Reflections on Romans 12:9-21 by Nathan Nettleton

If you wanted a local illustration of the ugliness that often characterises human behaviour, then you need look no further than our Federal Parliament in the last week. On Wednesday, the government and the opposition managed to negotiate their way to an agreement on a matter of policy. Now whatever you happen to think about the merits, or lack thereof, of their particular agreement (on youth wages), you’d think that them agreeing on an outcome would generally be a good thing. You could even be excused for idealistically thinking that the major parties, with a bit of give and take on each side, would probably be able to reach a negotiated agreement on matters of policy reasonably often, and that when they did there’d be a heightened sense of mutual respect and cooperation. What actually happened on Wednesday was that no sooner had they voted together on the legislation than they had a vicious brawl over which of them could claim to be the winner in the negotiations. Peter Reith and Kim Beazley traded insults over each others weakness and capitulation. Each side seemed determined to be able to portray themselves as the blood-splattered conquerors parading the dismembered bodies of their humiliated opponents. 

It was a graphic illustration of the sort of value systems that operate among those who reach the upper rungs on the ladders of power in this country. Treating other people with respect and dignity is seen as an exploitable weakness and humility is seen as a fatal flaw. Satisfaction is found, not from worthy goals achieved, but from the extent of the humiliation and defeat inflicted on your opponents. No wonder we have trouble getting people of wisdom, honour and integrity to accept nomination for positions of political leadership. And no wonder too that those who do, often end up succumbing to the prevailing culture of power and becoming just like all the rest. The likes of Aden Ridgeway deserve our fervent prayers.

What a contrast there is between the value systems we saw Peter Reith and Kim Beazley embodying and the sort of value system we see here in Paul’s list of exhortations to the church at Rome. Paul is now fleshing out what he said in the reading we heard last week. He encouraged us to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God and he warned us not to conform ourselves to the standards of this world, but to let God transform us inwardly by a complete change of our minds. Now he is describing what we will look like if that happens.

Let love be genuine. Compete only in showing honour to one another. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in suffering. Persevere in prayer. Extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who curse you. Overcome evil with good.

There’s actually about thirty statements in this list, and it reads a bit like Paul’s summary manifesto for Christian behaviour. There are a number of things that you will notice as you read it through a few times. One is the amount it has in common with the words of Jesus in the sermon on the mount. Both speak of the importance of humility, of hungering for righteousness, of peacemaking, of persevering under persecution. And most notably they share an almost identical teaching on how to respond to those who hate you. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” says Jesus. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them,” says Paul. “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.”

One of the things that has most struck me as I read this passage through is the overwhelmingly positive thrust of it. Christians have unfortunately managed to create for themselves an image of being “nay-sayers” – those whose behaviour is defined by what they don’t do, what they abstain from. “Christians don’t fornicate. They don’t gamble. They don’t drink or smoke.” If you went back a generation it was “Christians don’t dance, go to movies or wear make-up.” And yet this list is nothing like that.

By my count this passage contains a total of 22 positive exhortations and only 8 negative ones. And of the 8, in four of them the emphasis falls at least as heavily on the positive opposite that they are paired with – eg. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” The four remaining are “do not be haughty”, “do not claim to be wiser than you are”, “do not repay anyone evil for evil”, and “never avenge yourselves”. They are not exactly the sort of abstentions for which Christians have made a name for themselves. Wouldn’t it be great if when people heard that you were a Christian, instead of saying, “So you don’t drink”, they said, “So you’re not stuck up or vengeful”? And wouldn’t it be even better if the first things that came to their minds were things like love, peace, patience, perseverance, compassion and hospitality? Wouldn’t it be great if we were known more for what we stand for than what we stand against? The reign of God will be a lot closer to being fulfilled when the church is known for the joyous and life-giving things it does and the divisive and destructive things it abstains from, instead of for getting it the other way around.

Now that of course is all very easy to say. The real question is, “How do we go about growing into that vision?” Paul has started off by saying, “Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.” But complete changes of the mind don’t come easily, do they? The standards of the world around us have been imprinted into us ever since we were babies. In our day, unlike Paul’s, those values are now constantly reinforced using the most sophisticated and seductive media and marketing strategies. However much you might hunger for a completely renewed mind, unless you become a hermit the ways of your old mind are still going to be in your face pretty much every hour of every day.

We may well be a group of people who are committed to that complete change of mind and to supporting one another in living out the fruits of that renewed mind, the sort of fruits Paul lists here, but we generally only see each other for a couple of hours a week and the marketeers are at us all the time. In Paul’s day, not only did they not have to cope with the sophisticated marketing of competing values, but the church met together daily to pray and learn and break bread together. We have probably a greater need for gathering to nurture our growth in faith and renewed values, and less opportunity to do it.

So where is the good news? If these values that Paul lists are just a matter of trying a bit harder than non-Christians to be a bit nicer, then I for one don’t hear any good news in that. That just sounds like a lot of effort for very little reward. And it doesn’t sound like a complete renewal of our minds – it just sounds a mixture of repression and play acting. I think that Paul is talking about something a lot more radical than that.

The complete renewing of your mind is made possible by your acceptance of the grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ. It is a possibility that you are baptised into. But although there may be some real changes that happen right there at that beginning point, the complete inner transformation comes about over a period of time and requires our active cooperation and participation. In the gospel reading we heard (Matthew 16:21-28) Jesus spoke of how we only find true life when we let go of the life we have. Cling onto the life you have and it’s all you’ll ever have. The greatest obstacle to our freedom is our tendency to cling onto our chains.

If we can let go and follow Jesus in the pathways of transformation, we will be renewed within, and we will see these sorts of fruits that Paul speaks of growing within us. The questions we need to asking ourselves now are about identifying those pathways to transformation.

• What are the things we can be doing, individually and together that will enable us to embrace and nurture the growth of Christ’s values, even in the midst of the constant reinforcement of their opposites?

• Are there specific actions that we can apply ourselves to (not necessarily mentioned in the Romans list) that are specifically intended to be transformative in us?

• Which of the things in Paul’s list do we find most difficult in today’s world? And how can we be supporting each other in growing into those things?

• How does this passage compare to the way we see ourselves and those around us? Think of it as a description of a person. Which attributes are most true of you? Which do you most want to grow in? How would you like to be described by others at the end of your life? What can you be doing that will help you to achieve that transformation?

That should be enough to get some good discussion happening in our groups! I look forward to hearing what comes out of them.