The Readings: Numbers 16:20-35; Romans 4:1-12; Matthew 19:23-30

Paul’s just been talking about Jews and Gentiles. But who are Abraham’s children anyway? The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and Common English Bible (CEB) offer strikingly different translations of v.1:

• NRSV: “What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?”
• CEB: “So what are we going to say? Are we going to find that Abraham is our ancestor on the basis of genealogy?”

The NRSV assumes that genealogy settles as the question; the CEB questions that assumption. The rest of the chapter may support the CEB translation: Abraham’s children are the ones who share Abraham’s faith, the argument focusing on works (vv. 2-8), circumcision (vv.9-12), and the law (vv.13-15).

I wonder about Paul’s argument in vv.2-8, which reads Genesis 15:1-6 in terms of a faith vs. works contrast. In context, the story is striking. It’s the first story in which Abraham says anything to the Lord, and that “anything” is a sharp question. The Lord responds with, well, more words (hence the accompanying image), and Abraham believes. “Believes”: stays out in the sticks rather than heading back to the rest of his family and civilized life. “Believes”: he doesn’t walk off the set, out of the story. What definition of ‘works’ is Paul assuming to make the contrast work?

Wright notices “trusts him who justifies the ungodly,” striking on three counts. First, ‘ungodly’ is not the first word to come to mind to describe Abraham (but see Genesis 12:10-20, etc.). Second, “justify the ungodly” is precisely what a just judge is not supposed to do (e.g., Proverbs 17:15), pointing back to the mind-bending 3:24-26. Third, ‘ungodly’ (asebēs) points back to the “ungodliness” (asebeia), at the head of Paul’s description of the global problem. So especially in my most self-critical moments, no reason to not feel right at home in Abraham’s family.

The Readings: Numbers 16:1-19; Romans 3:21-31; Matthew 19:13-22

The Romans text is about as dense as biblical texts get. Working through it, I’ve found the following useful. Verse 21: New Jerusalem Bible’s “saving justice” for dikaiosunē (NRSV “righteousness”) is helpful (see June 16 post). V. 22: Common English Bible’s “through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ” is probably better than NRSV’s “through faith in Jesus Christ” (redundant). V. 23 “and fall short of the glory of God” probably a reference back to 1:23 (the problem to be solved). V.24 “justified” paraphrased by Wright: “declared to be in the right, to be members of the covenant.” V.24 “redemption,” recalling “under the power of sin” (v.9). V.25 “a sacrifice of atonement by his blood,” probably an allusion to Isaiah’s fourth “Servant Song.”

In the Eucharist the celebrant prays:

• “a perfect sacrifice for the whole world” (Prayer A)
• “In him, you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you. In him, you have brought us…out of sin into righteousness” (Prayer B)
• “we who have been redeemed by him” (Prayer C)
• “To fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death” (Prayer D)

How does the celebrant know this? Texts like today’s Romans text: not explanations, but witnesses.

The Readings: Numbers 14:26-45; Acts 15:1-12; Luke 12:49-56

Texts like today’s reading from Acts provide the back story for why letters like Paul’s to the Romans needed writing. Later in that letter Paul writes “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you” (15:7), encouraging Jews as Jews and Gentiles as Gentiles to live as “one body in Christ” (12:5). And because there were still voices saying “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1), Paul also writes “keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned” (16:17).

The sad irony is that while Paul dedicates an entire chapter (Rom 14) to creating space for different approaches to food and festivals, by around the end of the first century there are influential voices questioning the legitimacy of Jewish Christians observing Torah.

Have Jews and Christians done any better at dealing with difference than their neighbors?

“Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim; and the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because they said, ‘You are fugitives from Ephraim, you Gileadites– in the heart of Ephraim and Manasseh.’ Then the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. Whenever one of the fugitives of Ephraim said, ‘Let me go over,’ the men of Gilead would say to him, ‘Are you an Ephraimite?’ When he said, ‘No,’ they said to him, ‘Then say Shibboleth,’ and he said, ‘Sibboleth,’ for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell at that time” (Jdg. 12:4-6).

The Readings: Numbers 13:31––14:25; Romans 3:9-20; Matthew 19:1-12

Paul develops his “all…under the power of sin” theme through a series of OT quotations: “Vv.10-12: Pss 14.1-2; 53.1-2. 13: Pss 5.9; 140.3. 14: Ps 10.7. 15-17: Isa 59.7-8; Prov 1.16. 18: Ps 36.1” (New Oxford Annotated Bible). I am puzzled by the series, since all the citations except Isa 59:7-8 are descriptions offered by one group of another group, hardly intended to cover the speakers. But perhaps this is Paul’s polemical point, that our eloquent denunciations of others tend to boomerang?

(Verses 10-18 might be useful in preparing for the confession and absolution portion of our worship, since multiple issues highlighted there reappear as issues for Christian communities in the epistles, e.g., kindness (v.12, cf. Col 3:12), the tongue (vv.13-14, cf. Jas 3:1-12), peace (v.17, cf. 2 Cor 13:11).

All “under the power of sin” implies that what’s needed is not simply repentance, but rescue. So it might set the stage for God’s intervention as a sort of new Exodus. But that is in the text’s future, with the present portrayed by the text simply bleak. This would be an unfortunate place for the book to end.

Paul caps his argument citing Psalm 143:2, and in its own way that psalm points the way forward in two respects. First, the opening petition highlights the Lord’s righteousness as the motive for the Lord’s non-judgmental intervention:

Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;
answer me in your righteousness.
Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you. (Vv.1-2; see also v.11)

So in Paul it’s the Lord’s righteousness (dikaiosunē) that drives the Lord’s saving action.

Second, later in the petitions:

Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God.
Let your good spirit lead me
on a level path. (v.10)

So in Paul it’s the Holy Spirit that leads those incorporated in the Messiah.

The Readings: Numbers 13:1-3, 21-30; Romans 2:25––3:8; Matthew 18:21-35

I think I get Rom. 3:1-8. God has a global problem (see Genesis 1-11); God elects Israel to solve that problem but Israel falls victim to the same problem (see Genesis 12ff). So now God has two problems. But God’s faithfulness means not being satisfied with punishing the guilty, but rescuing both Israel and the world.

I don’t get Rom. 2:25-29, puzzled by at least three things. First, if Paul’s argument holds, there are by definition no disobedient Jews. Second, it’s not clear that Paul’s argument helps Paul, for he still agonizes over his fellow Jews who don’t acknowledge Jesus (chapters 9-11). Third, the stark contrast between keeping and breaking the law (v.27) is hard to square with our experience of the wide spectrum of unfaithfulness-faithfulness among both Jews and Christians. Help!