Romans 2:25-3:18 (NRSV)

Friday in the Second Week of Lent - Reflections on the Letters of Lent

Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So, if those who are uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you that have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart-- it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God. Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written, "So that you may be justified in your words, and prevail in your judging." But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved! What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written: "There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one." "Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of vipers is under their lips." "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known." "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

"Real Circumcision is a matter of the heart." The cutting or mutilation of one's body for ritualistic purposes has always befuddled me. Why would you hurt yourself to prove your relationship? Why would God require the removal of the male foreskin in order to prove that there is a bond? What purpose does it serve? This topic may generate more question than reflection today. But, that's ok.

If we listen to what Paul is saying, he is making the claim that it doesn't matter if you are circumcised if you are not going to keep up your end and honor the covenant. That those who keep the covenant and grow in love and relationship are circumcised by virtue of the relationship. I understand that the ancients needed to make an outward physical sign of their covenant, symbolic of the bond they experienced with God. A bond that affected their relationship with one another. 

Paul is further saying that our lack of faithfulness to our relationship with God doesn't diminish God's faithfulness in us. I don't know how many times I have heard folks claim that they've been too bad, that God doesn't want anything to do with them. False! God is faithful and desires a relationship, especially with those who have gone astray. God's favor and grace for creation never decreases. Once the bond is there, it NEVER goes away.

So, what is the call to action amid all this circumcision talk? I hear God calling us to keep the covenant and nurture the relationship. Leaning on the fact that it doesn't matter if we are male and have a foreskin or not. What matters is that our hearts are right with God. Do we trust God? In the season of Lent, it is the perfect time to evaluate ourselves and our relationships, see what we are doing that destroys and remove it... recognize what it is that brings us closer together and do it. How deep is our commitment?

Romans 2:12-24 (NRSV)

Thursday of the 2nd week of Lent - Reflections on the Letters of Lent

All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God and know his will and determine what is best because you are instructed in the law, and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you, then, that teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You that forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You that abhor idols, do you rob temples? You that boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

"The doers of the law will be justified." It seems to me that Paul is making a good case for walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Those who do, especially those who have not been taught, are what it's all about.

In Paul's letter to the church in Rome, he continues to exhort those who think that they are better than everyone else, just because they are Jewish. He goes on to explain the intent of the law rather than the letter of the law, much like Jesus did. Paul makes a case for those who are acting on the intent of the law and doing instinctively what the law requires without any prior knowledge or study of the law. He also admonishes those who know the law, and preach the law, and then do that which is against the law. Paul says that those folks should pay more attention to teaching themselves.

Today's call to action that I hear would be to walk the walk. If you know it's wrong, don't do it. If you know it's right, do it. If it will destroy your relationship (with God and others) don't do it. If you walk in love, then others will see that God is love. Yet, if you walk in hate and disdain, who are you showing others God to be?

Romans 1:28-2:11 (NRSV)

Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent - Reflections on the Letters of Lent

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 toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die-- yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, "We know that God's judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth." Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one's deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

Paul tells us, "in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself." If we are looking at others and judging them on some sort of moral code that we think we understand more than we are looking in the mirror and examining our own lives, we are damned. I truly feel that if we all pay attention to ourselves, if there is deceit or strife in another it will be worked out. We cannot help another see if we have a log in our own eye. (Matt 7:3)

I am struck by the laundry list of sins that Paul is listing - wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossip, slander, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. I am wondering what the Romans are really up to, and why Paul is pressing on them. It may be that he is admonishing them for their pagan ways, but it seems that in all of these instances, the offender is putting something (deceit, gossip, etc.) in the way of their relationship with others and God.

Anything that destroys our relationships is a sin and it needs to be taken out of our lives. However, you know best what is destroying your relationships with others. The saving grace is that God loves us through our shortcomings. God's patience and kindness lead us to repentance. God is the final judge and we will all be accountable, not that we let so and so do thus and such, but that we destroyed our relationship with God and others trying to be a judge of some pursuit of some puristic code.

The call I hear today is to be good to one another. Love one another. Help one another navigate the troubles of this life. Don't hurt each other. Strive for relationship and understanding. Struggle with the things that you don't understand. Help untie the knots in communication and help heal the hurting.

Romans 4:13-18 (NRSV)

Tuesday in the 2nd weeks of Lent - Reflections on the Letters during Lent

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations")-- in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be."

"Promise" is what I hear when I read this passage from Paul's Letter to the Romans. To me, promise implies a commitment to action. You will or you will not do something that you told someone else. In bible-speak and theology, there is a lot of talk about covenant which I think is different from a promise. To me, a covenant is a more formal agreement or arrangement that is a relationship with obligations and mutual responsibilities. Where a promise is just an obligation (one-sided), the covenant is a formal, detailed arrangement (two-sided).

