Christ's Church, Built With Love, Not Swords - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 7/23/2024 •

Tuesday of Proper 11

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Joshua 8:1-22; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 26:47-56

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)

Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. — Matthew 26:52. When Jesus tells Peter (named in John 18:10-11) to put his sword away, a pivot in the ages takes place. As today’s reading of Joshua’s conquest of Ai perfectly exemplifies, God’s conquest had come via the sword in the past. But a kingdom established by the sword is a short end game—the sword does not confer life. Jericho, to this day, exists as an archaeological dig, a tell. And the city that had once stood at Ai—well, not even its name has survived. The name “Ai” means “waste,” and the Israelites imposed that name after the destruction. Despite the heights to which Israel rose after the conquest of Canaan, it was inevitable that it would fall: The confederacy of tribes under the Judges was too frail. Saul was corrupt of heart. David’s hands were covered in blood. Solomon’s son provoked division. The Northern Kingdom was swept away by the Assyrians, and the Southern Kingdom was exiled by the Babylonians. The Persian release ushered in a series of vassalages, the latest being the one under Rome in Jesus’s day. God’s eternal Kingdom ultimately would not come by the sword, by conquest, or by power politics. That was never the way God intended to restore his fallen world.

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay

And while Jesus, even in the Garden of Gethsemane, acknowledges that it would be possible to save the moment through force, the result would be to replace one regime of force with another. A church built by the sword would need to be enforced by the sword—and in the end, would fall by the sword. But because Jesus went the route of suffering, his church did not perish. Her foundation is different, and so is her destiny: “Not by might and not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). The church that forgets that lesson, becoming just another player in the world of power-politics and secular influence—whether accommodating to the right or to the left—is in peril. 

Romans 14: Kingdom logic in relationships. Jesus gives himself over to death, thereby conquering death, to win life, and taking up an invincible reign, where the logic is (looking ahead to tomorrow’s epistle reading): “[T]he kingdom of God is … righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). Throughout Romans 14, Paul applies that logic to relationships. The proof of Christian truth, it turns out, lies in the way we treat one another. That’s why Romans, with all its dazzlingly profound theology about how we are justified and sanctified in Christ, leads to what can seem like an odd crescendo in this appeal: “If a person’s faith is not strong enough, welcome him all the same without starting an argument” (Romans 14:1 Jerusalem Bible). 

Progressive (“strong”) consciences in Rome’s house churches want to explore Christian liberty. Conservative (“weak”) consciences want to preserve traditional principles of holiness. Progressive believers look upon traditionalists condescendingly; traditionalists look upon progressives judgmentally. Paul refuses to resolve their issues in one direction or the other. The church Jesus is building is the church for all, both “strong” and “weak.” More critically, all believers need to understand that the Lord Jesus is lord of the conscience—He, and he alone, can and will, judge. 

People must recognize that even if other believers are wrong about something. Consider the apostle’s astonishing words: “It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand” (Romans 14: 4). The Christian, whether young or old in the faith, is guided, encouraged, or indicted by the Holy Spirit who dwells within. This day, may we all examine our own consciences, listening for that voice to speak into us words of indictment, encouragement, or guidance, as we wait for the perfect unity of Christ’s body—his precious church—built with love, not swords—on earth as it is in heaven.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

The Cup of Blessing Runs Over for Us - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 7/22/2024 •

Monday of Proper 11

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 41 & 52; Joshua 7:1-13; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 26:36-46

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)

Achan’s sin at Jericho. Achan sins by taking personal booty from Jericho (compare Joshua 6:17-19, with 7:1). His sin is a perfect expression of what, centuries later, Paul describes as making “provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:14). The children of Israel are called to bring “the day” of God’s presence to a region that had been living in “the night” of the dominion of evil (Romans 13:12-13—think Conan the Barbarian). The utter destruction of Jericho and the dedication of all its valuables to the Lord are a matter of bringing things into God’s purifying, purging, and cleansing sunlight. 

Achan chooses the darkness, and Israel’s mission suffers—thus, the failed campaign against the city of Ai. 

Image: "overflow" by jordandouglas is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Jesus’s obedience in the Garden. In the Garden of Gethsemane, by contrast, Jesus does not succumb to the darkness. His “not my will but Thine” opens a window onto one of the deepest and most wonderful of theological mysteries: the covenant made in eternity by which the Eternal Son assents to the mission of our rescue on behalf of the Father’s love. That mission called for the Son, having been “made man” (per the Creed), to drink the cup of judgment that all the Achans of the world—from Adam and Eve in that other garden, to you and me—deserve to drink:

For in the Lord’s hand there is a cup,
full of spiced and foaming wine, which he pours out,
and all the wicked of the earth shall drink and
drain the dregs. (Psalm 75:8 BCP)

The result of Christ’s “not my will but Thine,” in order to drink that cup is that we are privileged to drink, instead, the cup of blessing:

I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call upon the Name of the Lord. (Psalm 116:11 BCP)

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over. (Psalm 23:5 NKJV)

Encouragement from Paul. And precisely because the cup of blessing “runs over” for us, even the Law, once a terrible threat and reminder of our sin, now takes on a different role. The law, no longer our bitter accuser, is now, in the hands of the Holy Spirit within us, our wise companion. For, having now been loved with the love of God’s eternal covenant poured out on the cross for us, we learn to love: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

God's "Desiderata" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 7/19/2024 •

Friday of Proper 10

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Joshua 4:19-5:1; 5:10-15; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 26:17-25

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6-11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

Being of a certain age and therefore growing up in a certain musical generation, when I read today’s verses from Paul’s letter to the Romans, I cannot but hear in my head Les Crane’s hauntingly beautiful 1971 recording of Max Ehrmann’s poem “Desiderata”. These verses in Romans are, it seems to me, Paul’s version of the “Desiderata,” i.e., “things desired.”   

