses on his largely Gentile audience.  In vv. 17-24 he says this: 

“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.  If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.

“Then you will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’  That is true.  They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith.  So do not become proud, but fear.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

“Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness.  Otherwise you too will be cut off.  And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.  For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.”

What has really struck me throughout this section is that Paul was passionate about his people.  He loved the Jewish people, and even though they generally rejected him and persecuted him for the message he spoke, his feelings remained unchanged.  His feelings were such that he declared hyperbolically that he would be willing to give up his own salvation if it meant they could be saved.  That being said, he was also realistic about the likelihood of that happening (thus his confidence in his call to be the apostle to the Gentiles).

Romans 9-11 form a single argument that is separate and apart from chapters 1-8 and 12-16.  The majority of it is focused on the fact that Israel has rejected God in their unwillingness to go along with His plans to include Gentiles in the people called by His name He is creating even though He had been telling them all along that this was His intention.  Their rejection was based on the fact that they had always understood a right standing with God to come by keeping the Law, whereas Paul was announcing on behalf of a man who claimed to be God that such a standing came by faith and that keeping the Law doesn’t play into it at all.  This basically turned their entire worldview on its head and insisted they essentially think backwards in order to be right.  For the Gentiles coming into the people of God as blank slates this was no big deal.  For the Jews asked to essentially reject nearly everything they had ever been taught to think as true it was a little bigger pill to swallow.

Well, ethic tensions have nearly always been a part of the church and a thorny path to navigate.  In these early days, the tensions were between Jews and non-Jews, or Gentiles.  After reading about how the Jews had rejected God, it might have been easy for the Gentile-background Christians in the Roman church to begin feeling a bit superior toward their Jewish-background brothers and sisters in the faith and even toward Jews generally.  They might have been tempted to think about their standing with God in Christ with a bit of pride as if God had chosen them because they were willing to trust Him in faith while the Jews were trying to go it alone with the Law to work their way into salvation, something Paul has made abundantly clear isn’t possible.

The thought may have been: “God chose us because we’re better than them.  He tried with them, they failed, and so He has chosen us instead.”  This kind of thinking (the superiority of one group over another based on a point of distinction whether socially constructed, genetic, or otherwise) is always and only poisonous in the church.  As soon as we begin to consider ourselves better than someone else, we have introduced division and disunity into the body of Christ that will eventually kill it if not rooted out and eliminated.

In these verses, Paul turns his attention to warning the Gentile-background believers away from this.  He cautions them toward humility in their salvation along three different lines.

First, just because you have been chosen to salvation instead of them (a choice made apparent by the fact that they had embraced it while the Jews had not), do not commit the same error they did in thinking you were chosen because of something inherent to who you are.  The Jews thought that they were automatically in a right relationship with God and heirs to His promise of blessing because they were the children of Abraham.  Jesus argued rather insistently that this wasn’t the case by announcing He could make children of Abraham from rocks, but they wouldn’t buy it.  Ultimately, Paul argued, you are not the root of your relationship with God.  He is.  And because you are not the root, you don’t get any say in who gets to be a part of the family tree.  You just get to enjoy your place and learn to love the folks who are a part of it with you.

Second, even if the whole purpose of God allowing the Jews to persist in unbelief was so that He could bring the Gentiles into a relationship with Him in their stead, if they were to grow lackadaisical in their faith and began to drift into unbelief themselves, they could be cut out of the tree of life just as easily as the Jews were.  Here’s his warning: If your faith turns out to be false as theirs has, you will not be treated any differently than they have been.  God’s kindness is only good for us as long as we are willing to accept it on His terms.  As soon as we start trying to force things to operate on our own terms we fall into the same pattern of works-based, faithless righteousness that the Jews did.  If God didn’t spare the people who were designed to be a part of His family from the beginning when they took up that attitude, how do you think He’s going to treat we who were “come heres” from the start?

Third, just as you were grafted into the tree because of your faith, if the Jews turn and in faith come to God for salvation instead of relying on their own efforts with the Law, He will receive them with the same open arms that He did you.  After all and again, they were intended to be a part of His people from the beginning while you were a late addition.  They’ll fit back into the group with ease when they are ready.

For us, while the understanding of Jews and Gentiles and how they have fit, do fit, and will fit into the faith is important, more important, I think, is the reminder to not grow arrogant about our relationship with God.  This is especially important, somewhat ironically, for folks who have grown up in the church.  It is really easy for folks who have been a part of the church their whole lives to carry the thought that they are right with God almost as a family heritage.  Their right standing with God comes because of who they are, not who He is.  In this way, we make the same mistake the Jews did.  Should we expect any different treatment than they received?

Faith is a great heritage for one generation to pass on to another, but it is a heritage that must be actively embraced and lived out.  There is no passive acceptance possible here.  For followers of Jesus, thinking about our relationship with Him should always be done with an attitude of humble gratitude and an overwhelming awareness of the grace in which we stand.  The moment we begin to think it is ours by some kind of right or that God somehow owes us a continued right standing before Him because of all we have done for Him is the moment it begins to slip from our grasp; it’s the moment we begin to reveal that we never really understood or even had it in the first place.  Let us take Paul’s advice here and continue in God’s kindness in faith that we may always live comfortably within the borders of a relationship with Him.