A reflection on Romans 1:18-32.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them.
Romans 1:18-32 (NRSVA)
The passage above forms part of Paul’s opening argument in his letter to the Roman community. After greeting his readers, Paul, immediately prior to this passage, makes his famous call to faith: ‘…I am not ashamed of the gospel, of it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”‘ (Romans 1:16-17 ESV).
It is a radically inclusive statement. All are invited into salvation by the means of faith.
And yet, Rome is a city brimming with idols. The Jesus-community Paul addresses lives in the shadow of temples dedicated to the worship he describes. Paul is wonderfully logical and clear: God’s character is seen, but has been exchanged for lesser alternatives. A poor deal. Truth for lies. They – we – end up worshipping and serving something less than the perfectly loving creator revealed most potently in the person of Jesus.
Paul’s message: we become what we worship.
Yet God, humbly, allows people to take alternative paths. Salvation is not forced. Paul repeatedly describes this as God’s giving over, an allowing of people to worship lesser things. This is first described in terms that would have been relatable for the Roman people: the chaotic worship orgies of the local temples, the plethora of male and female temple prostitutes, and the degrading behaviour embraced.
This is not, however, Paul’s primary concern. In fact, I find it almost impossible to believe that Paul sees this behaviour as so widespread that it characterises all gentiles. Many Romans are not involved in such rituals.
Paul goes on to describe such worship leading to a ‘debased mind’. A disturbing list follows. An alarming summary of relationships broken. It no longer looks like we are in the local temple. We are now located in a society of individuals ‘filled with every kind of wickedness’.
I am left wondering if this is, for Paul, the ultimate result, or ‘penalty’, of lesser worship. A world so fractured that we fight and strive for self no matter what the cost to others, becoming so blind that we even give the nod to others who embrace the same path. We are all out only for ourselves. After all, if this is the behaviour of the gods, it is also the logical behaviour of those who worship them.
It is a remarkable message – a call to recognise the path that worship of anything less than the perfectly loving God leads us down. A passage that addresses the implications of idolatry in such grounded terms as envy, murder, greed, deceit, slander, foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, and ruthlessness.
A call to see clearly the logic of worshipping any alternative to the ‘God revealed from faith for faith’.
Of course, we still live in a world of idols. Unsurprisingly they can look radically different to those Paul describes. They can also look alarmingly similar. Perhaps the only common factor is where they lead.
They all lead to something less than the costly love exemplified in the cross.
Which is where I am left disturbed by the way this passage is too often used. The modern term homosexuality describes people attracted to the same sex over a lifetime. It does not describe temple worship. It does not describe orgies like those found in Rome.
Rather it describes people who, all too often, are rejected and marginalised. People in need of people who will listen humbly enough to understand, search for, and enable solutions and possibilities.
People who will listen, learn, and love.