Transforming Grace
Commentary
Fred Craddock tells of a vacation encounter in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee years ago that moved him deeply. He and his wife took supper one evening in a place called The Black Bear Inn. One side of the building was all glass, open to a magnificent mountain view. Glad to be alone, the Craddocks were a bit annoyed when an elderly man ambled over and struck up a nosy conversation: “Are you on vacation?” “Where are you from?” “What do you do?”
When he discovered that Fred taught in a seminary, the man suddenly had a preacher story to tell. “I was born back here in these mountains,” he said. “My mother was not married, and her shame fell upon me. The children at school called me horrible names. During recess I would go hide in the weeds until the bell rang,” he told Fred. “At lunchtime I took my lunch and went behind a tree to avoid them.
“Things got worse when I went to town. Men and women would stare at my mother and me, trying to guess the identity of my father. About seventh or eighth grade, I started to go hear a preacher. He wore a clawhammer tailcoat, striped trousers and had a face that looked like it had been quarried out of the mountain. He frightened me in a way, and he attracted me in a way. His voice thundered.
“I was afraid of what people would say to me, so I’d sneak into church just in time for the sermon, then rush out quickly when it was done. One Sunday, some women had cued up in the aisle and I couldn’t get out and I began to get cold and sweaty and was sure that somebody would challenge me, `What’s a boy like you doing in church?’
“Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw that beard and saw that face. The minister stared at me and I thought, `Oh, no. Oh, no. He’s gonna guess.’
“The minister focused a penetrating glare at me and then said, `Well boy, you’re a child of ah . . . You’re a child of ah . . . Ah, wait.’ The preacher paused dramatically, getting ready to announce the horrible revelation to the church. Then he said, `You’re a child of God! I see a strikin’ resemblance!’
“He swatted me on the bottom,” said the old man, “and then told me, `Go claim your inheritance, boy!’”
Fred Craddock looked more closely at the old man and asked, “What’s your name?”
As the gentleman got up to wander on, he proudly replied, “Ben Hooper!” Fred remembered his own father telling him about the time when for two terms the people of Tennessee had elected an illegitimate governor named Ben Hooper. The outcast had survived. The shamed had succeeded. The boy of infamy was transformed into a man of fame and stature.
How does it happen? How does shame turn to self-assurance and guilt to grace? How did Ben Hooper, a child of social poverty, emerge as a leader of society?
Each of today’s lectionary reading explains it from a different angle. Abraham has received unmerited kindnesses from God and finds himself caught in a strange call to sacrifice that will change everything he knows about death and life. Paul wrestles with the gift of grace that challenges the hope-killing “earn it for yourself” tendencies that shape daily life. And Jesus teaches his disciples to practice the hospitality of the kingdom of heaven that will bring everyone finally to a marvelous dinner at the homesick restaurant we all crave and need.
Genesis 22:1-14
Abram is an Aramean from the heart of Mesopotamia, whose father Terah begins a journey westward which Abram continues upon his father’s death. Whatever Terah’s reasons might have been for moving from the old family village—restlessness, treasure-seeking, displacement, wanderlust—Genesis 12 informs us that Abram’s continuation of the trek was motivated by a divine call to seek a land which would become his by providential appointment. This is the first of four similar divine declarations that occur in quick succession in chapters 12, 13, 15 and 17. Such repetition cues us to the importance of these theophanies, but it ought also cause us to look more closely at the forms in which the promises to Abram are made.
In brief, Abram’s first three encounters with God are shaped literarily as royal grants. Only in Genesis 17 does the language of the dialogue change, and elements are added to give it the flavor of a Suzerain Vassal covenant. This is very significant. When Abram receives royal grant promises of land or a son, he seems to treat these divine offerings with a mixture of indifference and skepticism. He immediately leaves the land of promise in Genesis 12 and connives with his wife Sarai and her handmaid Hagar to obtain an heir in Genesis 16. Even in the stories of Genesis 13-14, where Abram sticks with the land and fights others to regain his nephew Lot from them after local skirmishes and kidnappings, Abram turns his thankfulness toward a local expression of religious devotion through the mystical figure of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20). Only when God changes the language of covenant discourse, bringing Abram into the partnership of a Suzerain-Vassal bond, does Abraham enter fidelity and commitment to this new world and new purpose and new journey.
