June 3, 2007: Forming Relationships in Christ

ROMANS M 15 MESSAGE

TEXT: ROMANS 16: 1-16

07 06 03

Big Idea: In Christ we will be able to form relationships across cultural, socio-economic, gender, and generational lines.

Introduction
Fred Craddock, a gifted preacher and teacher of preachers from the South, tells his students to avoid the lists in the Bible. “They’re deadly… Don’t preach the lists, Don’t preach the lists!” he says.
But we can learn something from the lists in the Bible. And so we are going to take time to consider the list of names that Paul generates at the end of his great epistle to the church at Rome, and from this list infer something about Paul’s relationships.
The text we’re about to read isn’t going to sound very scintillating… about as interesting as reading the phone book, about as inspiring on first read as a wide yawn, but to apostle Paul this is not just a list of names, but they names bring to mind faces and feelings and found memories…
When we’re walking through a place like Stanley Park we may notice a bench with a plaque and a name engraved on the plaque: there may be flowers tied beside the name… those are just names to us but to someone that name represents someone very special…
We’re going to read a list a list of names at the end of Paul letter, to us they are merely names, strange names, but to the apostle Paul they represented some very special people to him, and through this list we get a into a window into the relationships of the apostle Paul… because Paul serves a kind of model of what it means to follow Christ, the list gives us picture what relationship look like when in a person is connected to Christ.

