Description
Lectionary reflections - Year A
Ordinary Time
Proper 17
Jeremiah 15.15–21
Romans 12.9–21
Matthew 16.21–8
Oh dear. Now it’s crunch time. Justification by grace through faith is fine. A theology of grace alone, which emphasizes our inability to achieve our own salvation, is central to Paul’s faith, particularly as expressed in this letter to the Romans. But it cannot be taken as blanket permission never to change or strive. In today’s passage, Paul moves on from what we are not capable of to what he seems to think we should be able to manage, and it is quite frightening.
The virtues Paul is asking the Christian community to exercise are not the dramatic, noticeable ones, like heroism or courage in battle, but the long-haul ones, for which we often get no praise, and which have to be practiced every minute of every day – love, respect, patience, perseverance. But Paul knows that these are, in fact, often the hardest and most trying skills to acquire. You do get the impression, reading through his letters, that they didn’t come naturally to him, either. So it is surely no accident that he uses emphatic and exaggerated language about these virtues. We are to love with a passion, and hate the opposite of love, with equal passion. We are
to be competitively respectful, zealous in service, joyful in hope, and almost embarrassingly hospitable. Paul needs the Christian community really to understand that these qualities will not come by accident. They have to be worked at with all the dedication and energy that you would once have given to getting on in the world, or being the best at your chosen sport...
Taken from Lectionary reflections year A by Jane Williams - Published by SPCK