This is precisely the meaning of the incident in today’s lectionary reading. It is identified as a test of Abraham’s faith. In light of his response to earlier royal grant promises (12—leaves the land; 13—tries to take the land by force; 15—connives to get a son), Abraham is now called to declare his loyalty to the God who has ratified a Suzerain Vassal covenant with him (Genesis 17). While the test may seem overly demanding (kill your only son, the one given miraculously and the heir to your identity and promises), there are mitigating factors that help us understand it better. First, it was not out of the ordinary for people at that time to believe that deities required human sacrifice. The unusual twist in this story is that Yahweh, by stopping the bloodshed of Isaac, chooses deliberately to distance himself from these other deities, and shows that he does not delight in human sacrifice. Second, Yahweh provides an alternative offering, a ram divinely placed on the scene. Third, the place is named “Moriah,” which can ambiguously mean either “Yahweh sees” or “Yahweh will be seen,” both of which are correct (Yahweh sees the faith of Abraham; Yahweh is more clearly seen by Abraham), and thus illuminates the idea presented in the text that “Yahweh provides” the sacrifice. Fourth, this idea is further confirmed by later references to the location of the site. In 2 Chronicles 3:1 this mountain is specified as the future location of Solomon’s temple. Such a designation would tie the animal sacrifice to the temple rituals of a later century. It would also put the events of Genesis 22 on the very spot where Jesus would be crucified some twenty centuries hence, in another intense Father/Son engagement.
Romans 6:12-23
Paul summarized his working theme and emphasis up front in this letter: a new expression of the “righteousness of God” had been recently revealed, with great power, through the coming of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:17), and then moved into an extended discourse on the wrath of God as revealed against wickedness (Romans 1:18). Because of this, many have interpreted Paul’s understanding of God’s righteousness as an unattainable standard, against which the whole human race is measured and fails miserably. Only then, in the context of this desperate human situation, would the grand salvation of Christ be appreciated and enjoyed.
But more scholars believe that Paul’s assertions about the righteousness of God actually has a positive and missional thrust. In their understanding of what Paul says, it is precisely because of the obvious corruption and sinfulness in our world, which are demeaning and destroying humanity, that God needed again, as God did through Israel, to assert the divine will. In so doing, the focus of God’s righteousness is not to heap judgment upon humankind; instead God’s brilliant display of grace and power in Jesus ought to draw people back to the creational goodness God had originally intended for them. In other words, the Creator has never changed purpose or plan. The divine mission through Israel was to display the righteousness of God so that all nations might return to the goodness of Yahweh. Now again, in Jesus, the righteousness of God is revealed as a beacon of hope in a world ravaged by evil bullies. The power of God is our only sure bodyguard against the killing effects of sin and society and self.
This more positive perspective on the righteousness of God fits well with the flow of Paul’s message. In chapters 1:18–3:20, Paul describes the crippling effect of sin. We are all alienated from God (1:18-25). But we are also alienated from each other (1:26-32), so that we begin to treat one another with contempt and painful arrogance and destroy those around us in the malice which blinds us. We are even, says Paul, alienated from our own selves (2:1-11), not realizing how tarnished our sense and perspectives have become.
We make excuses about our condition (2:12-3:20), claiming that we are actually pretty good people (2:12-16), or accusing society and religion of raising moral standards to levels that are simply unrealistic (2:17-3:4), or even blaming God for all the nastiness around us and within us (3:5-20). Yet the result is merely self-deception, and continued rottenness in a world that seems to have no outs.
Once the stage has been set for Paul’s readers to realize again the pervasive grip of evil in this world, Paul marches Abraham out onto the stage as a model of divine religious reconstruction. God does not wish to be distant from the world, judgmental and vengeful. Rather, Jesus comes, the fullness of God’s healing righteousness revealed.
The story of God’s righteousness as grace and goodness begins with Abraham. God has always desired an ever-renewing relationship with the people of this world, creatures made in God’s own image. Paul describes God’s heart of love in 3:21-31, using illustrations from the courtroom (we are “justified”—3:24), the marketplace (we receive “redemption”—3:24), and the temple (“a sacrifice of atonement”—3:25). Moreover, while this ongoing expression of God’s gracious goodness finds its initial point of contact through the Jews (Abraham and “the law” and Jesus), it is clearly intended for all of humankind (3:27-31).
This is nothing new, according to Paul. In fact, if we return to the story of Abraham, we find some very interesting notes that we may have glossed over. “Blessedness” was “credited” to Abraham before he had a chance to be “justified by works” (4:1-11). In other words, whenever the “righteousness of God” shows up, it is a good thing, a healing hope, an enriching experience that no one is able to buy or manipulate. God alone initiates a relationship of favor and grace with us (4:1-23). In fact, according to Paul, this purpose of God is no less spectacular than the divine quest to re-create the world, undoing the effects that the cancer of sin has blighted upon us (Romans 5). It feels like being reborn (5:1-11). It plays out like the world itself is being remade (5:12-21). This is the great righteousness of God at work!
Now Paul gets very practical, as he states in our lectionary reading for today (see 6:19). Although we might think that we would jump at the opportunity to find such grace and divine favor, Paul reminds us that our inner conflicts tear at us until we are paralyzed with frustration and failure (Romans 6–7). Sometimes we deny these struggles (6:1-14). Sometimes we ignore these tensions (6:15-7:6). Sometimes we grow bitter in the quagmire of it all (7:7-12). And sometimes we even throw up our hands in despair (7:13-24).
Precisely then, says Paul, the power of the righteousness of God as our bodyguard is most clearly revealed. Thankfully, God’s righteousness grabs us and holds us, so that through Jesus and the Holy Spirit we are never separated from divine love (Romans 7:25-8:39). Hope floods through us because we know Jesus and what he has done for us (8:1-11). Hope whispers inside of us as the Holy Spirit reminds us who we truly are and whose we will always be (8:12-27). Hope thunders around us as God’s faithfulness is shouted from the heavens right through the pages of history (8:28-39).
Matthew 10:40-42
In Anne Tyler’s powerful novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, the Tull family is rocked when unstable husband and father Beck leaves Pearl and their three children, essentially destitute. Pearl has more strength than she or others realize, and manages to grow into competent parent and provider, bringing wild Cody, shy Ezra, and scholarly Jenny to maturity. Cody and Jenny eventually find themselves, he as a wealthy efficiency expert in a bad marriage, and Jenny as the caretaker wife of a father with six children whose wife, like Pearl’s husband, abandoned the family.
Mistreated and misunderstood, Ezra remains at home with his mother, and works his way up the positions in Mrs. Scarlatti’s restaurant on the edge of town. As Mrs. Scarlatti nears her end, she gives the restaurant to Ezra. His dream is to rename it “Homesick Restaurant,” and refashion it to draw its patrons into family meal table reunions and memories. He envisions a place where the waitstaff present no menus to customers, but rather engage them gently in conversations about remembered homecooked meals that were shared with laughter and love. Taking this information to the kitchen, Ezra and his cooks would prepare meals reminiscent of these good times, and nudge restaurant guests into recovering relationships and hope and love.
Anne Tyler took her cue for Ezra’s character from Jesus and his urgings in our gospel reading for today. Jesus’ words are the final instructions to his disciples as he sends them out as his ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven. He has warned them that the travels will not be easy, nor the receptions kind. Yet they are to practice hospitality in such a way that others will learn the graciousness of heaven from them. In effect, they will seek to provide a moveable feast, in which Jesus’ own kind and caring hosting will become the signature aspect of each new household and community of grace built or renewed under their leadership. Such will be the true identity of the church, calling neighbors and family and friends and even enemies to sit down together for dinner at the homesick restaurant of the eucharist, where everyone has a place and is received with grace.
Application
Thomas Long tells about the process of examining seminary students for ordination in a Presbyterian church in North Carolina. The students must pass an intense examination out in the church somewhere. The ministers in the area get to grill a student on any point of theology for as long as they wish, and sometimes the questioning lasts a long time.