Now, unlike Max Ehrmann, who penned the “Desiderata” in the 1920s, Paul didn’t think of God as “whatever you conceive Him to be.” Nor does Ehrmann’s “you are a child of the universe” resonate much with Paul’s sense that we are children, instead, of a quite specific God—and that we are children not with an inherent “right to be here,” but by a costly adoption. And for Paul, the only reason that “the universe is unfolding as it should” is because the Lord of creation has decisively intervened to arrest the dissolution that was set in motion at the Fall. With a romantic vision of a “universe unfolding as it should,” Ehrmann’s “Desiderata” leaves one with little reason to question whether whatever is, is OK. The reality is that much of what happens in this world is not OK! In Paul’s “Desiderata,” there is real evil—but it is evil that is overcome (and not simply stoically endured) by good.  

Image: Official Navy Page from United States of AmericaMass Communication Specialist Seaman Zachary S. Welch/U.S. Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

There is, therefore, something more bracing and realistic in Paul’s Desiderata. Ehrmann’s “Desiderata” might illustrate a Thomas Kinkade painting. Paul’s belongs on a Rembrandt. Paul’s “let love be genuine” (the Greek is “unhypocritical”) is offered squarely in the face of the fact that our love may be rebuffed: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and not curse them.”  

There’s not a phrase in Paul’s Desiderata that’s not worth lingering over. Especially motivating to me, however, are these lines: 

Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Paul here is expanding on what he means when he says “Let love be genuine (again, not hypocritical).” It’s simply wrong to parrot the bumper sticker “Love is love,” as though every possible expression of love is good and right. White southerners loved white southerners, at their black slaves’ expense. Aryans loved their vision of a race of Übermenschen—too bad for Untermenschen. Abusive men may “love” the wives they batter. For Paul, love that is “unhypocritical” honors what God says is good, and resists what God says is evil.  

Outdo one another in showing honor. These words may be the most revolutionary that Paul ever wrote. Yale’s classical historian Ramsay MacMullen has argued that the quest to gain for oneself “honor”—recognition, fame, glory—was the single most important value in the social world of the Romans. Paul turns that value system upside down, by telling us, literally, “go first and lead the way in showing one another honor.” Actually, it is Paul’s Master who turns the Romans’ social world upside down. It is Paul, and only Paul, who records Jesus’s teaching: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). As a citizen of Rome, Paul is more deeply attentive to the alien Roman/pagan value system than perhaps other apostles. He perceives how radically Jesus cuts into the Roman sense of social capital. And—the words have as much punch in our power-mad, status-worshiping world as they did in Paul’s.  

Extend hospitality (the Greek says, “pursue love for the stranger”). Paul urges an active and outward-bound seeking of the outsider. The God who gave his Son while we were his enemies looks to us to bring new people inside our existing circle of warmth and conviviality. That’s a healthy challenge for all of us who get comfortable with our social status quo.  

If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Peaceability is a hallmark of a disciple of Christ. To be sure, Paul wound up in theological tussles, but it wasn’t because he went around looking for fights. Francis Schaeffer once wrote that God wants warriors with tears in their eyes. And Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons (and daughters) of God” (Matthew 5:9).  

…for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Paul can dare to imagine that such surprising love just might bring an enemy to their senses, because that’s exactly what God in Christ has done for us. God took the evil of the cruel execution of his Son at the hands of sinners and turned it to the good of the salvation of the world. That’s something Ehrmann’s “Desiderata” cannot take into account. But it’s everything to Paul’s “Desiderata.” That’s why I take it as a happy providence that today’s epistle reading is sandwiched between the account of the first Passover meal that the children of Moses enjoy in the Promised Land, and the account of Jesus’s Passover meal with his disciples on the night of his arrest. Joshua, the “commander of the army of the Lord” will lead the newly nourished Israelites into conquest. And the ultimate Joshua (remember that the Greek name for Joshua is “Jesus”) will take up his authority as “Son of Man” (remember a few days ago, and our reflections on Daniel 7) through, and in spite of, the treachery of his betrayal at the hands of “the one who has dipped his hand in the bowl with me.”  

May you and I live God’s “Desiderata,” and be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Stones of Remembrance - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 7/18/2024 •

Thursday of Proper 10

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37:1-18; Joshua 3:14–4:7; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 26:1-16 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

Three phrases of remembrance grab my attention today: 

So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial for ever. — Joshua 4:7. 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God… — Romans 12:1. 

… what she has done will be told in remembrance of her. — Matthew 26:13. 

Crossing over Jordan. This second dry-ground-water-crossing completes Israel’s baptism, her journey from slavery to freedom. Stones from the riverbed mark the occasion. For millennia, this narrative has inspired followers of Yahweh to note specific moments of the Lord’s deliverance or protection or presence. We take pictures. We collect things. We tell stories. We remember when God “showed up” for us, sometimes doing the impossible, always doing that which is redemptive. 

Image: Pixabay

In the spirit of this passage, I surround myself with what I think of as “stones of remembrance.” One of my favorites is a piece of granite I brought home (legally) from Crazy Horse Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When I hold it, I am transported back to two family vacations in the Black Hills. And this fist-sized rock puts me in mind of three different, competing expressions of aspiration to freedom in the Black Hills. 

• The first is the granite carvings in Mount Rushmore, memorializing the presidents who worked toward freeing up the West for the expansive American spirit. 

