“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

The ethical portion of Paul’s Letter to the Romans centers this poignant entreaty: it is less about you and your religious purity and more about your neighbor and your impact on your neighbor. Too often Christian ethics and piety revolve around the self: all the things I do to be (read: feel) holy and good, the sacred acts I do and say to demonstrate my righteousness. In the end, this focus on the self exudes both self-righteousness and self-serving religiosity; as if—because one says all the right religious things and does all the right sacred acts—this one now has this God and religion thing on lock. Once one is here, in this space, both judgment and condemnation of others who “do not do as you do” seep in and infect relationships; then, in this space, hierarchies occur and there are those who are in and out, strong and weak, and those who “get it” and those who don’t.

However, according to the flow of Romans, this is the number one thing that cannot happen in the life of the Christian. In becoming those who have donned the armor of the light and doffed the acts of darkness, how we treat each other is paramount and this includes all infighting that happens in religious spaces over how to do this God and religion thing. For Paul here in Romans, one’s holiness, piety, righteousness, blessedness, saintliness comes not from what you do but from the one in whom you believe. This spiritual reality resists the human tendency to make this about me and my pursuit of holiness and righteousness for my own sake. I am liberated, by faith in Christ, from myself for the wellbeing of the neighbor. I am free, because of faith in Christ and the grace and righteousness given to me, to just love the neighbor as they are where they are without having to use them in my great plot to become good and righteous (because I am now both of those things in and by the declaration of beloved to me by God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit). Thus, For Paul and Romans, the ethics of the Christian, Christian piety expressed into the world, is going to feature the neighbor; this applies to both the exhortations to align the outer person with the inner person and to consider the impact of our actions on others. Everything ethical, for Paul, revolves around the neighbor, the other, the one who (should) benefits from the deeds of the law of love evidencing and born of faith—both in and outside these walls.

Romans 14:1-12

Paul begins with one exhortation and two prohibitions for the Roman Christians,

Now accept and receive the ones who are “weak” in faith, not for passing judgments. Some believe in eating all things and the one who is “weak” eats vegetables. The one who eats [meat] must not treat the one who does not eat [meat] with contempt, and the one who does not eat [meat] must not judge the one who does eat [meat]; for God accepted and received them. (vv1-3)

Moving from the consistent refrain of ethnic diversity and divisions within the body of Christ in Rome to issues (further) disrupting[ii] the communion of believers therein,[iii] Paul picks up an issue that has been communicated to him from the Roman Christians—the label “weak” does not logically flow from what Paul has said thus far.[iv] Most likely, Paul has caught wind of one group considering the other group weak for eating or not eating all things (meat is in mind here). The group considered “weak” would not consider themselves as such[v] because what is at issue here is not food laws per se or one’s liberation in Christ but faithfulness to God and its proper expression.[vi] Refusing to eat meat as an expression of faith indicates that the one who abstains is not lacking in faith; these ones considered themselves to be obedient, and, thusly, faithful.[vii] While the “strong” did not have more faith than those deemed (shamefully) “weak” for only eating vegetables, they did have more power: [viii] power to exclude, power to “name,” and power (access) to eat whatever they wanted. (Weak meant powerless. [ix]) In other words (or the TL/DR of it all), Paul is simply addressing the human tendency to create hierarchies of superiority and inferiority with the intention to divide and disrupt good, Christ centered, faith grounded community.[x] So, Paul beseeches the Roman Christians[xi] to receive each other[xii] as equals[xiii] and make space[xiv] for true belonging[xv] and not include the other so to dispute (argue)[xvi] and thus to shame or judge[xvii] the other which is the categorical opposite of belonging.

Building his case against judging others, Paul goes on to say,

Are you the one who judges the servant belonging to another? They stand or fall for their own lord. And they will be made to stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. One judges day compared with day, and one judges all days [the same]. Let each one be fully assured in their own mind. The one who regards the day, regards [it] to the Lord. Also, the one who eats [meat], eats [meat] to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and the one who does not eat [meat], does not eat [meat] to the Lord and gives thanks to God (vv4-6).