Thomas Long says that one of his clergy colleagues who has served the same congregation for more than thirty years sits in silence throughout these ordeals. He never says a word, never asks a question, never demands a clarification, until the very end.
Then, just when the examinations seem to have run their course, the questioners are getting tired, and the seminary graduate starts to think the ordeal is over, this gentleman stands. “Look out there,” he says. He points to a large window at the side of their meeting hall. “Tell me when you see someone walking out there.”
So, the candidate sits there, neck craned, and looks for a while. “I see someone,” he says.
“Do you know the person?” asks Long’s friend.
“No, I don’t.”
Says the elderly gentleman, “Describe that person to me, theologically.”
This sage of North Carolina claims that one of two reasons is always given. When you sift through all the academic lingo and verbal padding, some seminary graduates say something like this: “There goes a sinner who’s on his way to hell unless he repents and gives his life over to Christ.”
The other answer goes something like this: “There goes a person who is a child of God. God loves that person so very much, and the best thing that can happen to him is to find out how good it is to love God in return.”
“They’re both right,” says the elderly man behind the strange question. “That’s what the scriptures and the church have always said. Still, as I’ve watched these fellows come and go over the years, the ones who answer my question the second way make better pastors. Mark my words!”
Do you believe it? If you do, then you probably have already peeked into the world of Jesus’ wisdom, the world on beyond perfection. For when the roll is called up yonder, the grades on the report cards that make it won’t be A for excellent, B for good, or even C for nice try.
The only grade that will make it will be G for grace.
Alternative Application (Genesis 22:1-14)
For Israel, standing at Mt. Sinai in the context of a Suzerain Vassal covenant-making ceremony, the implications of the Mt. Moriah encounter between God and Abraham would be striking. First of all, the nation would see itself as the unique and miraculously born child fulfilling a divine promise. Israel could not exist were it not for God’s unusual efforts at getting Abram and Sarai pregnant in a way that was humanly impossible. Second, the people were the descendants of a man on a divine pilgrimage. Not only was Abram en route to a land of promise, but he was also the instrument of God for the blessing of all the nations of the earth. In other words, Israel was born with a mandate, and it was globally encompassing. Third, while these tribes had recently emerged from Egypt as a despised social underclass of disenfranchised slaves, they were actually landowners. Canaan was theirs for the taking because they already owned it! They would not enter the land by stealth, but through the front door; they would claim the land, not by surreptitious means or mere battlefield bloodshed, but as rightful owners going home. This would greatly affect their common psyche: they were the long-lost heirs of a kingdom, returning to claim their royal privilege and possessions. Fourth, there was a selection in the process of creating their identity. They were children of Abraham, but so were a number of area tribes and nations descending from Ishmael. What made them special was the uniqueness of their lineage through Isaac, the miraculously born child of Abram and Sarai’s old age. Israel had international kinship relations, but she also retained a unique identity fostered by the divine distinctions between branches of the family. Fifth, in the progression of the dialogue between Yahweh and Abram there was a call to participation in the mission of God. As the story of Abram unfolded, it was clear that his commitment to God’s plans was minimal at best until the change from royal grants (Genesis 12, 13, 15) to the Suzerain Vassal Covenant of chapter 17. Each time Abram was given a gift he seemingly threw it away, tried to take it by force, or manipulated his circumstances so that he controlled his destiny; only when God took formal ownership of both Abram and the situation through the Suzerain-Vassal Covenant of Genesis 17 was there a marked change in Abram’s participation in the divine initiative. The renaming of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah were only partly significant for the meaning of the names; mostly they were a deliberate and public declaration that God owned them. To name meant to have power over, just as was the case when a divine word created the elements of the universe in Genesis 1, and when Adam named the animals in Genesis 2. Furthermore, in the call to circumcise all the males of the family, God transformed a widely used social rite of passage symbol into a visible mark of belonging now no longer tied to personal achievements like battlefield wins or hunting success, but merely to the gracious goodness of God, and participation in the divine mission.
