Welcome to Resurrection Parish, whether you are joining us here at our Holy Name campus or online. This week we are beginning a new message series, “Life of St. Paul” but really we should be calling it St. Paul and the Romans. See, this was originally a longer message series, but we are only going to do it the next three weeks, and we are going to just be looking at the second reading each week, which comes from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

St. Paul was a remarkable person. We are all familiar with this story; originally called Saul, he was a well educated, extremely devout Jew of the Pharisee division. At first he was strongly opposed to the new “Jesus movement,” arresting all the Christians he could find in Jerusalem. He was then given the authority to go to Damascus and arrest all the Christians that he could find there. While traveling there, he had an extraordinary encounter with the Risen Jesus. Converted, he now became known as Paul, and with all the devotion that he had persecuted the Church, he now gave witness to it. He boldly preached Christ crucified and Risen. While at first he only had limited success in winning converts among his fellow Jews, he started to have a lot of success among the Gentiles. The Lord revealed to the Church’s leadership that He had set Paul aside to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Paul went on three well known missionary trips, establishing new Christian churches in all the cities he visited. When he wrote the Letter to the Romans, Paul had not yet been to Rome. The letter is one of introduction, and an invitation for the Christians already in Rome to join him in his ministry when he gets there.

There is also a pastoral problem among the Christians in Rome that Paul is hoping to resolve, and it reminds me of a tee shirt I saw several years ago. It read, “God Loves You, But I’m His Favorite.” There is division and rivalry among the Christians in Rome.

Some of the Christians in Rome were of Jewish origin, while others were of Gentile origin. Apparently some of the Jewish Christians were making a big deal about being from the Chosen People of God, and trying to force Jewish customs and rituals on the Gentile Christians. Basically they were treating the Gentile Christians as being second class.

Some of the Gentile Christians were having none of that. In fact, they were making the argument that since most of the Jews had rejected Jesus, whereas the Gospel was being accepted more by Gentiles, that God had rejected Israel, and the Gentiles were now the Chosen People.

In the passage we read today, St. Paul clearly states that he is addressing the Gentiles, and he is cautioning them against drawing false conclusions about God’s saving work. While stating that he is the Apostle to the Gentiles, St. Paul notes that he still has a ministry to his own people, “in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them” (Rom 11:14). Elsewhere in his letter, St. Paul points out the irony that for much of their history, the thing that so often tripped up the Israelites in following God, was wanting to imitate the Gentiles who lived around them and their pagan gods, and now that so many of the Gentiles are becoming Christians which is the fulfillment of God’s plan, most of the Jewish are not wanting to imitate the Gentiles.

St. Paul goes on to say, “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). St. Paul knows that covenants create families by establishing bonds of kinship between the parties. When obeying the terms of the covenant, you enjoy the blessings of the covenant, and when disobeying the covenant, you experience the curses of the covenant. But whether obeying or disobeying, the bond of kinship endures. Being so learned in the Hebrew Scriptures, St. Paul is very familiar with the repeated cycle of Israel disobeying the covenant, them experiencing hardships, finally turning back to the Lord who always offers them his mercy, and with their obedience comes blessings. St. Paul basically sums up Salvation History as the story of human disobedience being overcome by divine mercy.

Here it is in a nutshell, “Just as you once disobeyed God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now disobeyed in order that, by virtue of the mercy shown to you, they too may [now] receive mercy. For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all” (Rom 11:30–32). The Gentiles have experienced God’s mercy because of his revelation and work through Israel, and now God’s revelation and work through the Gentiles will be a means of showing God’s mercy to Israel.

Sadly, we still have division and rivalry in the world today, and even in the Church. We only have to look at the protests and counter-protests over racism and the police we have witnessed here in the USA over the past few months. I am NOT going to enter into the debate of whether or not police departments should be defunded. But I will tell you that racism is a sin. We are all created in the image and likeness of God, and we all have a fundamental dignity. Sadly, there is still discrimination in this country. OK, we may have come a long way from what it was like in the 1860s, or even the 1960s, but the sin of racism is still there and needs to be addressed. I will also tell you that violence against persons and property is a sin. Just this week I read about the vandalism that happened at the Ronald McDonald House in Chicago; as sick children and their parents were sleeping, rioters attacked the building, breaking all its windows and doors. Terrorizing sick children and their parents does nothing to promote racial equality.

In the Church, there are those who love Pope Francis and those who hate him. Again, this week I read about a priest in California who was excommunicated by his bishop because the priest opposes Pope Francis, says that he is not a legitimate Pope, and in the Eucharistic Prayer when the priest prays for the pope, he would pray for “Benedict XVI, our pope.”

St. Paul’s words to the Romans could just as easily be written to the Church today. So maybe we need to follow the advise he gave the Roman Church then – recognize that we have all been disobedient to God, so we are all in need of God’s mercy.

So this week think about someone you have a rivalry with. Then think about how you also have your faults, and have been disobedient to God’s will. Finally, think about times when you have profoundly experienced the mercy of God. Does recognizing that help you extend mercy to the person you have a rivalry with?