Paul disabuses the Roman Christians of their self-appointment as judge over what does and does not qualify as faithfulness to God. In doing so, via imagery of servant and lord, Paul reminds them who they are: creatures and not the Creator.[xviii] Also, Paul’s use of the word translated as “servants” is a Greek word for “house servant”; all the Roman Christians are equals and members of the same household with the same lord.[xix]  (They are all “house-servants.”) Both groups do and do not do for and to the Lord; both groups are fully dependent on the grace of God[xx] made known in Christ Jesus. No matter what it is (a day observed or food eaten or not) it should be done according to one’s conscience[xxi] and in a way that brings thanksgiving and honor to God (not to oneself[xxii]);[xxiii] therefore, if this is the basis, then coming together either to observe or not observe and to eat or not eat should not be a problem,[xxiv] each one supporting the other in and from divine love[xxv] (the very fabric and thread of Christian community and practice).[xxvi] The Roman Christians, through faith[xxvii] (Romans 1-8) find themselves not only new creations but living according to new (active and intentional) expectations[xxviii] for their new community based on the law of love[xxix] born of faith and established in Christ and God’s work in Christ.[xxx] This is why Paul can then remind them,

For none of us lives to/for themselves, and no one dies to/for themselves. For if we live, we live to/for the Lord; if we die, we die to/for the Lord. Therefore, if we live and if we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this [end] Christ died and he lived so that also he might rule the dead and living (vv7-9).

The Roman Christians are liberated by faith to live, really live without finding themselves trapped by either new laws around days and food or in despising and judging those who do not follow as they do. Recalling Chapter 13 of Romans, their only obligation is to and for love that seeks the well-being of the neighbor and brings glory to God.[xxxi] So Paul then adds,

But why do you, you judge your sibling? Or why do you, you treat your sibling with contempt? For we will all appear before the tribunal of God. For it has been written, “‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bend and every tongue will confess to/for God.’” Therefore each one of us will give word about themself (vv10-12).

Conclusion

Nitpicking, in-fighting, slandering, shaming, ostracizing, criticizing, and judging will always help in making the Christian Church obsolete in the world. Why? Because those very tendencies are the way the kingdom of humanity operates; why would anyone want to add more of that to their own experience and existence? According to Romans and Paul, both the church that claims Christ as its Lord and those who call themselves “little Christs” (Christians) should be different from the kingdom of humanity—not just a little bit but a lotta bit. Whether we despise and judge within our own congregation, other churches, other denominations and even other religions, we are not expressing our righteousness found by faith in Christ but our self-righteousness based on our self-regard. In this way, we express not the glory of God but the glory of our own rightness that is nothing but dirt in the economy of God. Granted, we do these things because we feel threatened and scared—especially now as we experience the shrinking of religion and its place within society. However, what Paul tells us is that our livelihood as Christians and as part of the body of Christ and the Church is not dependent on our being right or doing church and Christianity a specific way but, rather, is dependent on the one who is the founder and legitimator of our faith and existence as Christians and the Church: Christ Jesus. He is the only thing that truly matters in our life of orthodoxy and orthopraxy as church and as individual Christians. It is the divine liberation, divine life, and divine love won for us through his death and resurrection that is the only hill we should ever die on; everything else—e👏ver👏ee👏thing👏else👏—is child’s play and, as Luther says.

“For all of these things are shadows and signs of the real thing and thus are childish. For every day is a feast, all food is permitted, every place is sacred, every time is a time of fasting, every kind of apparel is allowed, all things are free, only that we observe moderation in their use and that love … be practiced.”[xxxii]

Let us eat or not eat, worship thusly or not thusly, observe this day or not this day, do church like this or not like this in such a way that the only thing anyone ever feels is God’s love through us so that God is brought glory through our neighbor’s praise and well-being.

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[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Romans, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 230. “This change in terms minimizes attention to ethnic differences and allows him to focus on behavior and status.”

[iii] Lancaster, Romans, 229. “…Paul turns to addressing particular behaviors that have disrupted the ability of the Roman followers of Jesus to be in community together.”

[iv] Lancaster, Romans, 229. “Paul speaks of two groups: the weak and the strong. These labels may not be Paul’s own designation of the situation because the labels do not really arise from the ideas he is trying to convey to the Romans…He may be adopting labels already in use in the community.”

[v] Lancaster, Romans, 230. “…it would be unlikely that the person in the group designated as ‘weak’ would have called themselves weak. The group that considered itself to be strong, then, is probably the source of these epithets.”

[vi] Lancaster, Romans, 230. “Rather, the problem in the community may arise because of different understandings of what faithfulness to God means.”

[vii] Lancaster, Romans, 231. “Those who abstained from eating meat surely did not think they did so because of lack of faith, rather, they were trying to keep faithful to their God by being careful about what they ate. Whereas the ones who eat saw weakness, the abstainers understood themselves to be obedient.”

[viii] Lancaster, Romans, 231. “The ones who eat were ‘strong’ in part because they were a group that had the power to name and to exclude. They used a term of honor for themselves and a term of shame for the others.”