• The second is the granite rendering of Crazy Horse, a protest in behalf of a very different view of freedom: that of the Lakota and other tribes who were robbed of their freedom by American expansion. 

• The third is the granite pulpit that stands on Boot Hill (Mount Moriah Cemetery) in Deadwood, SD, atop the grave of Preacher Henry Weston Smith, the martyred Methodist missionary who sought to bring to the goldmining camps of the Black Hills the liberating truth of the power of God for salvation in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

My little piece of granite always reminds me, above all, of Preacher Henry Smith, and the truth that standing above all the competing aspirations for freedom that emerge from the human breast, there is one that bears ultimate promise of reconciling all the others, the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ. My little piece of granite reminds me to be grateful for God’s call to take my small part in the ministry of that saving truth. 

Paul’s “by the mercies of God.” With that little phrase, Paul pivots from his great telling of the series of manifestations of God’s mercy in Christ, to his exhortation for us to live lives worshipfully reflective of those mercies. 

The entire letter to the Romans is itself a “stone of remembrance” for me, a reminder to recount the grand “mercies of God.” Over the years, I’ve so marked up this letter in my Greek New Testament with colored pencils that it’s become illegible, and I have recently had to change to a third copy. Paul’s remembrances of “the mercies of God” in Romans are precious to me:  

• The mercy of the obedience of the One, Christ Jesus, who counters and undoes the disobedience of Adam (Romans 5). 

• The mercy of the faith in God’s faithfulness that is found in Jesus, and which Abraham’s justifying faith had anticipated, modeled, and now calls forth from us (Romans 4). 

• The mercy of the “setting forth” in Christ’s blood of an effectual, final, and permanent sacrifice for sin that the annual whole burnt offering on the Day of Atonement had only been able to anticipate (Romans 3). 

• The mercy of the bestowing of the Holy Spirit, to lead us all the way into the glory that is to come—and to do so from inside our hearts, not merely from outside the camp as the Spirit had formerly led the children of Israel through the wilderness (Romans 8). 

• The mercy of a King who, “was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead,” thus fulfilling the promise of a scion of David (Romans 1 & 15).   

In view of those mercies, how can I not set my heart on not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of the mind? How can I not offer my body as “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [my] spiritual worship”? How can I not wish to think of myself soberly, and not “more highly than [I] ought”? How can I not long to find my unique place in making the one body of Christ vibrantly alive and healthy? 

A jar of anointing. Utterly humbling is the example of the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus with costly ointment. He receives the anointing as preparation for his burial. Surely it meant the world to him. She violates who knows how many social taboos to make her gift. She joins Jesus in the home of an unclean leper. Here is a woman physically touching a man in a public setting. With her lavish gift she invites the wrath of the disciples and prompts their discovery of social-justice-warriordom (masking, no doubt, their embarrassment at being outshined in devotion to their Lord). 

I keep on my keychain a small vial as one more “stone of remembrance.” Designed to hold anointing oil, the vial was issued to me when I became an elder at Northland, a local non-denominational church, where I served for a number of years before coming to the Cathedral Church of St Luke and eventually becoming a priest. Even though Northland’s theology was not highly sacramental, the church had a sense that if elders were told to anoint (per James 5), they should do so. Now that the Lord has called me to a church that ministers the Sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist) and the so-called “sacramentals” (among which, I would include anointing for healing) with greater intentionality, this precious vial reminds me what we’ve all known ever since Matthew 26’s dear lady saint crossed so many barriers in her affection for Jesus: life and healing flow from him.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Outsiders Who Need a Way Back In - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 7/17/2024 •

Wednesday of Proper 10

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Deuteronomy 3:1-13; Romans 11:25-36; Matthew 25:31-46

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

A couple of rich truths to take in from Jesus and Paul today.

From Jesus. The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ — Matthew 25:40. Wow! The King so identifies himself with his subjects that he receives service to “even the least of them” as though it were service to Himself. It blows the mind. What a value that places on each and every person who comes into my path today. I can barely take it in. May I, as our baptismal covenant dares to say, “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [my] neighbor as [my]self.” 

From Paul. The apostle Paul wants to inculcate a similar sensibility—seeing Christ in the other— among the Roman Christians, especially the haughty Gentile Christians he has pointedly been addressing in Romans 11: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. … do not boast over the [Jewish] branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. … do not become proud, but stand in awe” (Romans 11:13, 18, 20). 

Image: Pixabay

In today’s paragraph, Paul unpacks something he calls a “mystery,” how God is saving “all Israel” (Romans 11:25). It’s a thorny mxfatter, but it is tremendously practical. It’s a call to a deeper love for Christ in the people he has come to redeem. 

Paul says that “all Israel” will be saved (Romans 11:26). To cut to the chase, Paul’s “all Israel” consists of a full number of Jews (Romans 11:12, “their fullness”), plus a full number of Gentiles (Romans 11:25, “the fullness of the Gentiles”). 

Notice that the second word in verse 26 is “so,” and not, “then.” Grammatically, Paul is saying, “in this manner” all Israel will be saved, not “after this” all Israel will be saved. Some interpreters wrongly—very wrongly, in my view—think that Paul means that after a period of time in which God brings in “the fullness of the Gentiles,” he will reverse course (say, by “rapturing” the Gentile church up to heaven) and begin working again among Jewish people to save “all Israel.” No, that’s not what Paul is saying. What he’s saying is that a partial hardening of Jews is the mysterious means by which God is saving Jews and Gentiles together right now, in an Israel that has been reconstituted in and around Jesus Christ. 

