The Readings: Joshua 2:15-24; Romans 11:13-24; Matthew 25:14-30

“You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe.”

Like the prophets, Paul sees the train wreck coming and is powerless to prevent it.

Ignatius (early 2^nd Century) “It is outrageous to utter the name of Jesus Christ and live in Judaism.” (To the Magnesians 10).

Justin (AD 155-170) “Now they that follow their advice, and live under the law, as well as keep their profession in the Christ of God, will, I suppose, perhaps be saved.” (Dialogue with Trypho 47.4)

Jerome to Augustine (AD 404): “In our own day there exists a sect among the Jews throughout all the synagogues of the East, which is called the sect of the Minei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees. The adherents to this sect are known commonly as Nazarenes; they believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; and they say that He who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, is the same as the one in whom we believe. But while they desire to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other.… If, however, there is for us no alternative but to receive the Jews into the Church, along with the usages prescribed by their law; if, in short, it shall be declared lawful for them to continue in the Churches of Christ what they have been accustomed to practise in the synagogues of Satan, I will tell you my opinion of the matter: they will not become Christians, but they will make us Jews. (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102075.htm)

The downward spiral continues, from Martin Luther’s On the Jews and their Lies(1543), to the Holocaust.

I reckon that there are two important take-aways from this Romans text:

• The critique of Jewish pride, running through the letter, and substantively parallel to Jesus’ critique of the attitudes of some of his opponents, is now first applicable to Christian pride across the whole range of its manifestations, from impeccably orthodox to impeccably progressive.
• “Note then the kindness and the severity of God” is an essential counterweight to “If God is for us, who is against us?” Asking whether divine or human faithfulness, grace or human responsibility, is more important is like asking whether inhaling or exhaling is more important.

The Readings: Joshua 2:1-14; Romans 11:1-12; Matthew 25:1-13

“I ask then, has God rejected his people?” As Rom 11:13ff suggests, at least some of the Gentile Christians in Rome had already answered that question in the affirmative: they’re out; we’re in! So for the shared life of Jewish and Gentile believers, not a little is on the line.

“I ask then, has God rejected his people?” It’s not a new question. Lamentations ends with this:

For rejecting you have rejected us;
you have become exceedingly angry with us. (5:22 LXX)

But earlier in Lamentations:

For the Lord will not reject forever; (3:31)

And Paul doubles down on that, reviewing the analogies he’s used to interpret the present situation: the remnant (vv.2b-6; cf. 9:27), hardening (vv.7-10; cf. 9:18), stumbling (vv.11-12; cf. 9:30-33). And the stumbling is recast in two ways: as the means for salvation to come to the Gentiles (so the Gentiles don’t think of Jesus as simply a Jewish affair?), and as the setup for a glorious denouement: “Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!”

So, just as Paul reached back to the beginnings of human history with God (1:18ff; 5:12ff), so Paul now invites his hearers to engage their imagination: what will an ending worthy of this history look like? Stay tuned.

The Readings: Joshua 1:1-18; Acts 21:3-15; Mark 1:21-27

“And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5).

“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ– if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:15-17).

That is, as it were, the theory. Today’s reading from Acts offers us a snapshot of the practice. Paul: “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Perhaps the reading can aid our hearing of Paul’s words in Romans.

Nor is suffering confined to the first century. Late in the 20^th Century renovation began on the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey. Completed in 1998, its façade now includes statues of 20th-century martyrs: Maximilian Kolbe, Manche Masemola, Janani Luwum, Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia, Martin Luther King, Óscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Esther John, Lucian Tapiedi, and Wang Zhiming (for more, here).

Christian tradition discourages us from seeking suffering for Christ, while warning us that it is not off the menu. Perhaps surprisingly, our Daily Office tends not to bring our sisters and brothers in lethal situations to our attention. But perhaps Paul’s words will occasionally prompt us to hear these two very familiar prayers differently:

“Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.”

“O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Book of Common Prayer 99)

The Readings: Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Romans 10:14-21; Matthew 24:32-51

“It’s not a bug; it’s a feature.”

