Ted Grimsrud

Sermon preached at Shalom Mennonite Congregation—January 11, 2015—Romans 2:1-29

The Bible at times, can be pretty, um, shall we say, “realistic” or “earthy,” sometimes embarrassingly so. For example, what’s going on with Lot and his daughters after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Or the way King David coped when he was “old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes he could not get warm” (1 Kings 1:2). Not to mention the story after story of gruesome violence that all too often goes into very bloody detail. I won’t give more detailed examples, that would too embarrassing….

An “earthy” ritual

And then there is one of the central rituals in the entire story—one with enormous symbolic power in both the Old and New Testaments—the ritual of circumcision, a ritual I generally prefer not to think about too explicitly. It seems to me that this ritual, both in the Bible and in contemporary life, is problematic on several levels. But the Bible obviously sees circumcision as extraordinarily meaningful. And it remains present throughout the story—often on the deeper metaphorical level.

The Apostle Paul thought about circumcision a great deal. He makes it a key image in his wrestling with the life of faith. It’s in the middle of the discernment work as his community of Jesus followers sought to relate their Jewish tradition to the influx of new believers who weren’t Jews.

Paul could be pretty earthy himself on occasion, such as when he wrote about conflicts concerning circumcision and its weighty symbolic legacy. In his letter to the Galatians, he gets salty when he writes about people he believed were disastrous teachers. They legalistically tried to impose circumcision on new, non-Jewish converts to Christianity. This is what Paul wrote: “Whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty…. If I were still preaching legalistic circumcision I would not be persecuted by other Jews like I am…. I wish those who unsettle you, instead of just circumcising, would castrate themselves” (Gal 5:11-12). Continue reading →