“32 They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.”
Today we finish chapter one of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Chapter one is kind of like the famous line from Tale of Two Cities –“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” On those mountaintop days we are not ashamed of the Gospel and we have a glimpse of the power we receive from that unseen God we worship and we know he has helped. We feel right with God through our faith. But truly there are those days when we hold on with our fingernails and have to admit we blew it…yet again. Thank goodness that God is not off in the clouds keeping track of our good and bad deeds but incarnated and went to the cross for us. But many days are a mixture of good and bad and often like Richard Frost we stand and stare at “two roads diverging in a yellow woods” and we must choose which one to follow.
Paul ends with a checklist of characteristics of the evil that draws us down that rabbit hole of separation from God that we talked about yesterday. Paul gives us a checklist of signs that we can look for that indicate the evil one is trying to distract us,
“29 They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”
Most of these qualities are extremes but some we recognize, like jealousy, envy and coveting. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was clear that murder begins with hate and adultery begins with lust. Gossip is a temptation for all of us and it is fun to share about our successes. Perhaps the question that helps me most is to ask if what I am doing draws me closer to God and good or does it put a wedge between God and me?
May our prayer be as we now enter chapter two that we too like Paul may not be ashamed of the Gospel. May we listen to our conscience as the Holy Spirit seeks to guide us. May we be reminded each time we enjoy the beauty of nature around us that there is a God who blesses us and seeks relationship with us. Thank you, Lord.
On the Way to Wonder 