An Arrogant Hope…

 

Romans 5:1-5

5:1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

5:2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

5:3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,

5:4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

5:5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

There is a strange confidence in the life and writings of the Apostle Paul. Romans is a great place to find it. His theology is a direct result of a man both fully saved and on his way to “perfection,” as John Wesley might say. Paul writes like he knows that he knows that he knows that his life is safe in the “harbor” of the redemption of Jesus Christ, and is truly being guided by the Holy Spirit. He courageously travels around the known world, confronting any of the “powers that be” who seek to stop the juggernaut of his ministry to the Gentiles, and pretty much anyone who will listen to the gospel he preaches. This confidence stretches to stoning pits, lynching trees, viper-infested beaches, shipwrecks, and prison cells. Wherever he went, he told his story of how he encountered the living Christ on his way to Damascus to torment Christians, and once his “street cred” was firmly established, he began to produce and write a theological framework of forgiveness, redemption, and life-altering transformation that is STILL the gospel preached by the church today. Jesus came to reveal the nature of God to us—in person—and to navigate death and resurrection to our eternal benefit. Paul wrote both the “owner’s manual” and the travel guide for the Christian journey, tracing the practical path of faith drawn directly from the life and teachings of Jesus, and now being “prototyped” in the budding Christian church. If one is to apply the term “Queen of the Sciences” to theology, one must look to Paul as its “Thomas Edison,” or maybe more appropriately, it’s Nikola Tesla, because his theology is both electrical and powerful.

Take a look at his language in this short snippet from Romans, Paul’s magnum opus: 

“Therefore, since WE ARE justified by faith, WE HAVE peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom WE HAVE OBTAINED access to this grace IN WHICH WE STAND; and WE BOAST IN OUR HOPE of SHARING THE GLORY of God.”

These are not the thoughts of a person who has even the slightest doubt in what he believes or in his commitment to giving his life in service to it. This boldness gives Paul a singular focus—Christ, and him crucified, on one hand, and the “hope of glory,” on the other. Paul’s confidence—his arrogance—in his Christian faith commitment made him unstoppable. Like Jesus, even his eventual martyrdom didn’t slow down the church he helped launch and the gospel he wrote. The arrogance of his hope gave him a confidence and courage rarely seen in modern Christians who often cower in fear at their religious doubts, or hid like a frightened child behind “orthodoxy” that spares them from having to “do” theology on their own, or accept people they find repugnant. Of the two types of characters—Paul or the “contemporary” Christian—I’ll take Paul and his arrogance. Unfortunately, the “orthodox” types are often boastful, but not courageous, while Paul’s boasting is strictly limited to that which he has found in Jesus Christ.

If I sound a bit “bitter” over the state of “orthodoxy” in the modern church, please know that I just came back from our United Methodist Annual Conference. There, the “orthodoxy” types floated and successfully sold a number of harmful, nasty resolutions and petitions that seized on their hatred of LGBTQ persons, which they justify harboring based on their limited interpretation of “what the Bible says.” In a Christian sect (Methodism) that claims to hold to the “General Rules” laid down by its founder, John Wesley,” these people are in danger of violating the first of them: “First, do no harm.” One piece of legislation asked our Conference Board of Church and Society to petition the Pennsylvania legislature to strip the rights of transgender persons from participating in school sports. Citing a recent case of a transgender female who was successful in a competition against cisgender females, they distorted the idea of “harm,” suggesting the competition was “unfair” because of the superior muscular structure of the “male” body of the transgender female. Successfully convincing enough delegates to vote for it, it was passed. Thankfully, like most of the legislation we pass at Annual Conference, it has little teeth. 

