This is the final podcast in my sermon series through the book of Romans. I'll be taking a couple months off from recording this summer, but will be back with more this fall.
--Doug
...And it brings me to this final chapter 16. I’ll warn you, that it is a lengthy list of weird sounding names. But I want to read it, and as I do, see if you notice anything surprising or unusual.
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon 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 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.
This is the final podcast in my sermon series through the book of Romans. I'll be taking a couple months off from recording this summer, but will be back with more this fall.
--Doug
...And it brings me to this final chapter 16. I’ll warn you, that it is a lengthy list of weird sounding names. But I want to read it, and as I do, see if you notice anything surprising or unusual.
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon 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 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.
Name Dropping (Romans 16)
Hello, welcome to the Will Preach for Food podcast. I’m Doug, a pastor here at Faith Lutheran Church, based out of Shelton, Washington, a congregation of the ELCA. You can learn more about Faith at our website, www.faithshelton.org. This podcast is being recorded for the second Sunday after Pentecost, June 11, 2023.
Let’s jump right in with the gospel reading assigned for this Sunday in the common lectionary. It is Matthew 9:9-17.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
A couple weeks ago I was preaching on Romans 15:7, which says that we are to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us, for this is God’s glory. And I mentioned how one of the chief criticisms of Jesus leveled by his adversaries is that he welcomes sinners and eats with them. And this week the story shows up here in Matthew 9. Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors—folks who don’t usually get invited to church potlucks. The religious leaders complain and Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea to them, who had declared God’s frustration with Israel’s worship practices. I desire mercy, not sacrifices, God says.
The word mercy here is the Hebrew “hesed,” and it means lovingkindness, mercy, grace, compassion, as in God is gracious and merciful, abounding in hesed—steadfast love. God doesn’t need animal sacrifices—as if God was hungry or as if there was some sort of divine equation to be achieved—God desires that we treat others with the same hesed love and mercy God shows us. That’s why Jesus eats with these so-called sinners. To show us what God is like, and what true worship looks like.
The good news is that Jesus likes to hang out with sinners, which is a good thing, because each one of us in the room thereby qualifies. And then we show true worship and faithfulness to God by doing the same—sharing fellowship with other people who are told they don’t belong.
Then Jesus talks about how new wine needs new wine skins. God’s Spirit is so potent, intoxicating, living, that it always needs new, fresh wineskins—vessels or containers—to be able to ferment and mature and be shared around the table. The Holy Spirit is too vigorous, too potent for tired old ways of doing things, Jesus says. Jesus himself is a kind of new wineskin, a new vessel for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, Jesus is modeling and teaching that the church must always change, adapt, innovate. Same Spirit, same wine—new wineskins, new vessels for pouring.
I could preach whole sermon on this new wineskins thing , but, gosh darn it, I am going to FINISH this sermon series on Romans! So here is an 8 minute review of the first 15 chapters of Romans. Three words to remember: Grace, Faith, and Love. Then I’ll tie in this final chapter, Romans 16, as Paul culminates the letter by practicing what he preaches. Okay: Grace, Faith, and Love.
The book of Romans begins with the movement from the mirror to the mercy seat. God’s law acts as a mirror—one of those magnified ones with the glowing light around it. Just as this mirror reveals every pimple, wrinkle, and grey hair, so the Law—the Ten Commandments—reveals every sin, hangup, and skeleton in our closets. “Through the law we become conscious of our sin,” he says in chapter 3:20.
“All have sinned and fall short of the mark,” Paul concludes in Romans 3:23. But then he moves us from the mirror to the mercy seat. We are justified, saved, redeemed through the grace of God. We are forgiven, not because of who we are, but because of who God is. Jesus is the mercy seat, Paul says in 3:25. The mercy seat was the exact place in the Temple where the sacrifice of atonement took place. The seat of mercy is where God promised to meet God’s people and demonstrate his mercy and forgiveness—his GRACE—toward them. That piece of furniture, along with that ritual and Temple have now been replaced once for all by Jesus Christ. freely by God’s grace, he insists, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, apart from works of the law. Saved by grace.
Having been saved by the grace of God, we live by FAITH in God’s promise. And this is hard, Paul admits. In chapters 4 through 11 he lays out the challenges and obstacle to living by faith: suffering happens, after all; and death; and grief; and doubt; and guilt and shame; and stinkin’ thinking; addiction; broken homes and hearts; cancer; religious and political discord. To live by faith is to trust God’s promise—no matter how bad it gets or how distant God feels.
God’s promise is so strong, so certain, Paul says, that we are “more than conquerors through Him who loves us.” Paul is convinced that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, no anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are saved by grace alone. We live by faith alone.
And so, filled with the New Wine that is the Holy Spirit freely poured out on us and in us through Baptism and the gospel, we embody and extend God’s hesed love to the world. We offer ourselves for the sake of the world, just like Jesus did. Romans 12-15 is exhortation after exhortation to humility, kindness, compassion, peacemaking, withholding judgment, getting along with others. “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” says Romans 13:14, “and do not think about how to gratify the sinful self.”
“Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ welcomes you, in order to glorify God.” Christ who welcomes sinners and eats with them. We come to his table. We eat his body and blood. And we receive, accept, welcome others. This is hesed love. This is what Yahweh God requires of us. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” Paul concludes in 15:13, which is another way of summarizing the gospel: Saved by grace alone, we live by faith alone, overflowing with the Spirit of love for one another, our neighbors, and the world.
This is why we preach and teach the whole Bible, not just a few verses here or there that allow me to feel good about myself at the expense of someone else. Because the book of Romans is one of the clearest and loudest presentations of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ as you’ll ever find.
And it brings me to this final chapter 16. I’ll warn you, that it is a lengthy list of weird sounding names. But I want to read it, and as I do, see if you notice anything surprising or unusual.
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon 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 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.
Paul gives a shout out to 29 people in these 16 verses. That’s a lot. One obvious reason is that Paul wants to recognize his financial sponsors. It’s like when you give to a charity and they list your name as a “silver donor” or “gold club giver.” Everyone likes to see their name in print. Fundraising 101. Paul wants to honor those who had already signed up, were already on his email list, were already on board to help him with his upcoming missionary trip to Spain.
But there’s more, I think. Of the 29 listed, ten are women. That’s surprising, isn’t it? Especially coming from the apostle Paul, who had written in an earlier letter to the church in Corinth how he believed women should be silent, that women should not be in church leadership, and that women were supposed to be under the authority of men. Why bother listing women at all? What happened between the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in 55 AD and when he writes Romans, in 57 AD?
Well, for one thing, he moves to Corinth. He writes to the Romans from Corinth. And when he gets to Corinth, I imagine that the church there might have told Paul that, hey, we got your letter, and there is someone you should meet. And they introduce him to a woman named Phoebe from Cenchraea, just a few miles up from Corinth.
And this woman makes such an impression on Paul that now, two years later, Paul concludes the letter to the Romans with this commendation of this woman named Phoebe. He calls her “our sister.” He refers to her as a deacon, a leader of the church in Cenchraea. He asks the Romans to receive her in the Lord, in a way worthy of God’s people. She is the one who is going to bring and present Paul’s letter to the Romans (can’t do that without talking in church). “Give her any help SHE may need from YOU,” Paul says, “for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.”
Here's the thing: That word “benefactor” in the Greek, is literally the word used for a woman who has authority over others. Phoebe is, in Paul’s eyes, one with authority, called to leadership in the church, the best person for the job of delivering Paul’s letter to Rome. That is amazing.
First, this chapter of Romans invites us to celebrate the gifts and calling of ALL the church—women and men, young and old, insiders and outsiders. I’m proud of being part of the ELCA and it’s faithfulness to the scriptures and the Holy Spirit: recognizing, encouraging, and sharing the gifts of all people—men, women, and everyone in between!
Second, this good news is for you, O Listener! Maybe you’ve been looking in that mirror a long time, and all you can see are the scars and blemishes and grey hairs. But God sees a precious child of God. God sent Jesus into the world to live and die along with us, to show us the extent of God’s love—welcoming outsiders, forgiving and feeding, laying down his life for the sake of the sheep. Laying down his life for you. This is the promise of God. You are loved. You are forgiven. You are held in the hesed love of God.
And third, as your pastor and community faith leader, I guess I need to affirm publicly that when we say everyone is welcome at Faith, we mean everyone. We welcome everyone as Christ has welcomed us. We are all guests by the grace of God. I say this because I received a communication from another pastor in town who was urging me to join with other churches in town to voice opposition to the city of Shelton recognizing LGBTQIA+ Pride Month. As though some of us are better or more deserving of respect? As though some of us are created in God’s image and some of us aren’t?
So, for the record, Faith welcomes those who count themselves as members of the LGBTQIA+ community, because God welcomes ALL. And those letters? They stand for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer, Intersexual, Asexual, and “plus.” The whole gender thing is certainly complicated, and I don’t have all the answers. But if Jesus is willing to eat with questionable characters and complicated creatures like you and me, then maybe you and I can be open to listening to the stories of members of the LGBTQIA+ community in Mason County. All we need to remember is that we are all saved by grace alone, to live by faith alone, to share the hesed of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for the sake the world, to the glory of God.
To the glory of God. That’s how Paul ends his letter to the Romans, and so I’ll let Paul have the last word today. In Bible terms, this is called a “doxology,” a word of praise to God, and the book of Romans ends like this:
Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith— 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.
And, like the book of Romans, I can’t think of a better way to end this sermon series: to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thanks for listening today. To learn more about the gospel or about getting connected to Faith, go to our website, www.faithshelton.org. Please “like” us, subscribe, donate, or sign-up for our newsletter. You can subscribe to this podcast on most podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple, and Google. Chas, thanks for your production work on this podcast every week. May God bless you…