Romans 12:1-8 Commentary

The biblical concept of “sacrifice” [thysian*] (Romans 12:1) is nearly as old as sin. Genesis 4:2-5 describes perhaps the first sacrifices offered to God by Cain and Abel. Many Old Testament figures, including Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob also offered sacrifices to God. The books of Exodus and Leviticus portray sacrifices as a common element of God’s Israelite people’s worship.

Yet while this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson also refers to thysian, it doesn’t speak of the animal or produce God called God’s Old Testament people to sacrifice to God. It instead speaks of living human beings as sacrifices. “I urge [parakalo] you,” Paul tells his “brothers and sisters” in verse 1, “in view of God’s mercy [oiktirmon] to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.”

While both Israel and Rome’s pagan neighbors sacrificed to their gods, the apostle’s summons echo specifically Old Testament sacrifices. It, after all, suggests the grounds of this sacrifice is God’s oiktirmon (“mercy” or, more literally, “compassion”). God’s dearly beloved people have always offered sacrifices, whether of a part of the creation or of ourselves, because we understand God and God’s mercy are even greater than our sinfulness.

Our great God has, in fact, graciously met God’s adopted children’s great sinfulness with the gift of God’s only natural Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He sacrificed his life so that his adopted siblings might have life. We no longer have to kill things to demonstrate the depth of our sorrow for our sin and need for God’s mercy. Christ allowed Roman authorities to kill him for our sake.

This almost unimaginable act of mercy ties this Lesson to the Romans 11:33-36 that immediately precedes it. In fact, wise preachers will consider including those verses in their Epistolary Lesson reading. There, after all, Paul sings of humanity’s limits and God’s greatness. He then concludes with his almost breathless doxology: “For from [the Lord] and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (36).

It’s almost as if Paul then goes on to ask in Romans 12, “What’s left to do for God’s people for whom God has done everything?” His answer? Nothing but offer God our daily lives as thanksgiving for God’s greatness.

Paul adds two perhaps surprising comments on those offerings. They are, he writes in verse 1b, “holy [hagian] and pleasing [euareston] to God.” Because of Christ’s self-sacrifice, God views our sacrifices of ourselves to God not as the flawed gifts they are, but as acceptable to God.

What’s more, the apostle continues, this offering of ourselves is our “true and proper [logiken] worship [latreian]” (1c). God’s no longer interested in the sacrifice of animals or produce as part of Jesus’ followers’ worship of God. God instead longs for God’s adopted children’s daily worship to include the offering of our whole selves to God.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson suggests that offering involves a humble life of service to God and our neighbor. Yet our willingness to offer such a living sacrifice requires, first of all, a change in Jesus’ followers’ natural mindset.

“Do not conform [syschematizasthe] to the pattern of this world [aioni toutou],” Paul encourages his Roman readers in verse 2, “but be transformed [metamorphousthe] by the renewing [anakainose] of your mind.” The NRSV translation of aioni toutou as “this age” may more accurately reflect what the apostle is rejecting. After all, it’s not so much the world God created and loves as the natural cultural mindset that God calls Jesus’ friends to join God in rejecting.

After all, our culture is self-centered. People who adopt its mindset embrace that self-centeredness. Paul calls Jesus’ friends to let the Spirit help us to reject that selfishness and, instead, adopt a self-giving attitude. The Message paraphrases this admonition as “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.”

When the Spirit transforms our self-centered mindset into an outward, God-focused one, as Paul goes on to write in verse 2b, “Then you will be able to test and approve [dikomazein] what God’s will is – his good [agathon], pleasing [euareston] and perfect [teleion] will.” When the Spirit adjusts God’s adopted children’s perspective and attitude, we can know not just what our culture desires but also what God’s desires. That will alone, after all, is what God created us to learn and adopt.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, an adjusted mindset is realistic about human limitations. “Do not think more highly [hyperphronein par] of yourself than you ought [dei phronein],” Paul writes to Rome’s Christians in verse 3, “But rather think of yourself [phronein] with sober judgment [sophronein].”

