Grafted into Christ

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 7, 2014

Romans 11

Grafted into Christ

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you have six kids, how should you buy toys? Do you buy one toy and teach the kids to share? Or do you buy six toys? Or should you never buy them toys and wait for them to grow up and move out?

The answer, of couse, is none of the above, because no matter what you do, they are going to fight over toys. Those six kids could have six hundred toys each and they'd still fight over them. They'd fight because they're sinners, and when a sinner sees a toy that they just stepped on to get to their other toys, all it takes to get them grabbing is to see another kid with that old toy.

St. Paul hoped that some of this envy would kick in for the sake of his fellow Jews.

¹³I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry ¹⁴in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. Romans 11 niv

The Apostle Paul knew about people. He knew that jealousy is powerful. He reckoned that if the Jews saw the non-Jews being embraced by Jesus as His newly chosen people, the Jews would get jealous or curious or both, and start grabbing for some answers.

Just a bit earlier Paul wrote,

¹¹Rather, because of [the] transgression [of Jews, that is, their demand that Christ be crucified], salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. Romans 11 niv

Like trust-fund babies, these jealous Jews only cared about what they couldn't have. So instead of acting like a dismayed parent who only knows how to bribe their spoiled children, Paul shrewdly realized that it was better to cut his fellow Jews off and turned his attention to the adopted kids, the Gentiles (or as Jesus said, the family dogs!).

So Paul told the Gentiles—the adopted kids, or as Paul wrote here, the ingrafted branches—that he hoped the Jews would get jealous and get curious and get Christ and get saved.

Paul knew people. He also realized that even adopted kids can use their special position as a weapon against the natural-born children. And so Paul warned the Gentile, non-Jewish, believers not to get a big head.

¹⁷If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, ¹⁸do not boast over those branches. Romans 11 niv

Paul used the image of a tree. He mentioned broken-off branches; by these he meant the Jews who had rejected Jesus as the Savior. He also talked about the wild olive shoots; they are the Gentiles who trusted in Jesus Christ. They had been grafted into the tree by Holy Baptism. Before you graft on a dirty branch to a clean tree, you need to clean it first. And in Baptism, Christ cleaned them up and attached them to His tree.

From that moment on, these Gentiles believers enjoyed the nourishing sap from the olive root. By this Paul meant the Gospel Sacraments, the preaching of forgiveness in Christ and the eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of our sin.

In verse 26 Paul wrote,

²⁶And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. Romans 11 niv

By all Israel Paul meant the entire tree of life to which all believers are attached, whether Jew or Gentile by human blood. By the blood of the Deliverer all Israel is saved. By His blood He turns godlessness away from Jacob's children.

Whether you are one of Jacob's children (a Jew) or not (a Gentile), we all have turned away from the true God and—depending on the person—mindlessly or carefully worship ourselves. But Paul wrote,

²⁹God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. ³⁰Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, ³¹so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. ³²For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Romans 11 niv

Christ loved these broken-branch Jews and these sticks-in-the-mud Gentiles. He wanted them to be saved.

Kids fight over toys; adults fight over much more important and foolish things. Yet Christ has mercy on you, kid or adult, Jew or Gentile, because you are one of His precious branches which He has grafted to Himself.

⁵I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing . ⁶If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned . ⁷If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will , and it shall be done unto you. ⁸Herein is my Father glorified , that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. John 15 niv

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.