“A Summer In Rome”

Pastor’s Ponderings

June 2026

. . . is the name of our new sermon series on the Book of Romans. I also thought about naming it “A Summer in Rom(ans)” but I ultimately decided that naming it “A Summer in Rome” sounded more enticing. If anything, we should use more adventure metaphors in our Bible studies to remind us that studying the Bible is not only like reading a travel guide to an exotic place but it also involves time travel and imagination and prayerful watching and listening.

This summer we will travel across the Atlantic to Rome’s Trastevere quarter as it existed in the first century of the Common Era. There we will find many Jewish immigrants as well as immigrants from places like Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria. Many of them may have been enslaved persons or formerly enslaved of the descendants of enslaved persons. Many of them worked along the harbor of the Tiber River. They were brickmakers, cabinet makers, millers, and potters. Probably most of them were desperately poor. And they had to do their best to fly under the radar during the brutal reign of the Emperor Nero.

We will meet a woman named Phoebe, who was a deacon in the church and most likely a wealthy benefactor or sponsor of the Apostle Paul (Romans 16:1-2). Phoebe brought with her a letter from the Apostle Paul, which she personally read to these early Christians in Rome’s Trastevere quarter. As she read, she likely paused to answer questions, taking time to interpret the more difficult passages based on her own conversations with the Apostle Paul, and in so doing she became the first commentator on the Book of Romans in a long line of commentators stretching nearly two thousand years. (for a more detailed description of this scene see Beverly Roberts Gaventa, When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel According to Paul.)

Why are we making this trip to ancient Rome? Because we need to know whether these early Roman Christians had hope. When Phoebe reads Paul’s words that we “are saved by hope” did that actually make them more hopeful? And if it did make them more hopeful, would that help make us more hopeful? And what if hope in the Book of Romans turns out to be more about God’s hopes for us and the world than it does to be about our own hopes which tend to be a bit up and down based on our circumstances and feelings?

Join us this summer as we take a deep dive into the nature of hope and what that means for us in our own time and place.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Jack