Text: Romans 16:1-16

(In contrast to our day, in Paul’s day people often began their letters by mentioning their name and closed their letters by greeting the recipients of the letter… and here at the close of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome he offers greetings).
Personal Greetings
1 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon [a] of the church in Cenchreae. 2 I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.
3 Greet Priscilla [b] and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. 4 They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
5 Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.
6 Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.
7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
8 Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord.
9 Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys.
10 Greet Apelles, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.
11 Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord.
12 Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord.
13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.
14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the other brothers and sisters with them.
15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the Lord's people who are with them.
16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings.
As far as we know, Paul never actually makes it to Rome, and yet apparently knows many people at the church in Rome and he greets them by name. In Romans 16 we have no fewer than 24 names of Christians in Rome, plus another, Rufus’s mother, who isn’t named. Two of the people mentioned in the list, Aristobulus and Narcissus (vss. 10 &11), were not themselves Christians, as far as we know, but rather heads of great houses in Rome in which some of the Christians lived.
Paul never actually made it to Rome, yet he knows all these people there by name. He has a special relationship with these people, he uses the term beloved 4x. And though we don’t know many of the details about these individual people, we can infer some things about his relationships from this list. We know Paul’s list of friends in Romans contain some fellow Jews (such as Andronicus and Junia and Herodian). We also see that there are many Gentiles in this list. We know that a devout conservative Jew like Paul would have considered it spiritually inappropriate to become friends with an unclean Gentile. But as Paul committed his life to Christ, he began to cross the “dividing wall” that separated him and his people from the Gentiles.
As urban missiologist Ray Bakke points out, cities in the ancient Roman empire had both exterior walls and interior walls that separated the various ethnic groups: the Jews, the Greeks, the Syrians, the Latins and the Africans. But as people were reconciled to God, they began to cross the interior walls of the city and experience reconciliation with people who had been their cultural enemies.
Vinay Samuel, from India, former leader of the Oxford Centre for mission studies, points out that one sign and wonder, biblically speaking, that alone can prove the power of the gospel is that of reconciliation. ... Hindus can produce as many miracles as any Christian miracle worker. Islamic saints in India can produce and duplicate every miracle that has been produced by Christians. But they cannot duplicate the miracle of black and white together, of racial injustice being swept away by the Gospel…
When we follow Christ, one of the things that will happen to us is that we will become more open to friendships with people from different cultures. I remember hearing a story that came out of this community where a group of people one Sunday went out for lunch. There was one person in the group who was from India and had come from a Brahmin family. I believe there was an artist present in the group. There was a person who had come out of a homosexual background. And there were people representing other cultural groups at the lunch.
Someone at the lunch said, “There is no way that we would be spending time with each other if it wasn’t for our common commitment to Christ.” When we know Christ, one of the things that will happen is that we will develop friendships with people who are culturally different from us.
A few weeks ago, I was in Boston for the board of meetings of a theological seminary where I serve as trustee. Someone I know from New York City wanted me to meet someone named Michelle. Michelle is interested in becoming a church planter and my friend asked me if I would consider mentoring her. As we talked it struck me how different the worlds we came from were: Michelle’s family of origin is Africa, mine from Asia. Michelle was raised on the East Coast, I on the West Coast. Michelle as an adolescent was hoping to become the first person in her family to go university and she graduated #1 in her high school class. As an adolescent, I was thinking I’ll be the first person in my class NOT to go university; I may just flunk out of school as teenager… As we are talking I’m thinking we have all these differences, but the reason I am in this conversation with you is because, we in Christ…
Like Paul, when are in Christ we will connect with a wider variety of people…
Paul’s list also indicates that, in addition to cultural diversity, there is also socio-economic diversity among Paul’s friends in Rome. The historian Peter Lampe has done a thorough study of the names in Romans 16. He concludes that most of the people whom Paul mentions are Gentiles or freed men (a “freed man” is the term given to the class of freed slaves in the Roman Empire) or the descendants of slaves and freed men. Paul specifically mentions these two groups of slaves: those in the household of Aristobulus and those in the house of Narcissus (vss. 10 & 11). And so clearly the poor and the economically marginalized are represented in this list.
But Phoebe is also mentioned in vs. 1. She is Paul’s benefactor. She is his patron. She is a philanthropist. She’s a person of financial means.
Priscilla and Aquila’s names are also mentioned in verse 3. They traveled around the eastern Mediterranean, and the fact that they hosted a church in their house suggests that they were relatively wealthy. And so we see economic diversity represented at the church at Rome.
Paul, himself, came from an elite background. He was someone who if he had been in our system would have graduated from schools like Harvard and Oxford with highest honors and have won the Pulitzer and Templeton prizes. He was from a very elite background and yet we see him establishing friendships with people at the church in Rome who were descendants of slaves and people who had been freed from slavery.
When people enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, not only do they have a greater capacity to establish friendships with people from other cultures, but they have a greater capacity to establish friendships with people up and down the socio-economic spectrum.
Sociologists tell us that people consciously, or unconsciously, seek to make friends with people at their social, or slightly above their social level, because they want to move “up” in the world. When people come to know Christ, socio-economic distinction becomes less important of a factor in friendships.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a man who was born in Cardiff, Wales. He studied medicine and worked as one of the doctors for the Royal Family. But he felt a call to preach and so he left medicine and returned to Wales, accepting a call to minister at a church in Port Talbot, a small fishing village.
He was once asked by a skeptic, “How can you know that you have really had an experience with God, or not?”
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones answered by saying, “Explain this to me. Why was it that before I gave my life to Christ, the only people that I was only willing to associate with were people of my own social background? Before giving my life to Christ, I was only interested in spending my time with people who were educated and cultured and talking about science or literature or music or current events. Tell me, why is it now that I am more interested in spending time with a completely uneducated fisherman who knows Christ, and with whom I can talk to about Christ, than I am associating with people of my own social background?”
When we come to Christ, “money” (which a defacto-god on our planet) is relativized.
Many people regard people who are below them economically as not just below economically, but below them as people. It’s not uncommon for the wealthy to simply regard themselves as being better than the poor. People without money often envy or are in awe of people with lots of money.