The structure—not the conclusion—of today’s Romans text should feel familiar to anyone who’s called Technical Support re some computer or mechanical problem. Paul outlines how the process is supposed to work (vv.14-15), acknowledges that it isn’t (vv.16-17), and trouble-shoots, searching for where the process is breaking down (vv.18-21). The analogy breaks down in vv.18-21, because the texts Paul chooses—perhaps inviting the hearer to retrace Paul’s own process of discovery—is that this breakdown (the lack of response [10:16] or, more precisely, the Gentiles attaining righteousness and Israel not [9:30-31]) is also foreseen. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature. And Paul will devote the next chapter to exploring this “feature.” Stay tuned.

The Readings: Deuteronomy 31:7-13, 24––32:4; Romans 10:1-13; Matthew 24:15-31

“The righteousness that comes from the law” (v.5); “the righteousness that comes from faith” (v.6): judging by the epistle itself, bringing/keeping this contrast in focus was not a simple matter. “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” (6:1) “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (6:15) So, while today’s text does not lack elements that might keep us occupied…

Would it help to notice some of the things Matthew does with righteousness and the law? (“Some” so as not to commit to a book-length post!). For example:

1. Matthew starts his story by introducing Joseph as a “righteous man,” whose response to Mary’s pregnancy is to plan to break off the engagement quietly. An angel sets him on a different course, which may prompt the reader to wonder if this divine initiative is going to unsettle other assumptions regarding righteousness.
2. “…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20)—and the examples which follow take our notions of righteousness in unexpected directions.
3. At the end of an interchange with the Pharisees: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (9:13).

It looks like the question of what righteousness God (now?) requires is central to Matthew. So how is this question like or unlike the question(s) Paul is dealing with in Romans?

Shifting gears, Byrne makes an important observation re “zeal” (v.2): “While it is true that nothing masks human need for the gift of salvation so successfully as misguided religious zeal, that failure is not tied to any particular religion nor is the faith that overcomes it tied to any particular religious system—Christianity or any other. Both attitudes are possible within theistic systems and both are equally possible within Judaism and Christianity.”

The Readings: Deuteronomy 3:18-28; Romans 9:19-33; Matthew 24:1-14

God as potter, humans as clay: various Old Testament texts use the image (e.g., Isa 29:15-16; 45:9-11; 64:8-9; Jer 18:1-12). If the issue here is God’s right to incorporate the gentiles as gentiles into God’s people, the most relevant parallel is Isa 45:9-11, which looks like a response to questions about God’s right to name the pagan Cyrus “the anointed” (Messiah!) to redeem Israel.

Works vs. faith in vv.31-32a: it’s probably too simple to interpret this simply as competing strategies for Torah implementation: implementation for the purpose of excluding vs including the Gentiles. But Torah (or Gospel) as instrument of exclusion or inclusion is not irrelevant either.

Verses 32b-33 merge Isa 8:14 and 28:16. There’s evidence that some of Paul’s contemporaries were reading both texts as messianic, so it would make historic sense to read the stone as Jesus. So we might wonder: what relation—if any—is there between Paul’s faith/works contrast and the issues the Gospels portray as separating Jesus and his religious opponents? (More on this tomorrow.)

Postscript: I have been looking for a reading of Paul that renders his various statements about the law consistent. The challenges of that search have me currently reading E. P. Sanders’ Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, who argues that Paul’s consistency consists in a number of central convictions, e.g., “that God had sent Jesus Christ to provide for the salvation of all; that salvation is thus available for all, whether Jew or Greek, on the same basis,” that God does things for good reasons, and works back from these to offer different (inconsistent) answers to questions like what is the law for, in what does Israel’s failure consist. Clearly a perspective worth considering.

The Readings: Deuteronomy 1:1-18; Romans 9:1-18; Matthew 23:27-39

Readers have long recognized Romans 9-11 as a unit. In recent decades many readers have recognized the ways the unit integrally relates to the rest of the book, rather than being a dispensable digression.

