“Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it” (Gen 28:16). Here we wonder about encountering G-d at the intersection of Bible and Life–typically prompted by the (Episcopal) Book of Common Prayer.
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.”
“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.”
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.
Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel; for the LORD has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing. (Hos. 4:1-3)
As the ecologists remind us, everything is connected to everything, and so the effects of human rebellion ripple out through all creation. And in today’s Romans text Paul looks forward to the healing of the damage occasioned by the rebellion described in chapter 1. Notice the vocabulary links: ‘creation’ (1:20, 25; 8:20-22), ‘futility’ (1:21; 8:20), ‘to glorify’ (1:21; 8:30), ‘glory’ (1:23; 8:18, 21), ‘image’ (1:23; 8:29), ‘bodies’ (1:24; 8:24) (Dunn).
Meanwhile, creation groans; we groan. This text: an underutilized resource both for spirituality (checking any cheap triumphalism) and ecological ethics. Arguably, a single subject: we are ˀādām (human) from the ˀădāmâh (humus): how could our healing/redemption not be connected?
Meanwhile, for the current administration’s rollback of multiple environmental protections, here and here. Happy July 4th!
With Wright, the Romans text does sound like Exodus 2.0, with the people guided not by pillars of cloud and fire, but by the Spirit toward the promised inheritance, with Ex 4:2 (“Israel is my firstborn son”) one of the sources words like ‘adoption’ and ‘children’. The last is particularly striking: the Father “sending his own Son” (v.3) and us “in Christ Jesus” (v.1) described through another series of verbs with ‘sun’ (‘with’) prefixed (see June 27 post): inheriting with Christ, suffering with Christ, being glorified with Christ.
“Crying out ‘Abba [Aramaic] Patēr [Greek]’”—what would it take to recover this as a central celebration of our identity?
They say that there are two seasons in Wisconsin: Winter and Road Construction. That’s not a bad analogy for what Paul’s describing here. To recap, two epochs, Adam and Christ (5:12-21), and since the latter has invaded the former, we straddle both, with schizoid experiences of ourselves (delighting in the good, doing evil) and of Torah (a delight—“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” and coopted by sin—“the law of sin and death”). But this straddling isn’t the last word, and the Spirit will supervise the construction until all is renewed.
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” So road construction is a weak analogy; caterpillar to butterfly might be better—and only the beginning.
Why are confession and absolution a permanent part of our worship, both in the Daily Office and in the Eucharist? Today’s Romans text may provide one of the more complete answers, although commentators are hardly of one mind. I find James Dunn’s approach helpful: Paul is talking about his present experience. It’s not simply a matter of the common human experience of acting in self-contradictory ways (“I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse” Ovid, Metamorphoses 7:20-21) or of the rabbinic “good impulse” and “evil impulse” within each person. It’s a matter of, through Christ, straddling two ages. (Two ages: this age and the age to come. And God in Christ has begun to bring the age to come [the “last things,” the eschatological] into our present.) Here’s Dunn toward the end of his discussion:
“V.25b [“So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.”] is a classic statement of the eschatological tension set up by the death and resurrection of Christ: through his death writing finis to the age of Adam and through his resurrection introducing the age of the last Adam. In Paul’s understanding the tension is not one that is natural to man, or one that is consequent upon the fall of man. The fallenness of man is one side of it, but the tension is only set up by the introduction of the eschatological ‘now’ in Christ. And it only becomes personal for Paul with conversion-initiation. The tension then is a tension not simply of redemption delayed, but precisely of a redemption already begun but not yet completed. The very fact that he can envisage a service of the law of God with the mind presupposes a renewed mind (cf. 12:2), a having died with Christ (6:2-11); while the continuing service of the law of sin with the flesh clearly indicates a dimension of the believer’s existence not yet caught up in the risen life of Christ (cf. 8:11, 23), a having-not-yet-been-raised with Christ (6:5, 8). The assurance of future deliverance does not itself bring to an end the eschatological tension in which believers find themselves caught.”