In this Israel, Jew and Gentile are equally members of the “olive tree”—fellow citizens of Israel and members of the household, fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, fellow partakers of the promise (Ephesians 2:19; 3:6). Paul’s “all Israel” is the “Israel of God” that he has also referred to in Galatians 6:15—all the sons and daughters of Abraham: “children of God through faith … baptized into … and clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). Earlier in Romans 11, Paul had put it in terms of natural branches (the Jews’ “fullness”) who simply belong there in the first place, plus the wild branches (“the fullness of the Gentiles”) who are grafted in—both groups belong in the “olive tree” that is Paul’s “all Israel.”

The way in which this “all Israel” emerges is the process that Paul is describing here. “All Israel” comes to fruition through the proclamation of the good news of redemption in Jesus Christ. By the unexpected arms-wide-open reception of the gospel by the Gentiles and the equal-and-opposite closed-hearted rejection of the gospel by Jews, both groups have been put on the same footing. Both are equally in need of God’s mercy: “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:32). 

Both, in a word, have become outsiders who need a way back in. The good news is that the way is open. The way is Jesus Christ. Natural branches that have been broken off can be grafted back in simply by the obedience of faith (Romans 11:23)—and this is Paul’s urgent hope for Jewish nonbelievers. Conversely, wild branches who have been grafted in, but who scoff at those who have been displaced, can be broken off again simply by the lack of faith that their pride expresses (Romans 11:21)—this is Paul’s desperate warning to anti-Jewish Gentile believers. 

This is Paul’s “sheep” and “goats” passage. What’s not always appreciated by interpreters of Romans 11 is the fact that Paul is less concerned to solve a theological problem (what’s God’s big plan for Jews?) than he is to address the lovelessness of the Gentile Christians in Rome. 

Jesus redefines love for the neighbor as love for his own Person. Paul redefines the people of God around Jesus, making the honoring of Jesus all about honoring the fullness of his people—Gentile and Jew alike. 

I pray you and I live in these rich truths. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

The Scarlet Rope - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 7/16/2024 •

Tuesday of Proper 10

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 26 & 28; Joshua 2:15-24; Romans 11:13-24; Matthew 25:14-30

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)

We remain focused today on the Old Testament and the epistle readings. For your consideration, I want to offer observations from three ancient Christian interpreters. I realize that in some quarters of the church and the academy, these early voices don’t count for much. But in recent years, I have come to sense that the first generations of interpreters of Scripture are more attuned to the Bible’s own dense symbolic bandwidth.* Again, … for your consideration. 

Image: Adaptation, Rahab hangs the scarlet cord from her window. Autotype after F.J. Shields, 1877. Frederic Shields , CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

First, from Clement of Rome, who toward the end of the 1st century AD offers the first post-New Testament interpretation of the significance of Rahab. Combining perspectives from James 2:25 and Hebrews 11:31, Clement says: “Because of her faith and hospitality Rahab the harlot was saved” (1 Clement 12.1). Then, after recounting the Joshua narrative about Rahab hiding the Hebrew spies, misdirecting the Jericho king’s men, expressing her faith in Israel’s God, and receiving the spies’ instructions to gather her family under her roof when she sees the Israelites coming, Clement adds an extraordinary note: 

And in addition, they gave her a sign (Gk., sēmeion), that she should hang from her house something scarlet—making it clear that through the blood of the Lord, redemption will come to all who believe and hope in God. You see, dear friends, not only faith but also prophecy is found in this woman (1 Clement 12:7-8). 

Next, a half century later, in the middle of the 2nd century, also from Rome, Justin Martyr expands upon Clement’s offering the scarlet rope as a “sign” of the blood of Christ. Justin compares Rahab’s scarlet thread with the blood of the Passover lambs that had been sprinkled on the doorposts and lintels of Hebrew households during the exodus—another sign bringing deliverance from death. Justin draws this lesson: 

For the sign of the scarlet thread … also manifested the symbol of the blood of Christ, by which those who were at one time harlots and evil persons out of all nations are saved, receiving remission of sins, and continuing to sin no longer (Dialogue with Trypho 111.4). 

Finally, in the 3rd century AD, Origen of Alexandria sees Rahab not only prefiguring, by the scarlet thread, that “there was no salvation for man, save in the blood of Christ,” but forecasting also that it is only in one particular house, i.e., the Church, that that salvation is to be found. 

She who was formerly a harlot receives this injunction: All who shall be found in thy house shall be saved … if anyone wishes to be saved, let him come into the house of her that was a harlot. Even if anyone of this people [that is, Jewish people] wishes to be saved, let him come into this house to obtain salvation. Let him come into this house in which the blood of Christ is the sign of redemption. Let there be no mistake, let no one deceive himself: outside this house, that is outside the Church there is no salvation (Third Homily 841C-842A). 

This is the first time, as far as I know, that a phrase that is to become a hallmark of the early church appears: “outside the Church there is no salvation.” It all goes back, dare one say, to a whorehouse. What an amazing image for a call to church membership! Well, we won’t linger over that.

Then, as though Origen were following our own Daily Office lectionary, he embellishes his point by turning to Romans 11:13-24. Origen asserts that Rahab was one of those “wild branches” who, by God’s mercy and because of her faith, has been grafted into the trunk of the good olive tree, which is to say, she has become a true daughter of Abraham and citizen of the true Israel: 

If you wish to understand more clearly how Rahab was incorporated into Israel, see how the branch of the wild olive is grafted onto the trunk of the good olive tree and you will understand how those who are grafted into the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are rightly said to be incorporated into Israel until this day. We [Origen is himself a gentile], branches of the wild olive tree, who were prostitutes adoring wood and stone instead of the true God, we have been truly incorporated into this root until this day (Preface to the Psalms 860C). 

