According to Jesus, the question is whether to trust the gifts or the Giver.

Tuesday • 6/21/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Psalm 100; Numbers 16:20-35; Romans 4:1-12; Matthew 19:23-30

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Although today’s readings present a range of situations, they unite in pressing one issue: trust. Trust is the question throughout this week’s readings. In fact, believing God is the most pressing of issues throughout the Bible.

Romans. “Abraham believed God,” says Paul, in Romans 4:3, quoting Genesis 15:6. On its face, that seems to be an utterly simple statement. Yet it is profoundly complex. In the eyes of Paul the apostle, God’s promise of a numberless “seed” and a vast nation—the promise Abraham is credited with having believed all the way back in Genesis—turns out to be anything but simple. Millennia after the fact, Paul realizes that the promise that Abraham believed included a specific “Seed”—Jesus Christ—whose life, death, and resurrection have now brought forgiveness of sins for the whole world. Not only that, but Jesus brings the beginning of the undoing of the treasonous and ruinous unbelief of the Garden. Abraham’s simple decision to trust God has worked incalculable good. And Paul urges us toward a faith like that of Abraham, “the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Romans 4:11-12). In other words, Abraham is the ancestor of all who trust God, whether Gentile or Jew. 

Numbers. Korah and company’s fantasies about Egypt seem plausible to a congregation wearied of the wilderness’s hardships. Trusting God is something they just cannot do. At Korah’s challenge to their authority, Moses and Aaron beg Yahweh to limit punishment to the instigators of this rebellion of unbelief. So the congregation as a whole must choose whether to stand with the rebels and perish, or trust their appointed leaders, Moses and Aaron, and live. In today’s passage, they make a good choice. The people stand with Moses and Aaron. In tomorrow’s passage, they will revert to mistrust, accusing Moses and Aaron, “You have killed the people of the Lord.” 

In their turn, Moses and Aaron trust that their vindication lies not in power politics and clever maneuvering against their attackers, but in simply submitting to Yahweh’s power to sort the evil from the good. 

Matthew. For rich people, according to Jesus, the question is whether to trust the gifts or the Giver. Reflecting this very teaching, Paul will later urge Timothy to warn rich Christians not “to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life” (1 Timothy 6:17-18). 

May you, like Abraham, trust God’s promise for peace with him now and a sure future to come through Jesus Christ.

May you, like Moses and Aaron, trust God even when you are weary from hardships or difficulties that discourage you. 

May you, at Jesus’s invitation, trust in the wealth that comes from knowing him. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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