Romans 11:1-2a, 13-36
“Grafted In”
September 4, 2011 - Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

         “That one can go, and that one. Let’s keep this. We can take this off. I don’t think we need to do much up there.” Kent was standing with me in the driveway of Kennedy Middle School and we were looking at the hillside where nine of us worked last Saturday. He was pointing out the branches and blackberries and other brush we were going to cut and clear away, but also identifying a few small oak saplings and some ferns we wanted to save.

         The scene of Romans 11 is a little like our work at Kennedy. Paul wonders if God has simply trimmed away people who no longer part of his plan, rejected those who refused to believe in Jesus Christ. In particular, we hear him ask anxiously in verse 1, has God rejected Israel, His own chosen people? Is He ready to cut down the whole tree, a possibility Jesus pictured with a parable about a fig tree in Luke 13?

         Even if it’s just branches God is pruning, as Paul suggests later on in our text, the same sort of feelings trouble us like they troubled Paul. People we care about, family members we love, friends we’ve had forever—they walk away from the Lord, they reject faith in Christ, maybe even after believing for a long time, maybe after having been raised in a Christian home. Is that the end of the story? Has God rejected them? Are they going to be cut down and hauled off to the eternal mulch pile?

         It hurts. For some of us it’s parents or children who either never knew Jesus or aren’t walking with Him. My friend Jay told me about one of the Christian men who led him to Christ. He left his faith and his family. He joined a rock band and deserted his wife and children. Jay called him and asked him what happened to his relationship with Jesus and with his family. His friend said, “I don’t really think about that anymore.”

         We have a sense of what Paul is feeling here, that pain of those dear to us walking away from the love and grace of God. We know nothing of Paul’s family, who his parents were, whether he had any siblings. We can only guess that he might be agonizing about their eternal destiny like we would over our families.

         Yet Paul has bigger fish to fry than those individuals closest to him. He is worried about God’s plan for his whole nation. His biggest question is not whether God has rejected mother or father, brother or sister. It’s, “…has God rejected his people?” To that he confidently, even vehemently answers, “By no means!” His reason is that he himself is “an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.” He knows God has not turned completely away from Israel because God has not turned away from him.

         Even more, in the verses we’re skipping, Paul explains that God has never rejected all His people. Even at the worst times, even in Elijah’s day when they were killing prophets and tearing down God’s altars, God preserved a remnant, a small number who remained faithful to Him and to whom God remained faithful.

         Paul still needs to face the fact that most of his people did not believe in Jesus. They turned away from God when He came to them in the flesh. They had “eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear,” he quotes from Deuteronomy 29:4, when it came to perceiving God sending His own Son to die on the cross and rise again.

         So starting in verse 11, Paul lets us in on some of God’s plan in all this, God’s reason for allowing so many of the Jewish people to turn away from Jesus. It’s not a great surprise, because it’s what Paul has been saying was God’s plan all along: “But through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles.” God allowed the Jewish people to reject the Gospel so that the Gospel would have to go to the Gentiles.

         In the book of Acts we see that Paul’s own preaching fits this account. Whenever he arrived in a new city, he first found the Jewish section of town. He went to the synagogue. He shared Jesus with any Jews he could find first. Then, and only then, when they did not respond, or began to attack him, he turned to the Gentiles. Which fits with God’s ultimate purpose to include everyone in His salvation. The blindness and deafness of the Jewish population made it possible for everyone else to hear the Good News.

         But as we zero in on the text we read this morning, we hear Paul warning us Gentiles that God’s plan is not as simple as just, “Israel out, Gentiles in.” It goes both ways. At the very same time Israel’s stubbornness is making it possible for Gentiles to come to Christ, the blessing of Gentiles makes Paul’s own people jealous say verses 11 and 13.

         It’s like offering a healthy snack of apple slices or carrot sticks to your 3-year old and having him push it away because it’s not the cookie he wanted. So you say, “O.K., I’ll give it to your sister instead.” And with a rush of sibling jealousy, those bits of apple become suddenly more desirable.

         It’s no accident God calls us His “children.” We act like children all the time. Paul knew his own people did too. By preaching the Gospel to Gentiles, some Jews would see the blessings of faith in Christ and want it too. Some would be saved as he says in verse 14. And that, he tells us in verse 15, would be the best of all. If it’s good that Jews rejected Jesus so that Gentiles got a chance, how much better when both Jews and Gentiles come together in Jesus. It’s so good, Paul says, it’s like, “life from the dead!”

         Verse 16 is a little parable about bread dough and a tree. Paul supposes that if the first part, the “first fruits” of grain, or the root of the tree, is “holy,” then that makes the whole batch, the whole tree holy. If Jewish people, out of whom Jesus came, turn to him in faith, won’t that make the whole Church, Jews and Gentiles together, even better, even stronger?

         The second picture, of a tree and its roots, grew in Paul’s mind as he contemplated all this. So in verses 17 to 24 we get an extended horticultural meditation on the growing of olive trees, in particular the practice of grafting branches from one tree onto another.

         There used to be a rose bush by our cabin in Arizona. When my grandmother was alive and well she watered it regularly through the summer. She covered it when frost was coming. But when she passed away, it was neglected. By the time I began to bring my wife Beth there that rose was looking pretty poor. The blooms were pale, scraggly, wild looking blossoms instead of the tight buds of brilliant color they used to be.

         I thought our rose bush just needed water, but Beth told me it was worse than that. Uncovered in winter and drying out in the summer, the best part of the bush had died. She explained that cultivated roses are all a combination of a wilder, hardier root stock with shoots of more beautiful, more colorful rose varieties grafted on. In the case of our bush, the lovelier grafts had died back and all that was left was rough, wild root stock. It didn’t matter how much water we poured on it, the blossoms would never be pretty again.