Origen’s invitation for Jewish people to “come into this house” of which the pagan harlot Rahab’s house is a picture (above), is, then, perfectly in line with Paul’s hope that his fellow Jews will one day no longer “persist in unbelief,” but rather, embrace Jesus as Messiah and see “God[‘s] … power to graft them in again.” 

Lessons for today: 

Whether the Lord originally intended for his church to see the prophecy of Jesus’s blood in Rahab’s scarlet rope, our brothers and sisters saw it there from the earliest days of New Testament interpretation. Regardless, that blood—and that blood alone—saves from a cataclysm even more devastating than the destruction of Jericho: the judgment of the world. 

It is indeed into a single house—the church universal that God is building, with Christ Jesus as cornerstone and his apostles and prophets as foundation (Ephesians 2:20)—that the Lord is calling all his people. When we work and pray and teach towards “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5), we are cooperating with one of the Bible’s deepest and oldest truths. 

Finally, we will never exhaust the mercies of the kind of God who redeems spiritual and literal whores, and who has a mysterious way of making the “righteous” as dependent upon the Mercy as are the “unrighteous.” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

*Highly instructive in the early church’s interpretation of the Bible are these two books:

Jean Danielou, S.J., From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers. Ex Fontibus Company, 1950, 1960, 2018.

Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church. Baker Academic, 2018.

To Believe God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 7/15/2024 •

Monday of Proper 10

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Joshua 2:1-14; Romans 11:1-12; Matthew 25:1-13

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)

What a rich juxtaposition in today’s Old Testament and epistle readings! 

Rahab, the pagan prostitute, recognizes that Yahweh, the Israelites’ God “is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below” (Joshua 2:11). She recognizes that he has brought the Israelites out of slavery and is fighting on their behalf to give them a new home. She places herself and her household under his protection. In doing so, she becomes a wonderful picture of sinners who are saved by grace. 

Paul the apostle marvels that the descendants of the rescue from Egypt and beneficiaries of the conquest of Jericho and Canaan fail to see the greater rescue from sin and the conquest of death and hell that that same God has now accomplished in his Son Jesus Christ. In doing so, they become a sobering picture of spiritually privileged people who, failing to appreciate the mercy already extended to them, ironically and unwittingly show their need for even greater mercy (looking ahead to Romans 11:28-32).

For her part, Rahab looks for kindness from the Lord’s hand. In today’s reading, she receives verbal assurance that if she does not give the spies away, “then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land” (Joshua 2:14). Her story ends not just with her being spared from Jericho’s destruction, but with a new home: “her family has lived in Israel ever since” (Joshua 6:25). But wait—there’s more! Matthew’s gospel places her in the genealogical line that produces King David (Matthew 1:5). Rahab’s is humbling, inspiring faith. 

Image: Rosa 'I Am Grateful' (Eskelund, 2014), PAN botanical garden in Warsaw-Powsin, Poland. Salicyna, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

For his part, Paul looks for the faithfulness of God. He puzzles through the question of whether God has rejected the people God himself chose for bringing salvation to the world. The first place Paul looks is to his own experience. As a member of the tribe of Benjamin, he himself is evidence that God has not rejected the people he foreknew (Romans 11:1). And if in the present it seems that only a remnant of Israelites “get” what God is doing—well, there’s a long history of God working with “a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). It was that way in Elijah’s day, when God had to remind his prophet, “I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (Romans 11:2-5, quoting 1 Kings 19:18). It was that way for Moses and Isaiah: “God gave [the people] a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day” (Romans 11:8, recalling Deuteronomy 29:4 and Isaiah 29:10). It was that way for King David, who cried out to the Lord, in protest of his many enemies: “Let their table become a snare and a trap…” (Romans 11:9-10, quoting Psalm 69:22-23). 

Paul is saying that if you look really hard you will see a couple of things in Israel’s situation. First, it’s clear that God’s gracious choice—which hearts to harden and which hearts not to harden—means it’s not about “works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Romans 11:6). Our job is not to try to be good enough to merit anything—our job is simply to believe in who God is and what he has done and is doing. And when we do that, we cannot help but live lives in gratitude for this grace. 

Second, Paul observes that Israel’s “stumbling” over Christ (that language itself recalls Isaiah 8’s “rock of stumbling”) cannot mean an absolute “fall”: “So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means!” (Romans 11:11). Paul’s hope, as Jewish apostle to the Gentiles, is that his fellow Israelites will eventually be provoked to jealousy when they see their spiritual riches in the hands of someone else. He hopes his fellow Israelites will reclaim their place in the storyline. He hopes they will come to believe, as he has come to believe, that God is bringing salvation to the world through the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of David and Son of God. As he will explain in the very next verses, that’s why he works so hard at his ministry among the Gentiles (Romans 11:13-14). Paul’s is extraordinary, inspiring hope. 

I pray that you and I have the grace today to be like the five bridesmaids of Matthew 25, who keep their lamps full of oil—full of a faith like Rahab’s and a dogged, determined hope like Paul’s—in eager expectation of the day when the Bridegroom will return for the great wedding banquet. On that day, faith will become sight, and hope will not disappoint. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Goal of Israel's Story - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 7/12/2024 •

Friday of Proper 9

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 16 & 17; Deuteronomy 31:7-13, 24-30; 32:1-4; Romans 10:1-13; Matthew 24:15-31

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

The apostle Paul was acutely aware throughout his life that he and his fellow Jews were a people of privilege. They were “entrusted with the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2). They were to provide the bloodline through which God was going to redeem the world: “from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ” (Romans 9:5). They had been bequeathed the pattern of worship that would bring glory and honor to the living God: “to them belong[s] … the worship” (Romans 9:4). It broke his heart to find his people rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah and the world’s Savior. They were failing in that stewardship, just as he had done before the risen Christ came to him personally. Rhetorically at least, he would have given up his own share in the blessing if they could be included in his stead (Romans 9:1-3). Here in Romans 10, Paul comes around to what he actually—not merely rhetorically—wishes for his kin. Here is Paul’s heart for his fellow people of Jewish privilege: “that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1). 

