Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Romans 4:1-17

Giving People Space

In one respect, the issue of law and faith in Paul's letter to the Roman congregation is one of how to live with differences among believers. Let us assume that “the law” as Paul uses the term is not just that body of covenantal code by which Israel's God provided his people with the means to live the life for which they were created. It is, here, also, that edifice that marks Israel as “not like them”. Making the cut. Building a wall between the People and the peoples. These distinctions are, of course, not unique to Jews. There are people we do not want – nor should want – ourselves or our children to be associating with. Part of being faithful, whatever our faith tradition – is, in many instances, being “not like them”. There is never a shortage of destructive social paradigms to shy clear of. 

A problem is this: at what point does our model of righteousness become a system of religious meritocracy? This is what is eating at Paul, because those systems so utterly failed him in his early experience with Christians, as good as they intended to be. This is not a “Jewish” or “Judaising” problem per se. We all have our traditions, and in those traditions are embedded the distinctive devices of our faith - the innumerable requirements for “who we are”. If the church were to employ the same rigor in critiquing its own liturgies, programs, rules, missions, traditions, etc., as it sometimes does in judging Jewish “legalism” - if it were to strip away any pretension of merit before God in the devises it employs – it might more honestly maintain a healthy distinction between the “work of the people” and the work of God. Moreover, the church, or groups within the church, might come to appreciate the tools of faith that others use, appreciating – indeed, enjoying – the differences, all the while being formed by the disciplines which are closest and familiar. Why should not the Gentiles of the Roman church enjoy the disciplines of their Jewish colleagues, and vise versa, without making requirements on the others? Or, for us, why should not - to use one example - contemplative Christians of a meditative bent who like to keep silence enjoy the company of verbose pentecostal hand raisers, and vise versa. 

Because none of the practices merits God's mercy. That particular grace is reserved to our trust in our Creator, revealed in Christ, given by God – a trust we call faith. It is a trust that reveals the true relation between creatures and Creator. It is a trust that enables us to give others space with perfect confidence within our institutions and their associated boundaries, enjoying the company of others, embracing the spaces and the differences among us to be the holy ground that they are.

© 2011 Andy Gay