And what is at the end of the passage that sums up the degree of their sin? What is the thing that completes the cycle? “They not only continue to do those very things but also approve of those who practice them.” What is detestable becomes normal. What is unrighteous becomes approved and accepted.

But then, with no warning he turns on a dime and says, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” He attacks them. Just when they are thinking “We are going to like this guy. He’s going to be a good chaplain for us. We all think alike about those Gentiles.” How can this be? On the one hand Paul is scandalized that the behavior he describes just moments before is seen as acceptable but now he says anyone who judges them is in danger of God’s judgment as well. How can you have a society that allows the behavior he describes without people judging it to be right or wrong? Are we to do nothing? Is it only the perfect man or woman without sin who can judge?

Obviously not. What judgment means here is not the same as discernment or discouraging such behavior or even making laws against it. It is a total distortion of the text to say, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” It means we cannot pass final sentence on people’s souls even if we are responsible to pass sentence on their behavior. We are not the final authority when it comes to whether they will experience God’s wrath or his redemption. As we said last week, we have two choices in our response to people so enmeshed in sin. We can write them off with self-righteous indignation and finger pointing or we can respond like God ­ with tears. Are we secretly pleased that the wrath is coming or do we believe that the power of the cross can save even these seemingly given over to sin? Is there hope even for the worst? It seems there is because Paul goes on to say that the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience is capable of leading us to repentance. For some, it is the repentance of ordinary sin and for others it is repentance for a life given over to depravity. It does not say our kindness leads to repentance but only God’s. Sometimes we think if we are pleasant or tolerant toward people they will change or they will see something in us that draws them to God. That’s not the point here. It is God’s kindness that takes us by the hand and leads us toward reconciliation with God. It is what David describes in Psalm 62. God is strong and God is kind all at the same time. His kindness is firmly based in truth and not simply in the desire to get along. Only God can balance kindness and wrath because only God has the ultimate authority to decide the fate of a soul.

But when we understand the composition of the Church in Rome we understand Paul’s whiplash and his scathing criticism of both Greeks and Jews alike. The Church was composed of Greeks who had come out of the world he described in Chapter 1 and Jews who still considered themselves exceptional people. They both had assumptions about themselves and resentments of the others that were tearing the church apart. The Jews were indeed God’s chosen people but over the years they had come to see their privilege of a particular calling ­ to be a priesthood and a light to the Gentiles ­ as an entitlement. Instead of being grateful they had become proud and exclusive ­which is always what happens when privilege becomes an entitlement. They had abused the privilege and
people hated them for it. They became isolated and segregated. They built walls between themselves and others and had become ungrateful in the process. As he says, “God’s name is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” How different that is from his opening greeting, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.”

They had exchanged the privilege and responsibility of being a Jew for the attitude of entitlement. The job of the Jew was to keep the compass for the world pointed North. They had turned a responsibility and a privilege into a right. They resented the world for being lost and without God and hoarded Him for themselves. Instead of gratitude for their calling they became sanctimonious, ungrateful and proud.

“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”
― Brené Brown

In Rome, the Jews were exempted from many of the demands imposed on others. While they were often despised they retained rights that created even more resentment from citizens as the Jews ­ like all of us ­ saw these privileges as entitlements. They were exempted from military service because they could not fight on the Sabbath. They were allowed to ship gold out of the country to send back to Jerusalem which was counter to the currency laws. They were allowed, at least to some extent, to have their own courts and live according to their own laws. There is a decree issued by a governor called Lucius Antonius in Asia about the year 50 B.C. in which he wrote: “Our Jewish citizens came to me and informed me that they had their own private gathering, carried out according to their ancestral laws, and their own private place, where they settle their own affairs and deal with cases between each other. When they asked that this custom should be continued, I gave judgment that they should be allowed to retain this privilege.” The Gentiles detested the spectacle of a race of people living as a kind of separate and specially privileged group.

It is this exchange of responsibility for entitlement that Paul is speaking to. It is the abuse of privilege that he detests and he is unsparing in his criticism of them. The Gentiles have exchanged the truth of God for a lie which has led to debauchery and perversion. The Jews have exchanged the truth of God for a lie which has led to exclusivity, pride and hypocrisy. Instead of being grateful they had become snobs. Instead of gratitude toward God they congratulated themselves on God’s good judgment in making them special.

