Sunday Stretch: Vol. 37

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the Season after Pentecost - which takes place in the summer for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.

In these next few months until Advent begins at the end of November/beginning of December, we’ll be spending time in - theoretically - the season after Easter’s resurrection. But sometimes these weeks and months can feel a bit like wandering in the wilderness of the Bible, directionless or meandering. We don’t get a clear end goal, like the manger of Bethlehem at Christmas, the cross and tomb and resurrection of Easter, the tongues of fire at Pentecost. Maybe some weeks as we read and pray together, you could feel as though you’re going through the motions, which is why many people take weeks off from worship in the summer, or churches mix things up with things like outdoor worship or special series.

We won’t necessarily do anything like that here, at least this year - maybe in the future! For now, I want to give all of us permission that it’s OK to move through your faith without a specific goal in mind. Too often, American Christians have approached this ancient, humble faith as though it’s a race to salvation - a competition to see who can be the holiest of all.

If recent news has shown us anything, it’s that this competitive, power-driven mindset has hindered and perverted the Gospel in our midst. Jesus was not a goal-oriented leader. Above all else, he valued his relationships. So in these weeks ahead, I invite you to spend these Sunday mornings just learning, reading, and praying for the sake of relationship: with God, with others, and with yourself. Just dwell in the words. Learn something new. Question. Doubt. Lament.

And each week, I’m certain God will reveal something new and beloved in each of our lives.

So glad to worship with you.

Let’s get to the texts …

Healing a bleeding woman, as depicted in the Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter

Bible Stories

Hosea 5:15-6:6

Hos. 5:15 I will return again to my place

until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.

In their distress they will beg my favor:

¹ “Come, let us return to the LORD;

for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;

he has struck down, and he will bind us up.

² After two days he will revive us;

on the third day he will raise us up,

that we may live before him.

³ Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD;

his appearing is as sure as the dawn;

he will come to us like the showers,

like the spring rains that water the earth.”

⁴ What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?

What shall I do with you, O Judah?

Your love is like a morning cloud,

like the dew that goes away early.

⁵ Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,

I have killed them by the words of my mouth,

and my judgment goes forth as the light.

⁶ For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,

the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

The final verse of this reading, Hosea 5:6, is emblematic of a larger theme running throughout the Hebrew Bible prophets. While much of the Torah is concerned with religious ritual, especially Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the biblical prophets decry what happens when ritual itself becomes an object of worship, rather than God being the only God, as required by the first commandment. While most American Christians don’t offer burnt offerings to God, we all certainly can get lost by focusing too much on proper, organized, holy practice of churchly routines, rather than finding ways to love one another and the world steadfastly, and to continue to know the God to whom we make our offerings.

Questions to Ponder

Which of these verses do you think is often cited as a reference or foreshadowing of Jesus’ resurrection?

Are the early verses sung in certainty or hope, do you think?

In the time of Hosea’s writing, were the people overly focused on ritual and not enough on love or knowledge of the Lord? Why or why not, do you think?

Romans 4:13-25

Rom. 4:13   For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.  ¹⁴ If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.  ¹⁵ For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

Rom. 4:16   For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,  ¹⁷ as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.  ¹⁸ Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.”  ¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.  ²⁰ No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,  ²¹ being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.  ²² Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”  ²³ Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone,  ²⁴ but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,  ²⁵ who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

Reading through this dense theological passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, I’m struck by how easy it is to make faith into merely another law.