Romans Disarmed

Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice

Keesmaat, Sylvia C., Walsh, Brian J.

• Verlag: Brazos Press
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493418367
• Thema: Theologie & Religion
• Thema: Biblische Studien

Globalization. Homelessness. Ecological and economic crisis. Conflicts over sexuality. Violence. These crisis-level issues may seem unique to our times, but Paul's Letter to the Romans has something to say to all of them. Following their successful Colossians Remixed, Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh unpack the meaning of Romans for its original context and for today. The authors demonstrate how Romans disarms the political, economic, and cultural power of the Roman Empire and how this ancient letter offers hope in today's crisis-laden world. Romans Disarmed helps readers enter the world of ancient Rome and see how Paul's most radical letter transforms the lives of the marginalized then and now. Intentionally avoiding abstract debates about Paul's theology, Keesmaat and Walsh move back and forth between the present and the past as they explore themes of home, economic justice, creation care, the violence of the state, sexuality, and Indigenous reconciliation. They show how Romans engages with the lived reality of those who suffer from injustice, both in the first century and in the midst of our own imperial realities.

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Reading Romans and Disarming Empire

Joy and Sorrow in the City of Refuge

It takes fewer than two bars for everyone to know what’s up. Fewer than eight beats and anyone who hasn’t been dancing joins the throng. Hands raised, feet moving, smiles of recognition, faces of joy.

There we were. Rich and poor, Indigenous, white, Black, and Asian, well-housed and homeless, straight, gay, trans, and bi, young and old, male and female, all dancing till kingdom come.

You see,

There’s a city across a river

and it’s shining from within.

People are dancing on the ramparts

beckoning to you, come on in,

to the city of refuge.1

It’s another night at Grace’s. Another night of music and art at Sanctuary in Toronto.2 Another night of celebration.

It is the thirtieth anniversary of Red Rain, the rock and blues band that has always been at the heart of this inner-city church. And as the band launches into “City of Refuge,” the Sanctuary Community dances with deep longing and enthusiastic joy, with faith and doubt, with tears of loss and hope, and with a confidence that this dance floor is a city of refuge, even as we long for the liberation of that other city, across the river, that’s shining from within. This night we are dancing on the ramparts beckoning everyone to come on in to the city of refuge.

We didn’t have to bribe the doorman to get into this party. We didn’t have to be one of the beautiful people to get into this club. We didn’t need to have a ticket or dress a certain way or know the right people. There were no reserved seats and no preferential treatment for certain folks. And on the dance floor, the only thing that got special attention was the enthusiasm of your dancing, there for all to enjoy.

The joy was palpable. As we belted out that chorus together about a city across a river that’s shining from within, the shining seemed to come directly from us. There was light, liberation, and deep, deep joy on that dance floor.

But just a few feet from the dancing throng, something else was happening. Just on the edge of the dance floor, there was deep, deep grief. Frenchy had been the first guy on the floor that evening. There he was, all by himself, dancing and beckoning others to join him. Frenchy was grooving to the music, hands outstretched, embodying joy. And there he stayed throughout the first set and into the second.

Until something happened. We don’t know what it was. Maybe a line in a song hit him hard. Maybe he just remembered something. But in the midst of his joy, sorrow surfaced. Frenchy sat on the sidelines and wept. Surrounded by friends who were holding him in their arms, Frenchy wept and wept and wept.

And somehow, though he could no longer dance, we all knew that he was still in the city of refuge. Whether he was on the dance floor in exuberant joy or collapsed in a chair in profound grief, this party, this community, this place remained a city of refuge for him. He was safe in his joy and safe in his sorrow.

When the apostle Paul describes the character of the Christian community living at the heart of the Roman Empire, he writes, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). Frenchy asked us to do both of those things that night at Sanctuary: join him on the dance floor, embracing the joy of life in music and liberating dance, and then sit with him, embracing him in his grief, loss, pain, and hurt.

