Good Morning. It’s a beautiful morning here in Minnesota, and we have been fortunate to have avoided – so far – the extreme heat that has hit the mid-Atlantic.
Today’s readings include a message from Paul that sometimes sounds confusing. The easiest way to understand it is to say that it’s all about attitude not about mindless obedience. Paul asks: “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” Any time that we read Paul we have to understand context. Paul tried to be all things to all people, and in the process he sometimes seems confusing and sometimes even seems to contradict himself. We look at all of his letters and take them as a unified whole. His message of grace and forgiveness never wavers, but sometimes he uses language that is tailored to the specifics of the congregation that he is addressing.
In the letter to the congregation in Rome he is concerned with Jewish Christians trying to enforce old forms of ritualistic behavior on new Christians who don’t have a Jewish background. When you have a religion that roots its relationship to God in a system of rules, it is not difficult to reduce that religion into a set of behaviors that are purely external. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures God – through the prophets – continually calls the people to account for their lack of love and grace, and predictably the people respond by doubling down on the rules! Setting rules is one more way by which we try to confine God’s presence in our lives.
God wants us to be obedient through the actions driven by our hearts, not a set of man-made rules. Paul says, “But thanks be to God that you … have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted….”
Like life itself, Christian faith can get a bit sloppy. God has called us again and again – and uniquely through the life of Jesus – to change our hearts; to forgive with the same reckless love that God has shown to us; to love one another because God has first loved us. We can’t do a great deal for God, but we can show God our love for God through our love for all of us who were created by God.
The Ten Commandments are God’s “rules” for how we can best live together. Paul makes it clear – as did Jesus – that we shouldn’t ignore them. But the Lord wants our obedience to the Commandments to be driven by the love in our hearts, not by hollow behavioral standards. Love God. Love one another. The rest will follow.
Prayer: Heavenly Lord, help us to recognize and accept deep within our hearts the love and forgiveness that You have given to us. Help us to recognize that You love us; that we are Your beloved. Guide us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to live as Your loved and forgiven children. In the joy of Christ we pray. Amen.
The readings for today are Numbers 22:1-21; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 21:12-22; and Psalm 106.
Blessings,
Pastor Jim
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