         The same was and still is true in cultivating all sorts of fruit and olive trees. Growers take a hardy main stem or trunk and roots and graft onto it shoots and branches of more delicate, but more desirable varieties. They might do this with a whole orchard, when a better, healthier, larger variety of apple or olive comes along. It’s too expensive and too difficult to replant all those trees, but you cut off the branches, save the healthy root and trunk, and graft in new sweeter apples, plumper, juicier olives.

         That’s how Paul pictures God working in His own orchard. He’s cut off Jewish branches so He can graft in Gentiles. Branches from Israel aren’t producing any more, but new ones from Greece and Rome and Asia Minor and Spain will sprout fresh buds and fruit.

         Yet, says Paul in verse 18, this is no reason for Gentiles to get proud, to “boast over the branches” that were broken off. As we’ve said a couple times now in reading through Romans, nothing here justifies any Christian prejudice against Jews, absolutely no basis for anti-Semitism of any sort. No, Paul is warning us against such attitudes because the grafting in of Gentiles is actually just the opposite of the normal practice.

         Root stock is normally the wild stuff. It’s sturdy, but its foliage and flowers and fruit is puny and ugly. So you graft nice cultivated stuff onto wild root stock. But verse 24 says that we Gentiles are wild olive branches being grafted onto a cultivated tree. We’re not the natural branches, we’re the wild ones. We’ve no reason to lord it over anyone. If we act up, if we become unfruitful, God will cut us off even quicker than He did His original people.

         What’s more, there’s good news for Jewish people and good news for all those we love who are cut-off branches. The end of verse 24 says, “how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.” Paul says God doesn’t cut off anyone with no hope at all. If a Jewish person turns to Christ, that person is back on the tree. The same is true of any Christian who seems to have fallen away, of any person who rejected faith in Jesus. God will graft them back in any time they return or come to faith.

         Which brings us to Paul’s summary of all this in verse 25, that God has been working in mysterious ways. How one plant can be grafted on another is wonderful and mysterious enough, but God’s work with people is even more a mystery, but there it is: “a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.” In His mysterious plan, God allowed some of His people to fall away, so that He could fill up His Church with everyone who belongs in it, Gentiles and Jews both.

         Which leads us then to verse 26, which has been incredibly misunderstood, “And so all Israel will be saved…” You can go wrong here one of two ways. You can interpret this to mean every person of Israelite descent will be saved, regardless of whether they’ve believed in Jesus. That’s the liberal mistake. Or you can go wrong in a conservative direction and believe the dispensational, Left Behind story that God is going to save Jews left behind after the rapture, after Jesus returns, collects His Church, and leaves the rest of the world to rot. That story makes for exciting novels, maybe a sensational movie or two, but it’s not good interpretation of Scripture.

         Paul told us all along what he means here. Remember last week, verse 12 of chapter 10, “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all”? Remember chapter 9 verses 6 and 7, “For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all Abraham’s children are his true descendants”? And remember way back in chapter 2 verses 28 and 29, “a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly… Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly…”?

         Faith in Jesus Christ redefines “Israel.” It’s no longer the literal, physical descendants of Abraham. It’s the people who live by faith in Jesus. And, says Paul, God is going to save all of them. That’s what it means to say now that “all Israel will be saved.” That’s why God waits for “the full number of Gentiles to come in.” It’s exactly so that He can save all of who Israel has now become, whether Jews or Gentiles. God has always planned to save this whole tree. It’s just that now it has some new branches.

         And there is absolutely no reason for anyone to get cocky, no reason for anyone to boast. “All Israel will be saved,” because “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.” “And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” As we heard from the beginning of Romans, both Jews and Gentiles are sinners. God loves the Jewish people. Verse 29 says “the gifts and calling of  God are irrevocable.” But Gentiles were disobedient and Israelites were disobedient and everyone needs mercy.

         It’s still and always all about God’s mercy. No one deserves this salvation. No one has earned it. Verse 32 says, “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” In other words, He’s allowed all people go their own way, so that He could welcome them all back through the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.

         Verses 33 to 36 are a doxology, a little hymn of praise to God. It celebrates the depth of God’s wisdom and knowledge and how far beyond our understanding. Paul’s given us a reason why God let Israel go wrong. It was so we Gentiles could be brought in. But in the end he can’t answer all our questions. Why has He let us all run wild only to bring us back by mercy through faith? Why did He start with the root of Israel only to graft in Gentiles two thousand years later? In a colloquial phrase, “What was God thinking?” No one knows. “For who has known the mind of the Lord?” says verse 34.

         We only know the result of God’s thinking by the question of verse 35, “Or who has given a gift to him to receive a gift in return?” No one ever truly deserved God’s love and salvation. No one ever gave enough to God to make God obligated in return. Everything we have, especially forgiveness from sin and eternal life Jesus, are gifts that come to us from Him. So verse 36 concludes, “For from him and through him and to him are all things.”

         But that is all good news. If you are worrying about your own salvation, it’s the good news that it doesn’t depend on you, only on Him. It doesn’t depend on how well you’ve lived, but on the fact that Jesus lives. If you are worried about someone else, it’s the good news that ultimately it’s not about what you did for or taught or told that person. It’s not about what he or she has done. It depends on what God has done for him or for her.

         God will graft in anyone who turns to Him. That’s the truth to which Paul clings like sticky tree sap. In and through Jesus Christ God gives mercy and hope to anyone who will receive it. It’s there for you. It’s there for those you love. “To him be the glory forever.”

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj