Monday • 3/13/2023 •
Week of 3 Lent
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Jeremiah 7:1–15; Romans 4:1–12; John 7:14–36
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)
Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of the third week of Lent, a season of preparation for Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.
Sometimes a gift is hard to receive, especially if you don’t feel you deserve it. Or if receiving it will create an obligation you can’t or don’t want to take on. Or if you feel you haven’t earned it, and ought to pay for it instead.
In Romans 4, Paul recalls the scene from Genesis 15 when Yahweh promises to protect Abraham and to provide for the future of his line. “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:1–6; Romans 4:3). “Abraham believed.” That’s it. That’s all he had to do. He knew he didn’t deserve it. He knew he couldn’t earn it or pay for it. He simply said, “Yes!”and believed...
Image: Abraham, stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL
The requirement of circumcision follows two chapters later in Genesis. Paul’s interpretation of Genesis 17’s circumcision is that it is a certification testifying to the faith that had been expressed earlier in Genesis 15. “The sign of circumcision [was] a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (Romans 4:11).
It was Genesis 15’s faith from the heart that saved Abraham, not Genesis 17’s cutting of the foreskin. Abraham is thus able to be “father to all who believe”—Jew and Gentile alike—because his faith came prior to his circumcision. For the Israelite descendants of Abraham, receiving circumcision was like receiving a membership card. It didn’t make anyone a member. It was a sign of the membership that faith was supposed to have already provided. That is why Moses and Jeremiah exhort God’s people to be circumcised in the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4). Since baptism has succeeded circumcision as sign of belonging to God’s family in the new covenant (Colossians 2:11–14), with the acknowledgement of the need for redemption through Christ, it’s even easier to see that the relationship with the Lord begins in the heart, with the “Yes!” of faith.
Abraham is an “example of faith” (Romans 4:12) to us because he shows how to receive God’s gift of righteousness. Righteousness was a gift that came to Abraham even when he was, as Paul says, “ungodly” and still “uncircumcised.” (Romans 4:5,10–11). We receive righteousness not because we deserve it, not because to do so would commit us to an odious obligation, not because we must earn it. It so happens that because it is a gift motivated by God’s own love, it is a gift that creates a lovely and sincere desire to return that love. (Paul has more to say about that in upcoming chapters.) But the first thing he wants us to know is this: despite all the bad news we learned about ourselves in Romans 1:18–3:20, God nevertheless set forth his Son as a redemptive sacrifice that covers it all, making the good news of justification and new life available to us. It’s available, Paul wants to make clear, through faith—sheer faith, unadulterated faith, a simple faith that says to God, “Yes!”
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+