But what was that divine mission? Only when Israel heard the rest of the covenant prologue, and then followed Moses to the promised land, would it become clear. Still, in recalling the tale of father Abraham in this manner, Genesis places before Israel at Sinai a very important element of its profound identity: we came into this world miraculously as a result of a divine initiative to bless all the nations of the earth; therefore we are a unique people with the powerful backing of the Creator, and participating in a mission that is still in progress.
When he discovered that Fred taught in a seminary, the man suddenly had a preacher story to tell. “I was born back here in these mountains,” he said. “My mother was not married, and her shame fell upon me. The children at school called me horrible names. During recess I would go hide in the weeds until the bell rang,” he told Fred. “At lunchtime I took my lunch and went behind a tree to avoid them.
“Things got worse when I went to town. Men and women would stare at my mother and me, trying to guess the identity of my father. About seventh or eighth grade, I started to go hear a preacher. He wore a clawhammer tailcoat, striped trousers and had a face that looked like it had been quarried out of the mountain. He frightened me in a way, and he attracted me in a way. His voice thundered.
“I was afraid of what people would say to me, so I’d sneak into church just in time for the sermon, then rush out quickly when it was done. One Sunday, some women had cued up in the aisle and I couldn’t get out and I began to get cold and sweaty and was sure that somebody would challenge me, `What’s a boy like you doing in church?’
“Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw that beard and saw that face. The minister stared at me and I thought, `Oh, no. Oh, no. He’s gonna guess.’
“The minister focused a penetrating glare at me and then said, `Well boy, you’re a child of ah . . . You’re a child of ah . . . Ah, wait.’ The preacher paused dramatically, getting ready to announce the horrible revelation to the church. Then he said, `You’re a child of God! I see a strikin’ resemblance!’
“He swatted me on the bottom,” said the old man, “and then told me, `Go claim your inheritance, boy!’”
Fred Craddock looked more closely at the old man and asked, “What’s your name?”
As the gentleman got up to wander on, he proudly replied, “Ben Hooper!” Fred remembered his own father telling him about the time when for two terms the people of Tennessee had elected an illegitimate governor named Ben Hooper. The outcast had survived. The shamed had succeeded. The boy of infamy was transformed into a man of fame and stature.
How does it happen? How does shame turn to self-assurance and guilt to grace? How did Ben Hooper, a child of social poverty, emerge as a leader of society?
Each of today’s lectionary reading explains it from a different angle. Abraham has received unmerited kindnesses from God and finds himself caught in a strange call to sacrifice that will change everything he knows about death and life. Paul wrestles with the gift of grace that challenges the hope-killing “earn it for yourself” tendencies that shape daily life. And Jesus teaches his disciples to practice the hospitality of the kingdom of heaven that will bring everyone finally to a marvelous dinner at the homesick restaurant we all crave and need.
Genesis 22:1-14
Abram is an Aramean from the heart of Mesopotamia, whose father Terah begins a journey westward which Abram continues upon his father’s death. Whatever Terah’s reasons might have been for moving from the old family village—restlessness, treasure-seeking, displacement, wanderlust—Genesis 12 informs us that Abram’s continuation of the trek was motivated by a divine call to seek a land which would become his by providential appointment. This is the first of four similar divine declarations that occur in quick succession in chapters 12, 13, 15 and 17. Such repetition cues us to the importance of these theophanies, but it ought also cause us to look more closely at the forms in which the promises to Abram are made.
In brief, Abram’s first three encounters with God are shaped literarily as royal grants. Only in Genesis 17 does the language of the dialogue change, and elements are added to give it the flavor of a Suzerain Vassal covenant. This is very significant. When Abram receives royal grant promises of land or a son, he seems to treat these divine offerings with a mixture of indifference and skepticism. He immediately leaves the land of promise in Genesis 12 and connives with his wife Sarai and her handmaid Hagar to obtain an heir in Genesis 16. Even in the stories of Genesis 13-14, where Abram sticks with the land and fights others to regain his nephew Lot from them after local skirmishes and kidnappings, Abram turns his thankfulness toward a local expression of religious devotion through the mystical figure of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20). Only when God changes the language of covenant discourse, bringing Abram into the partnership of a Suzerain-Vassal bond, does Abraham enter fidelity and commitment to this new world and new purpose and new journey.
