The theme of Advent week 3 in the Making Christmas Meaningful Again (Advent Conspiracy) series is Give More. This sermon is by Pastor Der Lor.

What does it look like to make Christmas meaningful again? How do we resist the powerful forces of consumerism and consumption?

In week two of Advent, Emily Morrison explores the theme of “Spend Less” with a sermon from I Timothy 6.

This Advent, Roots is joining with hundreds of other congregations in conspiring against consumerism in our Christmas celebrations. The first theme of Advent Conspiracy is “Worship Fully.” In this sermon, Pastor T. C. explores the way we are formed by embodied practices. The apostle Paul teaches us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices” to have our “minds renewed.” Every day in a thousand subtle ways we are being formed into individualistic consumers. Corporations don’t aim their ads primarily at our minds, they seek to capture our hearts. To worship fully this Advent, let us participate in holistic worship practices that focus our hearts and minds on Jesus. To do this we need one another. To worship fully, let us worship Jesus holistically together.

In this sermon, Pastor Der teaches on Paul’s argument to the so-called ‘Weak’ and ‘Strong’ factions in the house churches of Rome about how both Jewish and Gentile disciples are justified by “faith” in the same way that Abraham was.

In Romans 1.18–32, Paul employs language that echoes common Jewish stereotypes of Gentiles as particularly depraved and deserving of God’s wrath. Examples of this rhetoric can be found in Wisdom of Solomon. But Paul uses this rhetoric not to reinforce division between the Jewish and Gentile disciples in Rome. No! Paul uses it as a rhetorical trap to expose prejudice and teach against judgment.

After having completed the 12-16 and 9-11 sections of Romans, we are leapfrogging over the 5-8 section to the 1-4 section, and returning to the foundation of the Christian faith: The Gospel. In Romans chapter 1, we discover that the Gospel Paul preached wasn’t the ‘Romans Road,’ but was instead about Jesus, not us; Good News, not good advice; and not merely about saving our souls, but about changing everything.

In this sermon, Emily Morrison breaks down one of the most confusing and misunderstood passages in all of the New Testament: Romans chapters 9-11. Paul is retelling the biblical narrative, reinterpreted in the light of who Jesus is and what he has done, for the sake of the unity of the church of Rome. The story of God’s redemptive purposes is surprisingly big enough to include both Israel and the Gentiles!

Romans chapter 9 has been misunderstood as a passage about individual election, predestination, and personal salvation. But Romans is not a book of abstract, systematic theology. Romans is a pastoral letter written to a church with factions along cultural and ethnic lines. Paul is writing to the so-called “Weak” and “Strong” to reframe the stories they’ve been living in. Privilege was an key part of what was driving these groups apart, dividing the Body of Christ.Today in the U.S., privilege also divides the Body of Christ. In a Post-Christendom society, many American Christians long to get back to the ‘good ol’ days’ when Christianity enjoyed pride of place in society. White Christians also struggle with understanding how their privilege operates and divides the church. Romans 9 is a challenge to our privilege that resonates for today.

Romans 13 is a famous text that has been used as a proof-text to justify state-sponsored violence for millennia. By reading Romans “backwards” (in light of the conflict between the factions in the house churches of Rome), we can more clearly see Paul’s purpose for writing this passage. Rather than sanctioning state-sponsored violence, Paul was transforming the zeal of the so-called “Weak” into love, honor, and hospitality. Paul was also reminding the disciples in Rome of Jesus’s teachings of enemy-love and love of neighbor.