It’s fascinating to see how Paul unpacks his desire for his people—and, accordingly, how he has come to understand his own heritage because of, and in, Christ Jesus. 

Image: Holy Grail, by Alice Popkorn, https://www.flickr.com/photos/alicepopkorn/

No righteousness on our own. Blessed with the revelation of just what God’s standard of righteousness is, Paul has come to see—and wants others to see—that it is impossible for any of us to establish a righteousness of our own. Paul would have us look at the perfect standard of righteousness that has now been made clear by the life of Jesus Christ, and confess that none of us could possibly measure up. Currently, we are afflicted with a pandemic of “judginess”—some coming from the left, and some coming from the right. There is no “again” of greatness to which to restore America that was not stained by the flaws of its founders or its people. There is no banishing of guns from our streets that will banish the violence in our hearts. There is no safe haven of “anti-racism” that frees any of us from the reality that we all pre-judge people.  “There is none righteous, no not one!” (Romans 3:10, quoting Psalm 14:1). 

Righteousness as a gift from God through Christ. But that’s not where things end. When Paul says that “Christ is the end (Gk., telos = goal) of the law” (Romans 10:4) what he means is twofold. First, as we’ve just seen, the goal of the law was to make clear to us that none of us is righteous. But then, second, the goal of the law was to make us aware that there is one exception to the rule. It’s to this end, I think, that Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5’s “the person who does these things will live by them” (see Romans 10:5). I think that Paul is describing a particular Person. Jesus Christ “did these things,” and not only “lives by them,” but has won life for us by his obedience to them. None of us is righteous in ourselves, but there is One who was, and is, righteous for us. 

In him, we are found in a righteousness that comes from God himself (see Philippians 3:9). There is a righteous that comes “from God” and is given to us “by faith.” “Faith” that is, in the first place, the faithfulness of the Son to the Father. And “faith” that is, in the second place, our believing response. Salvation, says Paul, is “from faith to faith” (Romans 1:17). It is from Christ’s faith in the Father’s promise to accept his obedience in place of ours (see Romans 5:12-21) to our receiving that gift with the open hands of receptive, obedient trust (the “obedience of faith”—see Romans 1:5; 16:26). 

Christ is the goal of Israel’s story. Intriguingly, in this chapter, Paul appeals to Deuteronomy 30, where God threatens Israel with exile, but then promises rescue on the far side of exile. In Deuteronomy 30, knowing Israel will rebel against him after he leads them in conquest of the Promised Land, Yahweh lays out both near-term consequence and long-term promise. Exile will come, but it will be followed by rescue and return. 

Even so, the language that Deuteronomy uses to describe the eventual return from exile looks far beyond anything that happened when Israel was brought back into the Promised Land after the Babylonian exile. The Lord told Israel that they wouldn’t have to “ascend into heaven” to bring rescue down (Deuteronomy 30:5). Paul extends the logic: nor would they have to “descend into the abyss” to bring rescue up. Paul wants his readers—and us—to know that as far back as Deuteronomy, the Lord had been pointing to his own plan to send Christ from heaven in the incarnation and to bring him up from the abyss in the resurrection, for the salvation of Israel and of the whole world. All this the Lord would do—and now has done—to secure for us the ultimate return from exile: return from the exile of sin and of death. All this is on his dime, not ours. All this is by his efforts, not ours. All this is by his own merit, not ours. All this is by his own righteousness and faithfulness, not by ours. All this is by his own commitment to keep covenant, not by ours. 

Glory be. What possible response could there be except the one Paul puts before us: “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” (Romans 10:9).

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Christ Jesus the Cornerstone - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 7/11/2024 •

Thursday of Proper 9

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 18:1-20; Deuteronomy 3:18-28; Romans 9:19-33; Matthew 24:1-14

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Nobody should claim to have all the answers about the “end times.” All of the major New Testament passages are difficult, including Matthew 24 (the gospel readings for the next three days of the Daily Office). I offer here a paragraph I wrote for the chapter on Matthew in A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament: The Gospel Realized (Crossway, 2017). (This book is a one-volume commentary on the NT written by various professors of Reformed Theological Seminary. I contributed the chapter on Matthew). I think it provides perspective on Jesus’s teaching in this chapter: 

Matthew 6 had dealt with the disciplines of religion: prayer, fasting, and trust. Matthew 24 deals with the housing of religion: for Jewish people, the Temple. In 24:1-26, 29-35 (where the language of “coming” [erchesthai] evokes the image of the Son of Man coming before the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7), Jesus explains the significance of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. The heavenly conferral of authority to Jesus by virtue of his baptism, death, and resurrection, will have earthly consequences for the old administration: the destruction of the Temple. The disciples will see this “coming” to his heavenly authority happening because it will take some development — the disciples will have opportunity to prepare (24:15-26). In other verses, Jesus uses the language of “presence” (parousia, which the ESV [and the NRSV] unfortunately also translate “coming” — 24:27, 36-41) to refer to his (still to us) future return at the consummation of the ages. His parousia, he asserts, nobody will see in advance (24:27). The job is simple — be ready (24:36-51). 

