offer would be accepted—and then that God would be bound in covenant to this man and his generations of progeny that weren’t even born yet. Would they be worthy? Would they uphold their end of the bargain?
But God took the risk, and the Bible testifies that, for his part, God remained faithful all along, despite all of the missteps of the Israelites, including a few missteps by Abram himself. And finally, it was one of Abraham’s own descendants, as Matthew shows Jesus to have been, that Paul testifies fulfilled God’s original intention in seeking out Abram and making the covenant after the disappointing start to creation that ended with the flood: the redemption of the creation God loves through the faithfulness of Jesus, God’s own Son but also reckoned a child of Abraham, and Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb. And for anyone to confess Jesus Christ as Lord, and that God raised him from the dead, means to share the faith of Abraham whose covenant with God is fulfilled in Christ—to reach out from the shadows of stagnation and despair and let go of the safe and the familiar. Genealogy is no longer important, adhering to the Torah is no longer necessary, for the distinction between Abraham’s biological family—the Jews—and Abraham’s family by faith—Gentiles who have responded to Christ in faith—that distinction is forever overcome and set aside. The same God who gave life where there was none—the birds and the fish and the cattle and every creeping thing and man and woman—is the God who again gave life where there was none—a child to barren and childless Abraham and Sarah in their old age—and is the God who once again gave life where there was none—to the dead and buried Jesus—and is the God who yet again gives life where there was none—the quickening faith that leads people out from caverns of hopelessness into the full daylight of God’s purpose of salvation. And this same God blesses and continues to bless all families of the earth through the faithful witness, by words and deeds, of people who are open to hearing God’s call and are willing to act on it immediately, without question, without calculation, without regret.
“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him” (Matt 9:9, NRSV). That is a characteristic of disciples, according to Matthew—a willingness, without deliberation or debate, to trust Jesus—God’s Son—enough to reach out from the ordinary expectations of life, the ordinary securities of life, the ordinary disappointments of life—and let go the past so that we can be part of God’s future, to allow ourselves to be blessed by God and, by risking in faith, be a blessing to others. What if Abram had said “no,” or even said he’d have to think about it? What if Matthew or any of the others of the twelve had said “no,” or even said they’d have to think about it? Perhaps we begin to understand the consequences to God’s passionate purpose of redeeming the world if we should say “no,” or even “I’ll have to think about it.” The call of Christ may come at any moment to risk acting on faith so that we may be blessed and be a blessing. Faith in Jesus Christ means being ready, at every moment, to reach out and let go.
Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Spanish Springs Presbyterian Church, Sparks, Nevada
June 13, 1999
Genesis 18:1–15; 21:1–7
Romans 5:1–8
Matthew 9:35—10:8
“Work in Progress”
“Therefore,” begins the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, “since we are justified by faith” (Rom 5:1a, NRSV). “Justified”? If you are new to the Christian faith, or if you are just beginning to explore what it is all about, you may sometimes feel that, when you open the Bible, you find yourself in a whole new world of ideas and terms. In fact, it can be so intimidating that you just close the book and think that you’ll try it again later. Oh, the stories in Genesis are pleasant enough, and intriguing. And the parables of Jesus ring with a truth that preachers’ sermons often only manage to get in the way of. But a lot of the Old Testament you find frankly redundant and rather boring—believe me, hardly anyone gets excited by Leviticus,—and much of the Old Testament may seem far removed from where you live and the questions that you ask, and it is not sacrilegious to admit that quite a few of the New Testament epistles are rather tedious and technical. Take, for instance, this business about being “justified.” That seems to be the very sort of religious jargon that would turn off people who are wondering whether or not Christianity is for them.
The word “justify” literally means to make right, to make correct, to make blameless, to make acceptable in the sight of another person. It is a term borrowed from the legal world, and of course, any word that is at home someplace as earthy as a courtroom is going to have its limitations in explaining something that has to do with the spirit. The apostle Paul, who wrote the letter to the Christians at Rome, most of whom were of pagan background, was trying to answer for his readers their question of whether, since the death and resurrection of Christ, God still had any interest in the Jews. The Jews had believed that “justification”—that is, being made right in the sight of God—had to do with keeping the law—all of the rules and regulations that God had given to Moses and Moses had passed on to his people long ago, including things like circumcision and the sorts of food a righteous person could and could not eat. Was God still interested in the Jews after so many of them had rejected his own Son? Were the law and the prophets still important after Jesus had died on the cross and been raised from the tomb? And, so, was it important to continue to follow all of the Jewish laws?
Paul’s answer, in a nutshell, is that the law is still important—it is, after all, a gift from God—but it is not the keeping of the law that makes us right with God. It is not the law that justifies us in God’s sight. It is not our obeying the law that saves us, whether it be avoiding particular foods or keeping the Ten Commandments. Rather, we are justified by faith. We are made right, we are made correct, we are made blameless, we are made acceptable in God’s sight, by the sheer grace of God when we have faith in Jesus Christ, God’s own Son—when we believe that everything he did and said is the very truth of God, and when we trust in his promises and even stake our lives on them. Jesus, Paul testifies, was handed over to death for our sins, because of our sins, to pay the price for our sins, and Jesus was raised for justification, to demonstrate that God has forgiven us, to guarantee our salvation.
“Therefore, since we are justified,” writes Paul—justified by faith—“we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1, NRSV). And Paul goes on to talk about what peace with God means and what it implies and what it makes possible in our lives. The apostle explained that people who have faith in Jesus Christ have already been justified, have already been set right before God, have already been deemed correct by God, have already been reckoned blameless in God’s judgment, have already become acceptable in God’s sight. Paul was able to turn to the difference that that makes in people’s lives. We can get on with living out the life of people who have had God’s love poured into their hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to them. Do we have faith in the salvation that God worked for us on a cruel and gruesome Friday afternoon nearly two thousand years ago? That was when, “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . [R]arely will anyone die for a righteous person . . . But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:6, 7a, 8, NRSV). If we believe that, then the past is over and done, and we can get on with living and loving as people who know that we are free from the consequences of sin. Justification—being made right in God’s sight—is an accomplished fact, not by anything that we have done, but trusting in what God has done. We can get on with dedicating our whole life to living out our gratitude for what God has done for us in Jesus Christ in words and deeds of compassion and mercy and courage and hope.
Paul points to some specific results of our salvation that God has already accomplished. We are no longer enemies of God. We have peace with God. Peace is more than just a cessation of hostilities with another. Peace is a bond of creative harmony between people, genuine reconciliation between adversaries. Many recent events have demonstrated that, though the Cold War is over, the United States and Russia are still not at peace. There is still mutual suspicion. There is still competition. There is still quickness to take offense. Believers do