On the Way to Wonder

         The FaceBook posts that show some person, who knows far more than I, working with plants always fascinates me.  I love the one where the person uses a straw to make a couple holes in a banana lying on its side and then put a seed in the hole.  The banana is the birthplace of a new plant.  That is about as close as I have gotten to the grafting that Paul talks about in Romans 11:17-18.

^“17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, ¹⁸ do not vaunt yourselves over the branches. If you do vaunt yourselves, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.”

Paul likens the addition of Gentiles into the God story that started with the children of Israel to the grafting of a wild olive tree into a cultivated olive tree.  Grafting is a much more vivid process that the other word Paul uses, “adoption.”  Grafting, as I understand it, comes from cutting to insert two different things together, a binding and a watering process while the plants grow together.  The strength of the root plant, just like the banana, nourishes the plant added to it.  Paul warns us not to be haughty because we, the young believer, come to the plant with youth and energy.  But likewise we need the wisdom of the elders who have lived their faith through trials and testings.  They have something to teach us.

         So let’s try to think of someone who has gone before us and helped us along in our faith journey.  And let’s think of someone who is younger and could use encouragement, perhaps forgiveness for a youthful error, and that helping hand that believes they are worth something.  Thank God for the gift of the elder and ask to be an encouraging giver to those behind.  Blessings.

         Today is the 15^th day of August.  We are half way through our month.  Rather than turn to Romans today, I decided to turn to lighter reading.  I need to hear a psalm.

Who Shall Abide in God’s Sanctuary?

A Psalm of David.

¹ O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
    Who may dwell on your holy hill?

² Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
    and speak the truth from their heart;
³ who do not slander with their tongue,
    and do no evil to their friends,
    nor take up a reproach against their neighbours;
⁴ in whose eyes the wicked are despised,
    but who honour those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
⁵ who do not lend money at interest,
    and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be moved.

Today was one of those days.  The last member of our parent’s generation died at age 106.  He was a doctor and delivered our second son.  He slept on the delivery table while I labored.  We loved him.  He blessed many lives.  I’m sure he was not perfect, blameless, but he was very kind and always went the extra mile to help people.  As a doctor he went into places in East Africa ravaged by war to bring healing and hope.  He feared the Lord and kept his word.  His children have followed in his footsteps and blessed our lives as good friends.

“Death levels the playing field,” it is said.  As Christians we know there is an eternity and eventual justice but it might be a good devotional to reread the   psalm and ask if the qualities that David mentions in the psalm apply to your life and if they will be the qualities people praise your life for having.  Blessings as you reflect before the Lord.

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         Here comes another series of dominoes!  Paul asks how people can call on God if they have not believed and how then can they believe if they have not heard and how then can they hear if someone hasn’t been wiling to share and how then can people share if they have not been sent to share?  Perhaps it is like thinking about back in the day when the big goal was to find the right spouse.  Paul would reason that you cannot meet the right spouse if someone or some circumstance does not allow you to be introduced and how then can someone introduce that person to you if they don’t know you and the candidate?  There is a connection between our prayers and the events that must take place for our prayers to be answered.

         It is easy to become impatient with God for not answering our prayer immediately but perhaps he is getting the dominoes in line.  We live in a culture that now advertises Instacart so we do not have to miss action on the TV by just dialing a number.  Paul would argue that faith is not like Instacart or Door Dash or any of the easy solutions the commercials offer for our problems.

         Perhaps the challenge for us today is to ponder one of the big prayer requests that lays heavy on our heart.  The salvation of a beloved person may be an invitation for us to be one of the dominoes in that process.  We may feel the challenge to love the struggling in a selfless, unexpected way.   We can be a link in the chain of dominoes by smiling at a person facing an operation and offering a word of hope.  I would like to think that refraining from doing evil, cursing out the ding-dong who is texting at the signal change in front of us, not saying that snarky remark in front of family or friends is helpful.  Paul is talking about sharing our faith but doing it in love and not judgment might be the challenge.

¹⁴ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? ¹⁵ 

And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?

As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”  (Romans 10:14-15)

Blessings as you help another connect the dominoes and become “beautiful feet.”