[ix] Lancaster, Romans, 230. “In the ancient world, the term ‘weak’ could refer to many ways of being inferior or powerless, such as economic, physical, political or social.”

[x] Lancaster, Romans, 231. “Even when sociocultural hierarchy is not as closely tied to honor and shame as it was in the ancient world, the inclination to measure and divide others into superior and inferior groups is a constant pressure on any community.”

[xi] LW 25:114fn5. “He is formulating a general rule on the basis of a particular case and opposes both groups, because each judges the other as falling and not standing firm in the true faith, and thus the presumptuousness of both groups must be subdued.”

[xii] Lancaster, Romans, 233. It is a lecture to both the “strong” and the “weak”

[xiii] Lancaster, Romans, 232. “In a situation where lines of demarcation have been drawn to indicate who is superior and who is inferior, Paul instructs welcoming those whom you consider to be inferior as those who share your cause as equals.”

[xiv] Lancaster, Romans, 232. “Welcoming should not bring others into coercive situation but rather create space for exchange in the context of mutual respect.”

[xv] Lancaster, Romans, 232. “To welcome someone socially means to extend hospitality to that person, often sharing food at the table.”

[xvi] Lancaster, Romans, 232. “…Paul goes on to specify that the purpose of welcoming them not be for disputation.”

[xvii] Lancaster, Romans, 232-233. “His explicit message (14:3-4) is mutual acceptance of each other—no despising, no passing judgment.”

[xviii] Lancaster, Romans, 233. “First, given the authority that a master had over a servant, Paul is reminding them of a point the has already made in this letter; the only one with authority to judge is God, who is the master they all serve.

[xix] Lancaster, Romans, 233. “Second, the word translated as ‘servant’ is oiketēn, which was the term used particularly for a house servant. The emphasis, then, is not simply on being a servant but on being a member of the household (oikos). This choice of words reminds them they are members of the same household.”

[xx] Lancaster, Romans, 234. “In their concern to honor a day to the Lord, they should hear this echo of the importance of mindset. They should not be proud but should rather remember their dependence on God’s grace.”

[xxi] LW 25:114fn7. “He is trying to say: ‘Let each be strong in his own conscience and not be disturbed at the action of another.’”

[xxii] LW 25:499 “The apostle is arguing from the greater, that if we do not live to ourselves or belong to ourselves (which is the greater), much less do we eat or drink to ourselves or do or suffer anything to ourselves, but rather all things are the Lord’s.”

[xxiii] Lancaster, Romans, 235. “The conviction he is talking about lies rather in the one’s understanding of what honors God (14:6), and it is expressed in giving thanks to God. Such honor and gratitude are not the property of any particular conviction; they may be present regardless of which day is observed and whether one eats or abstains.”

[xxiv] Lancaster, Romans, 235. “When Paul’s thoughts on the two problems of eating and observing sacred days are taken together, it seems Paul is trying to affirm openness to others without falling into an ‘anything goes’ consequence.”

[xxv] Lancaster, Romans, 235. “A certain generosity of spirit is required to recognize that others are also trying to honor God in what they do, even if what they do is different…In the face of painful disagreement with other Christians, Paul calls us to look beyond the problem itself to the God we all serve.”

[xxvi] Lancaster, Romans, 234. “The problem arises not because of what a person eats in private but rather in the context of eating together. The way these followers of Jesus figure out how to share food will reveal how well they really regard each other as brothers and sisters.”

[xxvii] LW 25:490 “But this must be done out of love and the faith that does not believe that he is doing these things as necessary for salvation but only of his own free will and out of a sense of freedom.”

[xxviii] LW 25:488. “The answer is that it is true on the basis of the new law that none of these things is necessary, but not in such a way that when one thing has been omitted it is permissible to do the opposite or something entirely different.”

[xxix] Lancaster, Romans, 236. “Because through Christ we are connected to each other, our living and dying to God is done together in community. Disruption of our life together tarnishes our living sacrifice to God.”

[xxx] Lancaster, Romans, 236. “He is calling us to see that our sacrifice is in the totality of who we are, so even how we address problems with relatively low stakes matters for what kind of offering we make to God. To take seriously that we have died to sin and entered into a new dominion means that the Lordship of Christ extends to everything that we are and do.”

[xxxi] LW 25:486. “Thus the meaning of the apostle is that in the new law all things are free and nothing is necessary for those who believe in Christ, but love is sufficient form them.”

[xxxii] LW 25:487.