Today’s gospel passage is an explanation of Jesus’s assertion that “not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). The apostles were witness to an epic transformation here on earth: with the handing of the keys of the Kingdom to Peter there began a construction project for a new Temple, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, and the apostles and NT prophets being the foundation (see Ephesians 2:20). 

Image: "Jesus Christ - The Chief Cornerstone" by TheGoodReverend is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

That construction project left no room for the ongoing presence of the physical Temple that had once housed sacrifices. With Christ’s offering of “my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28), that Temple’s work was finished. That fact would be signaled in the rending of the veil in the Temple separating the Holy of Holies during Jesus’s crucifixion (Matthew 27:51). Not to put the point too finely, God himself would remove that Temple at the hands of the Roman army in AD 70. When, later in this chapter, Jesus says, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place,” he is referring (I’m pretty sure) to the “coming” (erchesthai) of Jesus into the full authority of his identity as Daniel’s “Son of Man” when the earthly Temple is finally removed. 

Jesus’s final “presence” (parousia) at the end of time we can’t predict—it will come suddenly (Matthew 24:27, 36-51). But the apostles could prepare themselves for life after the earthly Temple’s passing. Jesus will begin to build his church through their obeying his commission to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). 

And that’s where we live, between Christ’s “coming” into his full authority at his ascension and his “presence” when, at the end of this gospel age, he returns in full glory and majesty. During this “between” time, the most important thing we could possibly be doing is contributing to the present expression of Christ’s rule on earth: a healthy church. Of the four gospel writers, Matthew is the only one who records Jesus using the word “church.” And for Matthew, it’s a place where forgiveness can be seen and not just imagined, where sinners (like you and me) and tax collectors (like Matthew himself) are welcome. It’s a place where love that mirrors God’s own heart is on display. It’s a “city on a hill” that can’t be hidden, where “good works” manifest the character of a loving heavenly Father. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

When Unfolding Sadness Will Be Turned to Joy - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 7/10/2024 •

Wednesday of Proper 9

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:1-24; Deuteronomy 1:1-18; Romans 9:1-18; Matthew 23:27-39

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

Jesus’s final woe. Jesus pronounces a seventh, and final, devastating woe against the religious leaders of his generation. These leaders might claim for themselves the blessing of those who identify with “the persecuted” (see Matthew 5:10). However, in reality, they are the culmination of a long line of rejecters. While they honorifically entomb past heroes of the faith (“the prophets” and “the righteous”—Matthew 23:29), in fact, their veneration, in Jesus’s view, is faint praise. Jesus sees Israel’s history as a sad series of rejecting—indeed, of murdering—the prophets and the righteous. It’s a string that runs from the beginning of God’s story (Cain’s murder of Abel in the first book of the Bible—Genesis 4:8-11) to the (at the time of Jesus) most recent chapter of God’s story (the stoning of Zechariah son of Jehoiada in the courtyard of the Temple—2 Chronicles 24:15-22 [2 Chronicles being the last book in the Hebrew canon of Scripture]). And it will culminate, Jesus knows, in their rejection of him. 

There is, of course, deep mystery in the New Testament’s claim that God has offered his own Son “for sin.” There is deep irony as well in the fact that Jesus’s rejection by his own—those whose mission in the world was to be a holy nation and a “peculiar people” bringing light to the world—puts them in need of the same mercy as everybody else. 

Thus, it’s significant that Jesus meets his contemporaries’ rejection of him not with anger, but with sadness: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:38). He laments their bad choice, even while he knows its outcome will be good: the salvation of the world. And he looks to the day when the unfolding sadness will be turned to joy, when his countryfolk will confess: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:39). 

Image: Pixabay

God’s mysterious choice. Over the course of the first eight chapters of Romans, Paul has demonstrated how Jesus Christ magnificently brings together strands of Israel’s story. The disobedience of Adam is countered by the obedience of Christ (Romans 5). The justifying faith of Abraham is exactly the kind of faith that Christ both embodies in himself and calls forth from us (Romans 4). The trek from slavery to liberty that Moses led his people through in his day foreshadowed the journey from slavery unto sin to the glory of creation’s liberation from corruption that Christ is now conducting for those who trust him (Romans 6-8). 

Having traced that pattern of thinking, Paul exults, in chapter 8, in God’s unconquerable love. But now, beginning in Romans 9, Paul pauses to reflect soberly on the fact that many—in fact, most—of his contemporary countryfolk are rejecting Jesus as the Christ. That fact prompts anguish in his soul. Note: anguish, not anger. A fact that one wishes had not been lost on 2,000 years of Western church history. 

Paul wishes us to know three things in this passage:

First, when we witness others make the horrible choice of turning from God and from his provision of eternal life in Jesus Christ—especially when they enjoy every privilege that would seem to make a good choice a cinch (see Romans 9:4-5)—it is an invitation to deeper love and empathy for, not rejection of, them on our part: “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people…” (Romans 9:3). 

Second, the sobering—and at the same time, personhood-valuing—truth is that the kind of personal election that Paul exulted in a few verses earlier (“those whom God foreknew he also predestined”—Romans 8:29) was never identical with God’s national election of Israel to be his chosen vessel for bringing salvation to the world: “Not all (ethnic) Israelites truly belong to (spiritual) Israel” (Romans 9:6). God never accepts or rejects anyone just because they belong to a particular family or tribe or race or ethnicity. 