Prior to engaging the individual parts of the unit, it’s probably helpful to read Rom 9-11 in a single sitting to get a sense of where Paul is going with the argument. Paul sets himself an ambitious challenge: how to make sense of the large number of Jews who do not recognize Jesus as Messiah. As Byrne notes, the problem is theodicy: “If the divine ‘word’ spoken to Israel appears to have been so ineffective (9:6a), where does this leave God’s faithfulness?” After working through the chapters we may make our own judgments regarding Paul’s success.

Working through the chapters we may wonder what Paul would have written after twenty centuries of sorrow- and anguish-producing Jewish/Christian history.

“For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel” (v.6b). The claim is similar to that of 2:25-29. And as with that text, it is not clear what Paul gains with the claim.

“So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses” (v.18). Here it’s probably important to let Paul’s description of God’s righteousness and love in chapters 1-8 scatter our theological nightmares (e.g., “double predestination”).

The Readings: Numbers 35:1-3, 9-15, 30-34; Romans 8:31-39; Matthew 23:13-26

It looks like Paul could have gone directly from 8:30 to 9:1. But, something like the doxology ending chapters 9-11, he goes for a summary. “God is for us… the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” These affirmations, bookending the section, might be the most important thing to hear in chapters 1-8, chapters in which it’s so easy to lose the thread in the density of the theological argument or to simply fall asleep, as did Eutychus that night in Troas (Acts 20:7-12). “God is for us.”

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” Speaking personally, the one serious candidate I’m aware of is the guy who meets me in the mirror each morning, who regularly confesses “We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” And that, in turn, sends me back to Ps 23. (Paul did, after all, introduce Jesus by recalling David [1:3], with whom Ps. 23 is associated. Pure speculation: if Paul had wanted to update Ps 23, today’s text could have been the outcome.) “Yes, goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life…” (Common English Bible; my italics). So while that guy in the mirror is not to be underestimated, God is giving his salvation God’s best shot. Ditto each of that guy’s neighbors. “God is for us.”

The Readings: Numbers 32:1-6,16-27; Romans 8:26-30; Matthew 23:1-12

“Why is the author saying this here?” I don’t know if it’s possible to ask this question too often. Re today’s Romans text, it helps me recognize that vv.26-30 are tightly connected to the previous verses, rather than, say, v.28 as a stand-alone consolation for Difficult Times, and vv.29-30, a Handy Summary of the Process of Individual Salvation.

The previous verses: regularly encountering suffering and futility, together with the whole creation we’re groaning, even as we await the redemption of our bodies. In that situation we regularly don’t know how to pray, and in the midst of our weakness and incoherence the Spirit is interceding. That part of prayer that I find the least satisfying and could judge the least productive is where the Spirit is actively engaged.

And it’s in these least satisfying and apparently least productive situations in which God is working all things for good.

These least satisfying and apparently least productive situations: they’re part of being “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son, a process in which God’s initiatives restore, rather than threaten, my agency.

And glory, with which the text ends? I think Wright nails it: “the purpose is never simply that God’s people in Christ should resemble him, spectacular and glorious though that promise is. As we saw in vv. 18-21, it is that, as true image-bearers, they might reflect that same image into the world, bringing to creation the healing, freedom, and life for which it longs. To be conformed to the image of God, or of God’s Son, is a dynamic, not a static concept. Reflecting God into the world is a matter of costly vocation.”

The Readings: Numbers 27:12-23; Acts 19:1-22; Mark 1:14-20

In today’s second reading Luke summarizes Paul’s stay in Ephesus. The Lectionary assigns vv.11-20; since we’re reading through Romans, it may be useful to read vv.1-22, and wonder how Luke’s portrait might relate to our encounter with Paul as author of Romans. For example, Paul describes the gospel as “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (1:16), and toward the end of the letter says “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ” (15:18-19). Perhaps Luke’s portrait gives us some idea of the sorts of experiences of power that lie behind Paul’s words.

What do you see?