This is precisely the meaning of the incident in today’s lectionary reading. It is identified as a test of Abraham’s faith. In light of his response to earlier royal grant promises (12—leaves the land; 13—tries to take the land by force; 15—connives to get a son), Abraham is now called to declare his loyalty to the God who has ratified a Suzerain Vassal covenant with him (Genesis 17). While the test may seem overly demanding (kill your only son, the one given miraculously and the heir to your identity and promises), there are mitigating factors that help us understand it better. First, it was not out of the ordinary for people at that time to believe that deities required human sacrifice. The unusual twist in this story is that Yahweh, by stopping the bloodshed of Isaac, chooses deliberately to distance himself from these other deities, and shows that he does not delight in human sacrifice. Second, Yahweh provides an alternative offering, a ram divinely placed on the scene. Third, the place is named “Moriah,” which can ambiguously mean either “Yahweh sees” or “Yahweh will be seen,” both of which are correct (Yahweh sees the faith of Abraham; Yahweh is more clearly seen by Abraham), and thus illuminates the idea presented in the text that “Yahweh provides” the sacrifice. Fourth, this idea is further confirmed by later references to the location of the site. In 2 Chronicles 3:1 this mountain is specified as the future location of Solomon’s temple. Such a designation would tie the animal sacrifice to the temple rituals of a later century. It would also put the events of Genesis 22 on the very spot where Jesus would be crucified some twenty centuries hence, in another intense Father/Son engagement.
Romans 6:12-23
Paul summarized his working theme and emphasis up front in this letter: a new expression of the “righteousness of God” had been recently revealed, with great power, through the coming of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:17), and then moved into an extended discourse on the wrath of God as revealed against wickedness (Romans 1:18). Because of this, many have interpreted Paul’s understanding of God’s righteousness as an unattainable standard, against which the whole human race is measured and fails miserably. Only then, in the context of this desperate human situation, would the grand salvation of Christ be appreciated and enjoyed.
But more scholars believe that Paul’s assertions about the righteousness of God actually has a positive and missional thrust. In their understanding of what Paul says, it is precisely because of the obvious corruption and sinfulness in our world, which are demeaning and destroying humanity, that God needed again, as God did through Israel, to assert the divine will. In so doing, the focus of God’s righteousness is not to heap judgment upon humankind; instead God’s brilliant display of grace and power in Jesus ought to draw people back to the creational goodness God had originally intended for them. In other words, the Creator has never changed purpose or plan. The divine mission through Israel was to display the righteousness of God so that all nations might return to the goodness of Yahweh. Now again, in Jesus, the righteousness of God is revealed as a beacon of hope in a world ravaged by evil bullies. The power of God is our only sure bodyguard against the killing effects of sin and society and self.
This more positive perspective on the righteousness of God fits well with the flow of Paul’s message. In chapters 1:18–3:20, Paul describes the crippling effect of sin. We are all alienated from God (1:18-25). But we are also alienated from each other (1:26-32), so that we begin to treat one another with contempt and painful arrogance and destroy those around us in the malice which blinds us. We are even, says Paul, alienated from our own selves (2:1-11), not realizing how tarnished our sense and perspectives have become.
We make excuses about our condition (2:12-3:20), claiming that we are actually pretty good people (2:12-16), or accusing society and religion of raising moral standards to levels that are simply unrealistic (2:17-3:4), or even blaming God for all the nastiness around us and within us (3:5-20). Yet the result is merely self-deception, and continued rottenness in a world that seems to have no outs.
Once the stage has been set for Paul’s readers to realize again the pervasive grip of evil in this world, Paul marches Abraham out onto the stage as a model of divine religious reconstruction. God does not wish to be distant from the world, judgmental and vengeful. Rather, Jesus comes, the fullness of God’s healing righteousness revealed.
The story of God’s righteousness as grace and goodness begins with Abraham. God has always desired an ever-renewing relationship with the people of this world, creatures made in God’s own image. Paul describes God’s heart of love in 3:21-31, using illustrations from the courtroom (we are “justified”—3:24), the marketplace (we receive “redemption”—3:24), and the temple (“a sacrifice of atonement”—3:25). Moreover, while this ongoing expression of God’s gracious goodness finds its initial point of contact through the Jews (Abraham and “the law” and Jesus), it is clearly intended for all of humankind (3:27-31).