While hope is born of joy, grief is the child of shattered hope. When the apostle offers his first doxology in the epistle to the Romans, he writes, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15:13). This comes at the end of a passage calling the Roman Christians to be a community of radical welcome. Only in such expansive hospitality will the “gentiles” rejoice. Welcome begets joy and joy begets hope. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may abound in hope.” We need joy, the apostle is intimating, if we are to have hope. And the joy on the dance floor that night—Frenchy’s joy and everyone else’s—proved Paul’s point. While we were dancing together, even though we all knew of the hard evidence against joy in our city, in our own lives, and all around us, the joy of the dance filled us with hope nonetheless.

Until it didn’t. At a certain point, the joy of music and dance could not be sustained and the sorrow took over. Frenchy and the rest of the community had good cause for sorrow, good cause for losing hope. So many had died in the past months. So many had been beaten down, bruised and abused by a life of poverty, alcoholism, disease, violence, drug abuse, and homelessness. So many had borne the scars, the festering wounds of racism, oppression, and cultural genocide. And so many of those who had been lost were Indigenous brothers and sisters.

Each death hurts, but there was one death that was still very close and raw in the community that night. Greg “Iggy” Spoon had died on March 17, 2015, one day short of his forty-seventh birthday.3 This First Nations brother had seen some hard times. He was bruised and broken, acquainted with grief.4 His life was plagued with alcoholism and other substance abuse, homelessness, violence, and trouble with the police. And yet Iggy was recognized in the Sanctuary Community as an artist, a teacher, and a friend. It was never easy with our brother Iggy, but something about this man made him a respected member of the community. When he was admitted into the intensive care unit in early March, the community set up a twenty-four-hour vigil. Iggy, who had spent so much of his life on the streets, was never alone. And when he died, he was surrounded by some twenty friends and family, so deeply was Iggy loved and honored. His memorial service was a standing-room-only event. Frenchy was Iggy’s close friend.

This party, the thirtieth anniversary of Red Rain, happened with the pain of Iggy’s death still fresh in everyone’s hearts.5 The release, two days earlier, of the report of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission only deepened the sense of hurt and betrayal.6 This prestigious body openly declared that Canada’s policy of forceful removal of Indigenous children to place them in church-based residential schools amounted to nothing less than an act of cultural genocide. This was an important, yet deeply painful, truth. This wasn’t a social “issue” for us. This was personal. This was about Iggy and Chris and James and Fred and so many other members of the community. This report described a shared grief in our midst.

You need a great capacity for joy if you are to sustain life in the midst of such sorrow. But any “joy” that averts its gaze from sorrow, any “joy” that will not embrace the grief and hurt at the heart of things, is cheap sentimentality at best, an emotional cover-up and lie at worst. And if you are going to look sorrow in the face, then you will need to name names. You will need to have the courage, audacity, and prophetic honesty to name the source of that pain, and to name the forces that will strip us of hope.

Our friends at Sanctuary understand this better than most. And so Red Rain introduced a new song that night. It is called “Iggy’s Song.” Slowing things down and moving the show to a place of quieter introspection, Red Rain front man and Sanctuary pastor Greg Paul spoke of joy and sorrow, of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and of Iggy. And then lead guitarist Dan Robins began to sing the song that he wrote, starting with the chorus:

I saw you shaking your head

I clearly heard what you said

Another f***ing drunk Indian better off dead

You don’t know s*** about me7

Dan Robins isn’t a man given to profanity. He’s usually the guy with the innocent, though slightly off-the-wall, humor. But not tonight. Taking Iggy’s voice, and the voice of so many of our other Indigenous friends, Dan named the attitude of dismissal and disgust that our friends face every day on the streets of Toronto and throughout the Americas. And he named the reality that shaped that attitude: “You don’t know s*** about me.”

The song proceeds to educate the hearer about “the crack and meth and Listerine / the che...