If you don’t believe me that some of these efforts are punitive and harmful, consider another piece of legislation that tried to “require” that our denomination revoke a policy that added “non-binary” to the list of “genders” on a church statistical form. Why? Because officially, our denomination still discriminates against LGBTQ persons in the name of “biblical authority.” Honestly, the tactics employed by the makers of these pieces of legislation, as well as the tenor of much of the “discussion” on the floor of the conference, was 180 degrees from “bold,” “courageous,” or boasting in hope. It was mean-spirited, competitive, and belittling of those who don’t share their smug views of biblical interpretation. After this experience, reading this passage of Paul’s masterwork—Romans—was like settling into a soothing bath. Paul is the real deal. These modern crusaders for “orthodoxy,” aren’t. They are doing harm to the people of God. Their arrogance is not one of “hope,” but of control. Sad thing is, many of them are good people of good hearts, and a genuine faith. Many are even people I like. Unfortunately, the desire to be “definitively right,” and the illegitimate power it delivers, are seductive sirens. 

Paul was not perfect. He has been hammered by many who see him as a religious chauvinist, as well as by those who see HIM as homophobic. Beyond Jesus, his first love was the church. As it was “brand new,” and the first religious body to open itself to both women and all variety of “non-Jews,” many of the traditional rules and guidelines were outdated and even harmful to these new converts. While Paul and the church instituted a wide variety of new, inclusive policies to provide hospitality and opportunity to women, Gentiles, and others who would have been “outcasts” from traditional religion, the new guidelines were a work in progress. When Paul wrote “let the women keep silence in the church,” and stated that he would not let a woman teach or lead, he was trying to navigate the reality that they were now both welcome in the Christian Body of Christ, and yet totally inexperienced in religious assembly and public involvement. The culture denied them access to both, as did traditional Judaism of that day. The Christian church was welcoming to them, but Paul’s cautions because of their inexperience faded away very early, as witnessed by how deeply women were involved in ministry, teaching, and leadership, as evidenced in Luke’s documentary, the Book of Acts. And Paul, himself, would later “answer” to a wealthy, Greek heiress and deacon of the church named Phoebe, according to an interesting piece of scholarship by Pauline scholar, Dr. Robert Jewett.

The moral of both of these stories is that things change. The only thing that doesn’t “change” is the grace of God, made available through Jesus Christ. Beyond this, the church changes, grows, and adapts to each age, with the goal of translating the gospel of redemption to each age, and helping it find new listeners among groups that have heretofore been excluded. This means peoples the church has been guilty of excluding in ages past through artificially-erected barriers of racism, sexism, and homophobia. In Paul’s day, these expanding ministries of inclusion made things difficult on many occasions, requiring Paul’ to address them in his epistles. But they did NOT cause him to retrench or abandon efforts to grow the church, broaden the appeal of the gospel, or include new segments of society in its care, love, and ministry.

Paul also has an “arrogant boast” in something else—suffering. Even as Paul is bold in his faith, so he is courageous in the suffering that often accompanies it in Paul’s day. Rather than fear suffering, Paul asserts that it produces endurance, even as the long, hard workouts of a marathon runner cultivates it. Furthermore, Paul composes a wonderful litany of what results from suffering beyond endurance—character, which in turn produces hope, a hope that “does not disappoint,” in the words of Paul. And then Paul goes back to his “arrogant” boasts of what results in us through faith, suffering, and endurance in our growth in faith in Jesus Christ: “…God’s love HAS BEEN POURED into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit that HAS BEEN GIVEN to us.” For the Christian disciple, we don’t “hope” like we are “wishing for things,” at least according to Paul. His hope is a SURE thing, and these vital elements of faith, redemption, and empowerment are never in doubt for him, when we confess our faith in Jesus and yield our lives to his direction through the Holy Spirit. It’s a type of “arrogance” that demonstrates boldness and courage, rather than elitism or false, impotent confidence like is found in holding on—white-knuckle—to rules, doctrines, and dogma.

As we grow closer to Jesus Christ in faith, and learn how to better collaborate with others in the broadening Body of Christ, may our hope be of the sure, “arrogant” kind boldly proclaimed by the Apostle Paul! Amen.