Third, from beginning to end, we are dependent on God’s loving and persistently merciful resolve to overcome our resistance and the drag of sin. No one will get to heaven without confessing: “By your mercy alone, O Lord.” When we know as we are fully known, as Paul puts it (1 Corinthians 13:12), we will be so staggered at the realization that we have been so deeply loved despite what we will have come to realize about ourselves, that certain questions will just fade away: Why not mercy for everyone? Why are some “loved” (meaning “chosen”) and some “hated” (hyperbole for “not chosen”)? Why are these hearts hardened, and those not? All those questions—or so I strongly suspect—will give way to other questions: Given what we know about ourselves, why mercy for anyone—especially the likes of me? Why is anyone “loved”—especially me? Why is any heart softened—especially mine? Those are the questions we will ponder, for 

When we’ve been there 10,000 years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

To Deal With What Is to Come - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 7/9/2024 •

Tuesday of Proper 9

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 5; Psalm 6; Numbers 35:1-3, 9-15, 30-34; Romans 8:31-39; Matthew 23:13-26

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) 

Matthew & conformity to the image of the Son (continued). 

Each of the negative woes in Matthew 23 has its counterpart in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5. It’s as though in the Beatitudes, Jesus says, “Breathe in the breath of God,” and in Matthew 23, he says, “Breathe out the smoke of hell.”

For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. — Matthew 23:13. The whole earth is the inheritance of the meek, those who, in Abraham-like fashion, bless the nations by submitting to and taking God’s story to them (see Matthew 5:5). There are only woes for those who brazenly purport to represent God, but in reality stand only for themselves, and export their own egos and biases—they “go across the sea to make proselytes twice as fit for hell as you are!” 

You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? — Matthew 23: 17. There will be deep, eternal satisfaction for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6). But there are only woes for those who slothfully equivocate and deliberately deceive when it comes to seeking holiness. Jesus directs their attention—and ours—to the ridiculously pathetic gestures of the offerings and the gold the Pharisees require for oaths. The greater, terrible reality is the One represented by the altar and the Temple on which the oaths are based. 

For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. — Matthew 23:23. Mercy will come to those who give mercifully (in Jewish thinking “mercy” is about providing poor-relief—the word “mercy” can often be translated “alms” or “almsgiving”—Matthew 5:7). But there are only woes for those who scrupulously pay God their ten-percent as some sort of tax on religion, despite being consumed by avarice. They practice injustice, show lack of compassion for the poor, and demonstrate untrustworthiness in relationships. 

You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup… — Matthew 23:26. There is a certain clarity of spiritual sight that comes from purity of heart (Matthew 5:8). But when the inner heart is corrupted by out-of-control desires—here, greediness or rapacity and general self-indulgence—there’s a haze that is cast over everything and everybody. The lens of self-interest keeps you from seeing others as precious image-bearers of God. People are but tools to be utilized only for what they can do for you.  

Image: Pixabay

More than conquerors. What then are we to say about these things? — Romans 8:31. At the end of Romans 7, Paul had stared full in the face at the wretchedness within himself and within all of us (“I know that nothing good dwells within me! … Wretched creature that I am, who is there to rescue me from this state of death?”—Romans 7:18, 24 REB.  And who among us doesn’t feel at least some of the sting of the indictments of Matthew 23 that we have just considered?) However, because of his confidence in who Christ is and what Christ has done for him (and us), Paul cannot help but respond: “But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). Chapter 8 has been the unfolding of the reason for that outbreak of thanks. Now, in this final paragraph, Paul’s thanks reach their highpoint. 

Beginning at Romans 8:31, Paul invites us to list every challenge we face this morning—among which might be the persecution of having considerations of faith banished from the public square, the famine or nakedness of deprivation of goods or separation from loved ones by natural disaster or ruthless armies, the peril of lawless violence in the streets, or the sword of misused power by those entrusted to preserve and protect. So many worrisome things for all of us. And each of us with our own issues as well. 

Paul wants us to take them all in—and then to weigh them against all that God has done and is doing to make us “more than conquerors” and to assure us that “nothing will be able to separate us” from his love. So, Paul would have us create a countervailing list: 

• God stands for us, and nothing can prevail against him—so nothing can prevail against us. 

• He gave his precious Son—won’t he provide everything else we might really need? 

• God has chosen and justified his children. At his right hand, his Son stands and pleads for us. Could anything possibly separate us from that ongoing, active, certain love? 

There’s no guarantee that we will not walk through the valley of the shadow of death (which is the spirit of Paul’s quote of Psalm 43 in the middle of this paragraph). Even there—especially there—“we are more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37). And so Paul invites us to consider the challenge of death itself—we don’t have to die in despair or die filled with regret, uncertain of his love. He invites us to consider life—on the far side of any challenge we overcome in this life, we will surely face more; and perhaps we will face even more demanding challenges. Dying or living, we can face them, confident of his love. 

Paul says we can reckon with powers from “beyond” (angels … rulers—and even if pre-Enlightenment people may have been preoccupied with the angelic and the demonic, that possibility doesn’t warrant post-Enlightenment people’s dismissal of that realm). Whatever those powers may be, they are powerless to part him from us. 

We can deal with what’s going on now in the present, where there may be myriads of factors we cannot control. We can deal with what is to come, where there may be myriads of contingencies we could never even anticipate, much less control. There are no factors, no contingencies, no failures, no helplessness—there is nothing—that could cause him to turn his back on us.

 Nothing above us in the height will threaten God’s love for us. Nothing beneath us in the depth (hell’s accusing voice was silenced at the cross and resurrection) can part us from his love. The love of God in Christ Jesus for us will not be blocked by any obstacle, threat, or anything, anywhere.

Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

That’s what Paul wants you and me to know today. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+