         Marty Haugen is one of my favorite meditational hymn writers.  He is one of the composers for the Holden Evening prayers.  He put our psalm for tomorrow to music.  The Gospel reading is the familiar scene of Jesus walking on the water to meet the terrified disciples caught in a storm.  The disciples are so terrified they think Jesus is a ghost and Peter, victim of doubt, says, “If, if you are God, tell me to come and walk on water with you.”  Jesus invites Peter and all who doubt and are afraid to “Come.”  Jesus invites us into a faith adventure even when we are tired, terrified, and doubting.  It is good to sing, “Lord, let us see your kindness,” with this hymn.  Enjoy.

         I vividly remember my last spanking.  My sister and I had been sent to get our dolls at a friend’s house and return for lunch.  I popped my head in our door and realized we were late to return so I pushed my sister in first.  My father asked, “Who came in first?”  I replied, “My sister.”  I received two spankings, one for being late and one for lying.  I felt I was right in my own heart for she had technically “entered” first but deep inside I knew I was just trying to being in the wrong.

         Paul so far in Romans has been defining “righteousness”, being right with God, as a gift that we do not deserve because we have all sinned.  That’s pretty general and we can agree in principal.  But Paul returns in chapter 10 to Israelite history.   They received the Law on Mt. Sinai and tried hard to obey it, establishing lots of rules that defined the general law and made it more obvious, perhaps, for someone to know if they were being obedient.  Like me, obeying the law is like saying who technically came in the door first.  I point to obedience rather than faith.  Obedience can become self-justification, which easily slips into an attitude of entitlement.  The righteousness Paul is talking about is based on the humbling of self and admitting our need for God and inability to find him without his help rather than being based on a faulty perception of our track record of obeying rules.  Romans 10:9-10 are some favorite verses:

^“9 becaus^e if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”

         It seems that Paul ties together hearts and lips.  Faith is a holistic involvement of our whole being.  It is not just some belief we hold privately but must be integrated into our whole life.

         Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to shine his flashlight of truth into our lives today and show us any way in which we are trying to justify ourselves when we need to lean in faith on Jesus for forgiveness.  Blessings.

         Paul in Chapter 9 of Romans continues and seems to anticipate an accusation of unfairness against God.  Remember how last week we dealt with the long list of theological terms: predestined, called, and justified?  God had a master plan determined before time about what he was creating. His dream, his design for his creation was that the beings created would reflect his image, would therefore have free will to choose relationship in response to their faith.  Paul is now showing how God makes obvious his plan by blessing those who are less likely and humbling those whom we might consider deserving.  Salvation is a gift of faith.  Paul points out that Abraham, the starting point of many people, responded in faith.  God foretells that twin #2, Jacob, would be blessed, and Pharaoh who thought he was God would be humbled.  If we look at the genealogy we see a list of deeply flawed people who trusted God.  David was an adulterer and murderer, Rehab a harlot, Ruth a foreigner and many more flawed people, sinners that are in the family line of Joseph and Mary, the parents of Jesus.  All this Paul posits is to magnify the mercy of God to give hope to the humble and to humble the proud.  It is possible for a person to cry, “Unfair,” if that person wants to win the game of life without following the guidelines but we must realize we are arguing with the God of the universe who gave us free will.  Our struggles with God draw us into interaction with him and are designed to draw us closer, ultimately.

         So as we reflect today, we might ask if there is some area where we feel life is unfair.  Perhaps it is with our body type, our political powers in government, or a medical diagnosis we just received.  Addictions are another major area.  It is so easy to develop a victim mentality.  Let us take our own issue to God in prayer and one of the major issues facing our world today.  May God be glorified in our struggle.

         Paul makes an interesting point in Romans as he continues his introduction to the people in Rome that he hopes to visit.  Paul has gone back to Abraham and reminded them that Abraham believed God’s promises before the Mosaic Law was given and before the covenant of circumcision.  At that point Abraham was no different than the “Gentiles” or we might say heathens.  In fact, he is no different from all people.  Paul has spent several chapters pointing to faith.  Salvation is a gift from God received through faith in his promises and thus for all people.  Paul now makes another interesting point.

