Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
June 20, 2022
Invitatory
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Romans 3:21-26
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.
Meditation – Peter Vanderveen
So much of the day to day task of ministry boils down to trying, vainly, to make the message of the Gospel acceptable, reasonable, or, in the best of all cases, productive. In the flux of all that happens in our lives, what we want more than all else is recourse to things that work: tools, methods, mantras, or principles. If God is good for anything, God should be available for our own advancement. And conversely, if there’s nothing given us in faithful observance that demonstrably leads to our progress, then what good is God anyway? It’s nearly impossible to escape the grip of this impulse. Why should we spend time on matters that can’t be shown to directly and materially improve our lot?
In the jargon of our time, righteousness has become a synonym for our own understanding of justice (however idiosyncratic that understanding may be). Those who are righteous are those who are willing to work for and strive for and fight for justice. They have a passion to get things done, or, as is often said with excited hyperbole, “change the world.” That’s no small task. For, by necessity, this includes a vision of what must be accomplished for everything to be set right – finally, and sustainably. And there’s so much that demands attention; how can any moment be wasted by our not being busy about what must be done? By our lights, righteousness is restless and impatient for the good.
This is clearly needful and laudable – by the measure of our understanding. But Paul sets the “righteousness of God” over against this very righteousness, the righteousness that we so often ground by our appeal to God. Yet Paul differs. And this difference is the most important declaration of today’s text.
The “righteousness of God” has been manifested, Paul noted, “apart from the law.” Not by the law or through the law or in accordance with the law. And not by establishing justice, whether by retribution or recompense. And not by our doing anything. The righteousness of God comes not by rearranging the powers and systems of the world. It comes, rather, through God’s “passing over” what has gone wrong and what we have wrongly done. It comes not as we would expect but by wholly other means: not by doing but by a kind of undoing, by a not-accounting-for that sets us free.
So often in all our wrangling about issues of justice we get caught up in arguments that have no end and set us against one another, hopelessly deadlocked by righteous indignation. Paul wants to shift us away from these impasses by inviting us to think of righteousness chiefly through the employment of four words: “apart from” and “passing over.” Think about the effect of these words. For righteousness then becomes a gift and not a judgment, a grace and not a punishment. And what is good doesn’t have to be achieved or fought for; it can be realized and received as what is all around us all the time. And faith isn’t driven to be productive; it can be experienced as miraculous.
We need the beauty of the space and freedom that this kind of righteousness affords.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