You see the same kind of resentment growing in this country toward non­profits and churches. While they have been exempted from taxes because their mission has been to provide services that are not provided by government, many have abused that privilege. Scandals around sexual abuse, exorbitant lifestyles, arrogance of power and disregard for people is going to take a toll one day. I read this in the Tyler paper. “I believe it is about time for a property owner’s taxpayer revolt in Smith County. If the county needs more tax revenue, let them rescind some of the numerous tax abatements for special interests. They can also restrict the so-called nonprofit and religious organizations that don’t pay any taxes. I believe our property taxes could be reduced by at least 30 percent if these freeloaders paid their fair share. This will never happen, of course, because Smith County is the “buckle” of the Bible belt.” I doubt such a move would lower taxes by 30
percent but we know for sure that our church alone would have to pay at least $1 million in property tax.

I grew up in an environment of pride like Paul describes. We had our own private police force that was “flexible” with those of us who lived there. None of them wanted to go up against the lawyers and judges. There were no blacks or Jews. Every Saturday there were fox hunts and balls. Bad behavior was excused, covered up and made invisible. Many grew up thinking arrogance, prejudice, selfishness and little respect for authority was normal. We were surrounded by spoiled and foolish inheritors who had no idea what it might be like to work, struggle or fail. We lived fully expecting everything to be handed to us. Instead of being grateful for the privilege we felt entitled. We were different from other people and the rules for them were optional for us.

I read this somewhere. It’s from the book “Willow” by Donna Lynn Hope. “In a fit of anger he had said to her, “You’ll always be miserable,” to which she thoughtfully replied, “Is that so? It’s impossible to be miserable when you’ve known tragedy and hardship. Both strengthen and refine a person to the point where they may have moments of grief and sadness, but misery is known only to those who have a sense of entitlement…you know, people like you.”

That belief in entitlement almost perfectly describes the Jews in the Roman church. They were the elite and God had chosen them forever to be exempt. It was one thing to allow the Gentiles into the church but only as a gesture of noblesse oblige and even kindness. They were not fully accepted ­ only tolerated.

It’s an irony that Michael Lewis describes in “Moneyball” ­ his book about baseball. The coach of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane, discovers through statistical analysis that those things that win games were not being given the same value as things that did not matter nearly so much. A player’s ability to wear out a pitcher was underpriced compared to it’s value. On the other hand, a slugger’s value was overpriced. The things of real value were, essentially, invisible to those who set the price for a player. So it was with Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles, the future of the church, were incredibly undervalued by the Jews.

So, you can understand the defensive response of the Jews when Paul tears into them and admonishes them for the very things that made them feel special. Worse, he says “A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.”

Put that into the present to try and understand their dismay at the thought of anyone being eligible to be a Jew. That was incomprehensible and revolting. It was taking away their whole identity and diluting the entire meaning of being a privileged people. If anyone can be a Jew then what will make us special? Think about saying to people anyone who says the Pledge of Allegiance can be inwardly an American. What are all the various ways we separate ourselves and insist on strict codes of membership and belonging. How would we react if one could belong merely by saying they are one of us? What would happen to cliques, fraternities and sororities, social societies and private clubs? We would be overrun with people claiming to be inwardly members. But that is exactly what Paul is saying. All those distinctions you hold so dear are meaningless and have passed away.

What’s the effect of diluting exclusivity?

We move and segregate ourselves with our kind of people.
We pick different vacation spots when common people can afford to go there.
We up the choice of our cars when those people start driving what has set us apart.
We harden the boundaries between us.
We find other and more expensive brands of everything.
We look for other ways to say we are different and distinct.

That is exactly what Paul had to address. If anyone could share the privilege of being a Jew, if someone could be a Jew inwardly then their identity as special people with special privileges was at risk. The young church could not survive such a split. Paul had to dilute the pride of the Jews without losing them and at the same time address the resentment and anger of the Gentiles toward the Jews. This was not a clash of personalities. It was a clash of cultures. The Jews had already proved they could not grow the church and the Gentiles were always in danger of lapsing back into pagan habits and heresy. They were a split church surrounded by a toxic culture just waiting to extinguish them.

This is a constant theme for Paul. We cannot afford to be one or the other. We cannot afford to simply build the church on our personal preferences or being with people just like us. That is why Paul insists then and we must insist now that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. But it is humanly impossible because we are so wired to either insist on our exclusivity and privilege or to resent the elites. We so naturally fall into “us versus them” or finding a church that makes us feel comfortable with our kind of people. Only the Spirit of God can break down those walls between us and create a church that is not merely diverse but one that has found our life in Christ together.

Ephesians 2:14-­22:

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”