This is nothing new, according to Paul. In fact, if we return to the story of Abraham, we find some very interesting notes that we may have glossed over. “Blessedness” was “credited” to Abraham before he had a chance to be “justified by works” (4:1-11). In other words, whenever the “righteousness of God” shows up, it is a good thing, a healing hope, an enriching experience that no one is able to buy or manipulate. God alone initiates a relationship of favor and grace with us (4:1-23). In fact, according to Paul, this purpose of God is no less spectacular than the divine quest to re-create the world, undoing the effects that the cancer of sin has blighted upon us (Romans 5). It feels like being reborn (5:1-11). It plays out like the world itself is being remade (5:12-21). This is the great righteousness of God at work!
Now Paul gets very practical, as he states in our lectionary reading for today (see 6:19). Although we might think that we would jump at the opportunity to find such grace and divine favor, Paul reminds us that our inner conflicts tear at us until we are paralyzed with frustration and failure (Romans 6–7). Sometimes we deny these struggles (6:1-14). Sometimes we ignore these tensions (6:15-7:6). Sometimes we grow bitter in the quagmire of it all (7:7-12). And sometimes we even throw up our hands in despair (7:13-24).
Precisely then, says Paul, the power of the righteousness of God as our bodyguard is most clearly revealed. Thankfully, God’s righteousness grabs us and holds us, so that through Jesus and the Holy Spirit we are never separated from divine love (Romans 7:25-8:39). Hope floods through us because we know Jesus and what he has done for us (8:1-11). Hope whispers inside of us as the Holy Spirit reminds us who we truly are and whose we will always be (8:12-27). Hope thunders around us as God’s faithfulness is shouted from the heavens right through the pages of history (8:28-39).
Matthew 10:40-42
In Anne Tyler’s powerful novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, the Tull family is rocked when unstable husband and father Beck leaves Pearl and their three children, essentially destitute. Pearl has more strength than she or others realize, and manages to grow into competent parent and provider, bringing wild Cody, shy Ezra, and scholarly Jenny to maturity. Cody and Jenny eventually find themselves, he as a wealthy efficiency expert in a bad marriage, and Jenny as the caretaker wife of a father with six children whose wife, like Pearl’s husband, abandoned the family.
Mistreated and misunderstood, Ezra remains at home with his mother, and works his way up the positions in Mrs. Scarlatti’s restaurant on the edge of town. As Mrs. Scarlatti nears her end, she gives the restaurant to Ezra. His dream is to rename it “Homesick Restaurant,” and refashion it to draw its patrons into family meal table reunions and memories. He envisions a place where the waitstaff present no menus to customers, but rather engage them gently in conversations about remembered homecooked meals that were shared with laughter and love. Taking this information to the kitchen, Ezra and his cooks would prepare meals reminiscent of these good times, and nudge restaurant guests into recovering relationships and hope and love.
Anne Tyler took her cue for Ezra’s character from Jesus and his urgings in our gospel reading for today. Jesus’ words are the final instructions to his disciples as he sends them out as his ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven. He has warned them that the travels will not be easy, nor the receptions kind. Yet they are to practice hospitality in such a way that others will learn the graciousness of heaven from them. In effect, they will seek to provide a moveable feast, in which Jesus’ own kind and caring hosting will become the signature aspect of each new household and community of grace built or renewed under their leadership. Such will be the true identity of the church, calling neighbors and family and friends and even enemies to sit down together for dinner at the homesick restaurant of the eucharist, where everyone has a place and is received with grace.
Application
Thomas Long tells about the process of examining seminary students for ordination in a Presbyterian church in North Carolina. The students must pass an intense examination out in the church somewhere. The ministers in the area get to grill a student on any point of theology for as long as they wish, and sometimes the questioning lasts a long time.
Thomas Long says that one of his clergy colleagues who has served the same congregation for more than thirty years sits in silence throughout these ordeals. He never says a word, never asks a question, never demands a clarification, until the very end.