Pulling the camera back, Paul introduced himself as a slave (doulos) of Jesus Christ at the start of the letter, and set up a binary contrast between being slaves to sin or to righteousness in 6:15-23. Here (7:25b) bringing in the camera for a close-up, Paul uses the corresponding verb (douleuw): slave to the law of God and to the law of sin. No wonder in the next chapter we’ll hear “we ourselves…groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
In other words, today’s text encourages a rereading of chapters 5-6, in which we may notice that while some of the results of Jesus’ obedience are in the present, others are set in the future. This does give us the dignity of some agency—with today’s text a warning that our agency is more constrained than we’d like. So for the reader inspired by Paul’s exhortations in 6:12-23, today’s text warns against discouragement. Likewise, today’s text guards against an overly triumphalist reading of chapter 8!
Re Romans: In general terms Paul continues to lay out how life in the Messiah (Christ) works, now focusing on Torah. In 5:20 Torah appears—surprisingly—in the minus column; here Paul provides the rationale.
Coming at the text from the Old Testament with its profound appreciation for and delight in Torah, it’s extraordinary. What is Paul thinking? Dunn notes the then-prevalent opinion that covetousness was the root of sin (cf. James 1:15) and argues that the text is a close reading of Genesis 3:1-7—worth considering. Behind this reading, perhaps Paul’s experience of the temptation to arrogance vis à vis the gentiles Torah offered (Dunn again), or the misreadings of Torah that drove Jesus’ death and Paul’s persecutions of the churches.
Or perhaps a close reading of Ps 19:7-13. Beginning with v.7 there’s one of the most profound celebrations of Torah:
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes;
Similarly, vv.9-11. But then the surprising vv.12-13:
12 But can anyone know what they’ve accidentally done wrong? Clear me of any unknown sin 13 and save your servant from willful sins. Don’t let them rule me. Then I’ll be completely blameless; I’ll be innocent of great wrongdoing. (CEB)
Torah can name sin; it cannot check it—or vv.12-13 would be unnecessary. And this sounds rather like what Paul is arguing in Romans 7.
But vv.7-8: do we experience Torah, or, more broadly, the moral law, working this way? Byrne’s suggestion is perhaps worth considering: “What would seem to be in mind is the idea that the prohibition, stemming from God, awoke a latent human propensity to chafe and rebel at creaturely dependence upon the Creator. In this ‘I’ came to know and feel the fundamental ‘desire’ lying behind all concrete acts of wrongdoing: the desire to possess whatever I wish and to do whatever I choose without limit.”
Today’s Romans reading is perhaps the most counter-cultural in the entire book. Paul introduced himself in the book’s first verse as a slave of Jesus Christ; here his argument ends up saying that everyone is a slave, but with a choice re whom to obey.
Really? What about our national myth: the voyage across the Atlantic so that we could do whatever we wanted? What of the desire (a sign of privilege?) to sit this God-Satan conflict out, to watch it from the sidelines? What of William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus,” (which, perhaps surprisingly, does not appear in the best manuscripts of the New Testament)? What happens when we read it together with Romans 6:12-23?
Invictus William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
“Who am I?” and “Whose am I?”: if we want to wonder more about that, here’s a possible soundtrack.
One of the major challenges in interpreting Romans is Paul’s treatment of the law. Does ‘law’ always refer to Torah, the law of Moses? (Yes, I think.) And what of his contrasting statements?
“Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” (3:31)
“But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,” (5:20)
“So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.” (7:12)
Today’s Gospel offers another way of approaching this challenge, reminding us that observing Torah necessarily involves interpretation: which bit is relevant, and how is it relevant? And that’s what the synagogue leader and Jesus are arguing about. We might conclude that it’s often in the interpretation that—in Paul’s words—“the trespass multiplied.”
With Jacob at Bethel 