This may seem like little more than a summons to not have a loftier opinion of ourselves than we deserve. So Romans 12;3 may initially seem to do little more than call us to be humble. But in verses 4-5 Paul gives our realistic assessment of ourselves a communal context. There he reminds the Christians in Rome, “Just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function [praxin], so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others [allelon mele].”

The apostle realizes members of communities easily assess as well as emphasize the weaknesses of other members of the community. Even Jesus’ friends are naturally tempted to deduce we’re somehow more valuable than our Christian neighbors.

Paul implies that’s sheer nonsense. When God rescued God’s dearly beloved people, God saved us for and into community. While Christians are diverse, the Spirit unites us so thoroughly that we can think of ourselves as one body. While God has graced us in unique ways, we allelon mele (“belong”) to each other. So Jesus’ followers ask the Spirit to help us think no more highly of ourselves than we think of our adopted brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

That assertion shapes the rest of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. “We have different gifts [charismata], according to the grace [charin] given [dotheisan] to each of us,” Paul notes in verses 6-8. “If your gift is prophesying [propheteian], then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving [diakonian], then serve; if it is teaching [didaskon], then teach; if it is to encourage [parakalon], then give encouragement; if it is giving [metadidous], then give generously [haploteti]; if it is to lead [proistamenos], then do it diligently [spoude]; if it is mercy [eleon], do it cheerfully [hilaroteti].”

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s preachers want to listen for the Spirit’s guidance as we consider how to proclaim this invitation. We might choose to address and explore each gift individually or even highlight some of them. Preachers might, however, also choose to make some observation about verses’ 6-8’s summons.

Lest we turn this message into mere good advice, preachers want to note how the gifts Paul lists reflect God’s character and actions. These aren’t just virtuous actions. They also reflect God’s nature and activity. God, for instance, prophesies by speaking God’s truth to our world and us. God, what’s more serves God’s people by lavishing us with everything we need and more.

Preachers may also want to point out how our talents are charin (“graces”). They are God’s gifts to us. So effective Christian teachers, for example, have nothing about which to boast. The ability to teach well comes not from us, but from God. Paul implies generous givers didn’t create our own generosity. God graced us with it.

We might note, what’s more, that the use of those gifts is almost entirely outwardly focused. Jesus’ friends don’t primarily use our talents for encouragement to somehow build up ourselves. God graces us with that gift so that we can share it with people who need it. God graces us with so much mercy that we’re free to show mercy to our neighbors.

On top of all that, Paul’s list reminds his readers to use God’s gifts gladly rather than grudgingly. The Spirit equips us to be eager to prophesy by speaking God’s word of grace to the people around us. God’s dearly beloved people serve each other not because it’s our responsibility, but because we’re glad to imitate our Savior Jesus Christ in that way.

Wise people do what we can to care for our various body parts. In a similar way, Jesus’ followers do what we can to use the gifts God gives us to care for the other parts of Christ’s body that are our fellow Christians. In fact we long to use God’s gifts to us for the sake of all of our neighbors.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

The word oiktirmon (“mercy”) appears twice in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. That suggests the Spirit somehow intertwines God’s mercy with ours. Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour offers a dramatic example of human mercy (v.8) that grows out of God’s mercy (v.1).

Because Annie’s husband Jim took his own life, the Roman Catholic Church denies him a funeral mass and burial in a parish cemetery.  McDermott writes of how Jim’s widow “well understood that there would be no rules at all if there was no punishment for failure to follow them. Like any good Mother, the Church had to cuff its children when they misbehaved. Make the punishment fit the crime.

“He’d murdered himself and murdered something in her as well. Who could argue for leniency? Who could expect absolution? Sister St. Savor did, of course. But the woman … had a mad heart. Mad for mercy [italics added], perhaps.”