Then, just when the examinations seem to have run their course, the questioners are getting tired, and the seminary graduate starts to think the ordeal is over, this gentleman stands. “Look out there,” he says. He points to a large window at the side of their meeting hall. “Tell me when you see someone walking out there.”
So, the candidate sits there, neck craned, and looks for a while. “I see someone,” he says.
“Do you know the person?” asks Long’s friend.
“No, I don’t.”
Says the elderly gentleman, “Describe that person to me, theologically.”
This sage of North Carolina claims that one of two reasons is always given. When you sift through all the academic lingo and verbal padding, some seminary graduates say something like this: “There goes a sinner who’s on his way to hell unless he repents and gives his life over to Christ.”
The other answer goes something like this: “There goes a person who is a child of God. God loves that person so very much, and the best thing that can happen to him is to find out how good it is to love God in return.”
“They’re both right,” says the elderly man behind the strange question. “That’s what the scriptures and the church have always said. Still, as I’ve watched these fellows come and go over the years, the ones who answer my question the second way make better pastors. Mark my words!”
Do you believe it? If you do, then you probably have already peeked into the world of Jesus’ wisdom, the world on beyond perfection. For when the roll is called up yonder, the grades on the report cards that make it won’t be A for excellent, B for good, or even C for nice try.
The only grade that will make it will be G for grace.
Alternative Application (Genesis 22:1-14)
For Israel, standing at Mt. Sinai in the context of a Suzerain Vassal covenant-making ceremony, the implications of the Mt. Moriah encounter between God and Abraham would be striking. First of all, the nation would see itself as the unique and miraculously born child fulfilling a divine promise. Israel could not exist were it not for God’s unusual efforts at getting Abram and Sarai pregnant in a way that was humanly impossible. Second, the people were the descendants of a man on a divine pilgrimage. Not only was Abram en route to a land of promise, but he was also the instrument of God for the blessing of all the nations of the earth. In other words, Israel was born with a mandate, and it was globally encompassing. Third, while these tribes had recently emerged from Egypt as a despised social underclass of disenfranchised slaves, they were actually landowners. Canaan was theirs for the taking because they already owned it! They would not enter the land by stealth, but through the front door; they would claim the land, not by surreptitious means or mere battlefield bloodshed, but as rightful owners going home. This would greatly affect their common psyche: they were the long-lost heirs of a kingdom, returning to claim their royal privilege and possessions. Fourth, there was a selection in the process of creating their identity. They were children of Abraham, but so were a number of area tribes and nations descending from Ishmael. What made them special was the uniqueness of their lineage through Isaac, the miraculously born child of Abram and Sarai’s old age. Israel had international kinship relations, but she also retained a unique identity fostered by the divine distinctions between branches of the family. Fifth, in the progression of the dialogue between Yahweh and Abram there was a call to participation in the mission of God. As the story of Abram unfolded, it was clear that his commitment to God’s plans was minimal at best until the change from royal grants (Genesis 12, 13, 15) to the Suzerain Vassal Covenant of chapter 17. Each time Abram was given a gift he seemingly threw it away, tried to take it by force, or manipulated his circumstances so that he controlled his destiny; only when God took formal ownership of both Abram and the situation through the Suzerain-Vassal Covenant of Genesis 17 was there a marked change in Abram’s participation in the divine initiative. The renaming of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah were only partly significant for the meaning of the names; mostly they were a deliberate and public declaration that God owned them. To name meant to have power over, just as was the case when a divine word created the elements of the universe in Genesis 1, and when Adam named the animals in Genesis 2. Furthermore, in the call to circumcise all the males of the family, God transformed a widely used social rite of passage symbol into a visible mark of belonging now no longer tied to personal achievements like battlefield wins or hunting success, but merely to the gracious goodness of God, and participation in the divine mission.
But what was that divine mission? Only when Israel heard the rest of the covenant prologue, and then followed Moses to the promised land, would it become clear. Still, in recalling the tale of father Abraham in this manner, Genesis places before Israel at Sinai a very important element of its profound identity: we came into this world miraculously as a result of a divine initiative to bless all the nations of the earth; therefore we are a unique people with the powerful backing of the Creator, and participating in a mission that is still in progress.
