Romans Disarmed :: A Salon Discussion

So we’ve been running a series on Romans over here at empire.remixed. Did you know? Many of the pieces published here on the blog were originally delivered in sermon format throughout last year at Wine Before Breakfast.

WBB is a eucharistic community that meets weekly on Tuesday mornings at 7.30 am during the school year in Wycliffe College’s chapel, and sponsored by the CRC Campus Ministry.

Some of our favourite posts from that series include We’re All in This Together on Romans 3, Creation’s Groan on Romans 8, To Hell With Romans 13 on (you guessed it) Romans 13  and Letters From the Future on Romans 14.

And now, we’re happy to announce our second in a series of Salon Discussions, this time featuring two prominent biblical scholars with expertise in Pauline Theology and the book of Romans. Behold:

Remixing the Empire

by Brian Walsh

A reflection on John 18:28-19:30
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered March 18, 2008

Prophet, Priest … and now King. Our Lenten journey at Wine Before Breakfast stayed in one place and at one time this year. We spent our Lent meditating on John 13 to 17, the “Upper Room” discourse on Thursday night of Holy Week.

And in the upper room with the disciples we have met Jesus the priestly prophet who demonstrates what kind of a community his disciples are called to be through the washing of their feet.

We have then sat at the feet of the one who teaches us not to fear because he knows where this story is going; who gives a new commandment that fulfills all the commandments; who retells Israel’s story of wine and vines so that it applies to the community he leaves behind. And then we listened in as Jesus exercised his priestly ministry in a prayer, a high priestly prayer, for his disciples … for us.

Lament with a Purpose

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

And laments have a purpose, and laments have a cost
A requiem playing that gathers the lost
It sometimes tastes sour, this sweetness of hope
When the blizzards are raging on this lovers slope
Yet I don’t want to freeze, inside or out
For it’s you that dissolves the cold walls of doubt

- Martyn Joseph, “Turn Me Tender” from the album Deep Blue

Tonight is a night for laments. As I sit here in my home, after a dogged afternoon of writing prayers for an ecumenical Stations of the Cross experience tomorrow in St. James Town, I feel tired, worn.

Will You Take My Cup?

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

A reflection on Romans 15:1-13
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered March 13, 2007

Jesus cries out,
battered and bruised
in the garden of torment, sweat, and blood he prays:

Take this cup from me.
Will you take the cup?

To Whom Shall We Live (or Die)?

by Rachel Tulloch

A Reflection on Romans 14:1-12
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered February 27, 2007

Upon first glance, we might wonder whether Paul doesn’t sound like a modern liberal in this passage with his commands about accepting diversity and not passing judgment.

However, while tolerance has become the buzz word today for accepting differences and not judging, the Christian ethic goes much further than this - it is an ethic of welcome. “Welcome the one whose faith is weak”.

I can tolerate someone whom I do not love, but a community committed to Christ opens its arms in welcome, embracing a diversity of ethnicities, classes, opinions and practices and breaking down those barriers that divide.

Letters from the Future

by Stuart Basden (via)

A reflection on Romans 14.13-23
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered March 6, 2007

A letter found shredded in a garbage dump. Dated March 6, 2048.

Dear Paul,

I write this to you to inspire you with hope. I am near the end of my life and I remember when life was much different, when we had considerably more freedom, and when global devastation seemed so far off. But you are young and may have many years ahead of you, so let me now pass on to you some of the history of the past few decades.

I am one of the more conservative of our community, although I do not always allow these colours to show. Times change, and so do words. Things that were once wonderful and life-giving can become stifling and deadly.

To Hell With Romans 13

by Brian Walsh

A reflection on Romans 13:1-7
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered February 6, 2007

Let me put my cards on the table right from the outset. I am sick and tired of hearing Christians who have something at stake in the status quo of economic, social and political systems of injustice appealing to Romans 13 to legitimate unswerving obedience to oppressive and deceitful regimes.

I speak a fair bit in the US and whenever I am addressing the question of the meaning of the gospel for our political lives someone invariably asks, “yes, but what about Romans 13?”

What about it? I reply.

We’re all in this Together

by Rachel Tulloch

A reflection on Romans 3:9-31
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered October 10, 2006

It was all over the news when the gunman entered the one-room Amish schoolhouse killing five girls and wounding several more. This was evil. I remember clearly when I was told that four men had grabbed my 14 yr. old friend on her way home and dragged her to a deserted field to assault her.

This was evil. When we think about events like this which seem all too frequent in our world, evil is easy to identify and easy to become angered at. We look at those who commit these horrible things and quote along with Paul,

Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery are in their paths,
and the way of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Creation’s Groan

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

A reflection on Romans 8:18-39
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered November 21, 2006

Dishes clanging, water splashing, people yelling up and down the hallway. As the floor is finally mopped clean, the instruments put away and the water let out the drain, the chaos is suddenly intruded upon by a mournful silence.

Silence is never to be found in this city, and yet today silence has found us here. Patients gather ’round the bed, prayers are lifted like incense to heaven as tears roll drearily down our cheeks. A father. A son.

Now Spirit.

From the centre of the semi-circular crowd, a young man leads in a prayer of thanksgiving. He leads us in a prayer of lament, for this our dearly departed. Lying in our midst, body covered in hand-woven linens, flies circling and spirit fleeting, we remember who he was to us. We recall the few things we were able to do for him while he breathed his last breaths in this place.

Targum :: Romans 1.1-17

by Brian Walsh

Paul, a slave of Jesus the Messiah, called to a ministry of authority in a world that is suspicious of all authority, set apart in a world that attempts to construct a bland consumerist sameness, proclaimer of nothing less then the gospel God, the good news of God’s radical kingdom.

This gospel, this kingdom proclamation, is nothing new. It was promised by the Hebrew prophets and it is the news of Jesus – the Son of God. This Jesus is a blood descendant of the infamous King David but was pronounced to be God’s Son by the explosive power of the Spirit of all that is pure, all that is deeply right, when he rose from the dead.

He isn’t the Son of God because he was elected, or because he has the most economic power, or because he commands great armies. No, he is the Son of God because he blew apart the power of death.