When our lives are in Christ and follow God’s teaching on money, money tends to get de-throned as a god and therefore we will tend to not look down on people who less money than we do and tend not be intimidated by people who have more than we do and so we are able to enter relationships with people across the social spectrum.
When we in Christ, like Paul, we move more freely across the cultural barriers, across socio-economic barriers and have more healthy relationships with people across the gender barrier.
We see that Paul has both male and female friends and that he acknowledges in a patriarchal male-dominated culture that women are able to lead. There is a myth that Paul is misogynist, anti-women. Paul lived in a very male dominated patriarchal world. By the standards of world he was very progressive and pro-women (that should not be a surprise to us, because Paul met Jesus and Jesus was radically pro-women. Feminist leaders of course, have done so much good to advance the rights of women in our world, but arguably no singular person in history as advanced the cause of women than Jesus Christ).
Paul in verse 3 he greets Priscilla and Aquila who apparently are a wife and husband team and are co-workers with Paul. In verse 6 he greets Mary, someone who is obviously serving God in a very dedicated kind of way. We don’t know which Mary this is, as Mary was a common name in the Roman Empire. In verse 12 he greets Tryphena and Tryphosa, women who are serving hard in the Lord. In verse 12 he greets another woman named Persis, and in verse 7 Paul greets Andronicus and Junia, apparently a husband and wife team who are both considered to be apostles. Some have tried to argue that Junia is in fact a man, but lexical evidence better supports the argument that Junia is in fact a woman who is also an apostle, a leader in the early church! He commends the work of 6 women here at the close of Romans—and they are not the on sidelines, they are leaders in cause of Christ.
As we enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, we become people who are able to relate to people of our own gender and the opposite gender in ways that are healthy and affirming. As we enter into a relationship with Christ, like Paul we are also more likely to affirm the virtues and the leadership qualities of people of the opposite gender and in particular if men really understand the ethos of Jesus, will tend to be more affirming of women as leaders.
I think of the story of Max DePree, a very respected Christian executive who was formerly the chairperson and CEO of Herman Miller. Max DePree has done a lot of consulting with Fortune 500 types of corporations. Max was asked to consult with a large corporation. He walked into the board room and around the rectangular table were assembled senior executives of this company. Max sat down.
A few moments later the CEO looked at Max and said, “The senior team is now entriely assembled. You may now begin.”
Max just sat there in silence. The CEO cleared his throat and said again, “Max, the senior team is all here now. You can begin.” Max just sat there in silence.
It became rather awkward… the CEO stood up and walked around to where Max was seated and said, “Mr. DePree, everyone is here now. We are ready to begin.” The CEO sat down.
Max just continued to sit there. After several more moments of awkward since, Max said, “We are not ready to begin yet. Look around the table. There are no women and there are no people of color. In the modern world, if there are no women or no people of color around the table, we are not ready to begin yet.”
Max DePree could get away with that kind of comment because of his clout. If I were to have said that in that kind of situation, I am sure I would have been escorted promptly to the elevator without a cheque!
One of the things that will happen, as was true for Max DePree, is that when we enter into a relationship with Christ, we value the leadership of people of the other gender, in particular as men will value women in leadership. And like Paul when we are in relationship with Christ, we value people of other cultures and socio-economic backgrounds.
Paul’s friends are composed of people from different cultures, different socio-economic backgrounds, different genders, and also different ages. In verse 13 he says, “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother who has been a mother to me, too.” Paul has become a kind of son to the mother of his friend Rufus. Maybe Paul stayed with them when he traveled and Rufus’ mother made meals for him. She is obviously an older woman. When we are in Christ, we will reach out across the age spectrum. If we are younger, we will establish friendships with people who are older, and if we are older, we will establish friendships with people who are younger.
Richard Rohr, the respected Franciscan says in From Wild Man to Wise Man, “We cannot be ourselves, we cannot be our own man, until we have been someone else’s little boy. We need that older person to be like us, to bless us, even after our mistakes, to enjoy our company and to tell us that we can succeed.” We could also say that a person cannot be a woman until she has been someone else’s little girl. A female needs someone to bless her, to enjoy her company, someone to tell her that she can succeed.
Rohr also points out in his book, From Wild Man to Wise Man, that for most men it is not their biological father who initiates them into manhood because that relationship is too complex. Rohr maintains that it is typically another man who initiates them into manhood. And if we are young people, we need older people to bless us and impart their wisdom to us and to initiate us into adulthood. And if we are older, we need young people to invest in, and to generate life in. The younger need the life energy of an older person and the older person needs the life energy of a younger person.
I have benefited from the friendship of much older men in my life… who have been mentor figures and supporters of me and now as I cross the threshold out of young adulthood into middle age, I have the privilege of entering into relationships with younger people….
In verse 16, Paul calls the church at Rome to greet each other with a holy kiss. The holy kiss or the kiss of peace became a key feature of Christian liturgy early on. As is the case today in many parts of the Middle East, and elsewhere, people kiss each other as a normal greetings, between men, as well as women, between men and women. We in the West tend to more reserved and so this kind of greeting is less common.
What this kiss was meant to symbolize was that through Christ, we belong in the same family, the family that is now re-defined around the Messiah, Jesus Christ. What Paul tells in the book of Romans is that the gospel brings together both Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free into a single family, the people of God.
I look at my own immediate family with an older sister who is a corporate executive who has recently started a spa and massage business in San Francisco, a sister who is a feminist and literary scholar at the University of California, a brother who is a film maker and artist, a little sister who is high school guidance counselor and teacher in a French-speaking district of greater Montreal. I sometimes think that if I wasn’t related to these people through my family, I wouldn’t be in relationship with them. And so it is when we enter the family of God. We become brothers and sisters with people whom we would otherwise in all likelihood not relate to.
Paul has been describing in Romans how God through the work of Christ is raising a new humanity and family for himself…. The one characteristics of being in this family is that whether we are slave or free, poor or rich, Greek or Jew or whatever race, we are on the same footing in the presence of Jesus Christ. We are made one in Him.
The cross shows, we are connected vertically to God, but also horizontally to each other… If you were raised in a theologically conservative tradition, it may have been the case that the vertical reconciliation of the cross was more emphasized, if you were raised in liberal church, it have been that horizontal dimension of the cross was emphasized, but the cross reconciliation to God and each other…
It as we received to the one who connects us to God and each other, the Christ… we belong to each other deeply—even those very different from ourselves…
On the night Jesus was betrayed… was with some of his closest friends and he took bread and broke it and said this is my body…
Then he died on the cross… reconciliation us to God and each other…. Remember whose you are….

(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)