In this portion of his letter to the church in Rome, Paul is reminding the people of the original "promises" made to Abraham by God long before there was Torah (or law.). Paul explains that the promise pre-existed and is a promise based on faith in God and God's favor for us, not because of the law or those keeping the law. It seems that Paul is using this line of thinking to assert that Abraham's descendants who have kept the faith in God are the recipients of God's blessings, not those that merely "keep the law." This includes those children of Abraham who now have a new found faith in Jesus as the Christ.

The call to action for me would be to understand that rules are intended to shape and order society. Though mostly intended for good, sometimes rules or laws are not just and display the prejudices of those who make them. I understand that those who were "under the law" thought that they were doing what is righteous before God, but I also think that God is more worried about the relationship than anything else. It all began from a relationship with Abraham. God said, "And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you." (Genesis 17:7)

Romans 1:1-15 (NRSV)

Monday of the Second Week of Lent - Reflections on the Letters of Lent

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world. For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers, asking that by God's will I may somehow, at last, succeed in coming to you. For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you-- or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish -- hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Mutually encouraged is the phrase that catches my attention... Paul says, "that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith." Encouragement is what we all need from time to time. The offer of Paul to provide spiritual support to the church in Rome is true apostolic oversight and care for the people he loves.

Paul is called the "untimely apostle" because he had a later encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He was not among the original 12 followers of Jesus. In his travels, he established church communities and his letters to those communities are some of the best records we have of early church history. In this reading of his introduction to the letter to the church in Rome, you can feel Paul's desire to be with them again, encouraging them in faith, offering them some spiritual support. However, because of other circumstances, he has been prevented from returning to Rome.

We all need encouragement. The call I hear today is to encourage each other. Hold one another in prayer. Support each other's endeavors. Make sacrifices for the success of others. You can really feel it if you are engaged in something that isn't supported. Like Paul, we should burn deep with the desire to be mutually encouraged by each other's faith.

1 Corinthians 3:11-23 (NRSV)

The Second Sunday in Lent - Reflections on the Letters of Lent

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw-- the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future-- all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" I wonder what kind of world this would be if everyone thought that, or even behaved like that. If we truly treated our neighbor and ourselves with the love and respect due to God (or at least tried to), then the world would be a better place, wouldn't it?

Paul is teaching the church in Corinth about building faith on the good foundation, Jesus Christ. A foundation that will survive. A foundation rooted in faith and trust that if anything happens, the foundation is still solid, ready for the rebuild. Paul reminds the Corinthians that the true temple is you and that God's Spirit dwells in you.

Corinth is a transient trade port city with many people from different areas of the Mediterranian engaging in commerce. The people would be exposed to many different religious influences and many different philosophies. All the riff-raff of the Mediterranian world came through Corinth at one time or another. Paul knew the audience he was writing to and he addresses those who think they are wise and those who follow human leaders that are not of Christ.

I think today's call comes from within the reading when Paul says, "do not deceive yourselves." How often do we think that we are better than someone else? Do they not carry the spirit of God? How often have we been deceived by false teachings that cause fear and division? Do we not know that we are God's temple? A place of sacrifice and thanksgiving, a place of connection and forgiveness? We wander around thinking that we are something other than that which belongs to God... than that which contains God...

Hebrews 5:1-10 (NRSV)

Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent - Reflections on the Letters of Lent

Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you" as he says also in another place, "You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek." In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Appointed...  You are appointed! Selected to do something that you probably otherwise wouldn't do. You have been given a task to complete, a vocation, a duty that you cannot turn down. I have always liked the old Mission Impossible episodes: "Your mission Jim, should you choose to accept it, ... As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds." (I used to watch the series with my dad) Now, maybe you think my head is far off of this scripture but hang on, I'll get there. 

I love the Parker Palmer quote, "Vocation is something that you can't not do." I believe the talented educator used the double negative on purpose. He used it to show us that one cannot turn down a vocation (our true mission) as impossible as it seems. It's something within us that we must do. It is of a higher calling, a higher purpose... more than just a job, it is your reason for being in this world.

Now, that's a bit deep for some folks to go, but I believe that is what the writer to the Hebrews was trying to get across. The writer was trying to give the people a sense of their calling a purpose as believers in Jesus. He was trying to get them to understand their place in the world and the vocation that they have been given to do. They have a higher calling to connect people to God through their faith in Jesus. That's what some of them were appointed by God to do. 

The call to action that I hear today is, once you've discerned with prayer and struggle, "do what you have been appointed to do." Do it with urgency, sincerity, and faith. Do it, not to glorify yourself, but to bring glory to God in the restoration of the world. Do it, and God will make the mission possible.