     Abraham had children by several women. He first bore Ishmael by Hagar, Sarah’s maid.  He bore Isaac by Sarah.  After Sarah died Genesis 25 tells us Abraham took another wife, Keturah, and had six more sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.  And so we sing, “Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham.”

         Paul points out that being of the bloodline of Abraham does not necessarily guarantee salvation.  All along Abraham had many sons but it was only people of the promise, who believe that are included in the covenant.  This issue of family lines is becoming more common to us these days as blended families are becoming very common.  Many know the pain of family “discussions” over who gets what of the inheritance.  We often hear of hurt feels and accusations of “unfair.”

         So what do we take away from this today?  Perhaps the concept of “family” is different in the kingdom of heaven than here in the kingdom of this world.  We are spiritually related to a host of people we do not feel required to give Christmas gifts to and with whom we may fight just as openly as we do with our blood siblings.  Our spiritual family though is a body where Christ is the head and where we all serve a purpose and is called to work together.

         Let’s take a moment today and think of a friend who is not our biological sibling but who has blessed us.  Let us thank God for that person and pray a blessing for that person …or… think of a way to express your appreciation.

         One of the stories explaining the origin of Valentine’s Day tells of a Roman citizen who had a home church.  A Roman soldier, against the law, wanted Valentine to marry him to his girlfriend.  The soldiers arrested the congregation but allowed Valentine to go free because of his social status.  The Christians were to face the beasts in the arena.  Valentine sent messages on red heart shaped pieces of paper to encourage his friends and offered to die in their place in the arena, fighting the beasts.

         Paul in Romans 9:3 laments over those who are Jews like him but who have not chosen to believe in Jesus.  “³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.”  Paul has reasoned that faith, not adherence to the Law or circumcision is what brings people into a saving relationship with God.  So what is the purpose of the Old Testament and the Jewish heritage?  Has Christianity superseded Judaism?  God has worked marvelously and historically with the Jewish people.  Divine adoption places all believers in one family regardless of their ethnic origins.  One tribe is not better than another.  Paul would be willing to die if more Jews would believe.

         Perhaps you carry in your heart today the burden of an unsaved child or spouse or relative or neighbor or friend.  We may not be able to go to the arena for them as Valentine did or be willing to be cursed so they would be saved as Paul says but we can pray.  Take the name of the person you are praying for and make an acrostic of their name and take each letter and think of gifts you might give to show God’s love.  For example Joe:  J is for joy at seeing him, O is for an orange you could give for no reason, and E could be a note of encouragement.  Blessings as you pray for that person on your heart.

^“35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Romans 8:35)”

         Paul is reaching one of the most cherished verses for many.  Note, separation is a product of an outside force.  Situations that bring suffering are listed.  Amazingly, Paul does not mention sins.  Circumstances affect believers and non-believers alike.  Could it be that believers stand in solidarity with the non-believers in the midst of the dynamic events, as a kind of witness that God has not abandoned us, for God is present in us.  As we go through these experiences we are also challenged to identify with Jesus who went through death, to the cross, in solidarity with his creation.  I think of scenes from the movie Titanic where an old couple embraced as they gave seats to the young and another as a mother lay in the bunk with her children reassuring them as they faced death.  And the hero makes sure the heroine lives.  Situations cannot separate us.  But none of those are personal sins.  Christ died for sin so Paul is speaking to events in life that try to defeat us and convince us God is absent.

         Paul continues,

^“37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)”

This is a verse worth memorizing and remembering on dark days!

         Perhaps there is a situation in your life right now that the evil one is trying to convince you that you have lost God’s love.  If the situation is from your sinfulness, then confession and repentance is in order.  But discouragement, fear, anxiety and doubt because of events cannot separate you.  If you have not memorized this verse, take a minute and read it through several times and let your heart rest in it.  Blessings. 

         Tomorrow’s psalm praises God for supplying our needs.  Our text will be the feeding of the 5,000+ with two fish and five loaves.  The miracle takes place in a context of death, lack of resources, and hunger.  We will look at how those dynamics are still present today and drive us to seek Jesus in the wildernesses of our life when we face tough times.  Perhaps you can think of a rough bump in the road of life this week where you felt God’s presence.  A praise team sings the psalm put to music.  Sit back and enjoy.  I don’t think it is too rowdy!  Blessings.