Lent - Day 17

       This is such an extraordinarily rich passage. While it certainly has an incredible amount of useful information and thoughts as to our daily lives, how does it help us as we travel through Lent? 

       How many of us will immerse ourselves in quaint religious practises of religiosity to prepare for Lent?  No meat today that's for sure.  Fasting perhaps?  Stations of the cross, Lenten soup meals, a few extra items for the church pantry perhaps? Would it help if we splashed ourselves a bit more with holy water?  How about total immersion? Yay or nay?

       From the dawn of written history man has tried to capture who God is. If you read Hebrew scriptures, you get a rather scary view of people mowing down each other, multiple wives, concubines, slavery, incest and even perhaps the first act of a 'suicide bomber' , aka Sampson. ( you should read it, truly. He kills himself while he kills all his enemies by destroying the temple that he and his enemies stand under. Wow. ) Be that as it may, what is the truth about God's nature and our nature of divine service, worship and a real relationship with our Creator?

        God's nature is not changed by any human expression of our love. God's nature is not captured by any human written legends or expressions of faith. So too, nothing we do, signs of the cross, circumcisions, or personal acts of piety can adequately or fully express the truth about God.  All of these 'historical facts' of the Bible, all our actions, writings, and even beliefs are null and void in the eyes of God if we think we can define God or that such 'things' give a full, real and adequate description of God. They can only allude to a truth, point us in the right direction.

       A very fine example of such is the use of incense in churches. The smells of 'bells and smells' if you will, what the Episcopal church uses and only second to the Roman church in such traditions. Does it make one holier? No. But the essence of a permeating smell, rising to the rafters with a pleasing aromatic essence calls us to the human feelings and stirrings of how we rise to God in holiness. It is a peculiar and human remembrance.  The incense is not God but helps us get a feeling for God and our relationship.  

      This reading today calls us to feel the richness of traditions and actions. It also calls us to realize that they unto themselves do not make us holy. It goes further to note that the many we might call 'religiously insufficient' , the 'uncircumcisezd' can easily be holier than those that follow all those rules and traditions.

      The answer for me is to approach God with openness, a pure heart filled with awe for the Creator that loves me with reckless abandon. Know that you are loved, not judged by any human standard and with a pure heart and good intent, holier than any human expression can ever fully possess. The closest fully human expression of God is love.

Romans 2:25-3:18

 Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So, if those who are uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you that have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart—it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?Much, in every way. For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true, as it is written,
‘So that you may be justified in your words,
   and prevail in your judging.’ 
But if our injustice serves to confirm the justice of God, what should we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my falsehood God’s truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), ‘Let us do evil so that good may come’? Their condemnation is deserved!

 What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written:
‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one; 
   there is no one who has understanding,
     there is no one who seeks God. 
All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
   there is no one who shows kindness,
     there is not even one.’ 
‘Their throats are opened graves;
   they use their tongues to deceive.’
‘The venom of vipers is under their lips.’ 
   ‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’ 
‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; 
   ruin and misery are in their paths, 
and the way of peace they have not known.’ 
   ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.’