So, let’s get to it. We have several texts to dive into today. Our first passage of the month is Romans 4:13–25. I’m going to be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 5 in Ordinary Time, June 7.

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 For 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 transgression.¹⁶ For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who 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 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), and 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 “it 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 for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

All right, man, we come to Holy Scripture seeking to bear witness to the living Word of God, Jesus Christ. What does this passage tell us about the God revealed in Jesus?

[00:09:09] Matt: There’s a few things that really stand out to me with it. The first is really centered on verse 16. Faith is something that’s bequeathed to us. It’s not something that we’re capable of attaining.

There’s a unique phrasing here in this particular translation to those who share the faith of Abraham. The sharing of the faith there within the Greek is specific to something that’s been handed to you and you partake of it or participate within it. Think of it as you’re at a family dinner and grandma lays something down in front of you. You didn’t choose it, you didn’t help make it, but it nevertheless is being served to you. It’s grandma’s food. She made it, but it’s being presented to you to participate in, to engage with.

That is the nature of faith. The recurring theme, I think, in most of Romans is this idea of, whose faith is it we’re talking about? Is this my faith that originates independent of anything else?  Or is this the faith of Jesus Christ lived out in, for, and as the human condition in general that then is bequeathed to me and I reside in this?

The beginning of verse 16 includes this idea of the promise depends on faith but that in order that it may rest on grace. So, grace is the means by which faith comes to us.

I spend a great deal of time teaching on the nature of spiritual practices throughout the history of the church. I think formation is a valuable thing. But at the end of the day, all it does is awaken us to what is already true. It doesn’t produce anything other than awareness. I can’t change the innate nature of it is finished in my life. I can just see it more clearly.

So that’s the primary theme that recurs for me throughout this passage, but it spills over in, into the remainder of the Book of Romans as well. But I do, this verse, in verse 19, speaking of Abraham, “he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body.” It doesn’t say he didn’t consider his own body.

He considers it. The triune God is not into denial. We don’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend there’s not problems happening around us that don’t seem to align very well with what this promise is.

We consider those things but we rest on the promises, that those things are out there and impact our perceptions at times, does not change the validity and the solemnity of the promise itself.

[00:11:51] Anthony: That’ll preach. Seriously, Matt, just thinking about that and here we are in a world that is broken, warmongering, it’s dark on so many levels, and it could look like darkness has won the day, but what you’re saying is circumstances don’t dictate the reality. Is that right?

[00:12:11] Matt: Absolutely.

[00:12:11] Anthony: Yeah.

[00:12:12] Matt: Absolutely. And I, this is, again, I think one of those moments where the psychology jumps in to inform the theology. Neither is it healthy to pretend everything is okay. The fact that it is finished does not nullify the fact there’s a variety of misery in the world.

And I don’t know that it’s constructive to … I think of it this way. When Jesus encounters suffering, he weeps. He weeps with others and he sits in that pain. He doesn’t deny the pain is there. He assumes the pain. And if we are to exist in the world that as he is, so are we.

I really come up frequently against this idea that we should almost just ignore the things in the world that seem to be assaulting the promises. I would submit that really is just saying that we don’t believe the promises and we are that defensive, that we can’t let anything come against those promises. We can’t set our gaze on those things because if we do, it’s going to make our belief in the promises collapse. The promises in my own life and my own church are really a byproduct of having looked square in the eye, those things that stand in contradiction to it.

[00:13:31] Anthony: Yeah, that’s really helpful. And I’m, as you were talking, I’m thinking about this inaugurated kingdom in Jesus Christ, the already / not yet aspect of it, that all things are being made new, that’s where it’s all heading, but we’re not there yet.

Matt: Yeah.

Anthony: And in the meantime, what I also hear you saying is that it doesn’t give us permission not to engage, you know, and not to be honest about where things are, that we can lament while also trusting in the hope that is eternal in Jesus Christ. Amen and amen.

And you’ve already touched on this, but I want to dig a little deeper. It says he’s hoping against hope. And is there anything you would want to say maybe on a personal level to people who are struggling to trust God’s promises in light of what they’re seeing about them? Because again, it could seem like darkness is winning the day. What would you say?

[00:14:25] Matt: The first is to be fair with yourself. Acknowledge that trust is not a light switch that’s either on or off but it’s something that grows over time. I think there’s a reason … whenever scripture uses metaphors or similes to try and explain the nature of Christ in the Church and that relationship, I really pay a lot of attention to those metaphors. They’re given to us for a reason.

The nature of the Church as a bride and Christ is the bridegroom, this marital relationship — I have been married for 23 years this coming November. I trusted my wife the day we married. The depth of that trust after 23 years of life together, of all the highs and lows and disappointments and successes shared mutually together, the trust I have in, with, and for her today is infinitely greater than the trust I had when I began the journey with her 23 odd years ago.

We, particularly those of us who have been heavily influenced by any variant of fundamentalism, there is this all or nothing belief. You believe God or you don’t. You trust God or you don’t. That’s not, first, that’s not how the Greek of the words themselves work, but even in the writings of the early church, we don’t encounter that type of concept.

Instead, we see this as something that’s meant to be like a mustard seed that’s going to grow. It’s going to mature and not linearly. It’s not as if it just consistently goes up. Now, you’re going to hit bumps along the way where it plummets a bit and then escalates back up again.

So, that would be my biggest thing, just giving yourself space to be human. But by assuming the human condition and ascending with his physical body Jesus makes clear there is nothing wrong with being human. It is a condition he was perfectly pleased to take with him and have as the remainder of our concept of human time. He is now human and always shall be a human.

Anthony: Yes.

Matt: He is still divine, but now possesses humanity. If that’s his attitude toward humanness, I think we need to give ourselves a little, cut ourselves a little bit more slack.

[00:16:41] Anthony: Yeah, for sure. I’m thinking about Matthew 28 and Jesus had told the disciples who frankly were kind of locked in the panic room.

He tells them to go to a mountain and Scripture tells us that they worshiped Jesus when they saw him, but some doubted. And sometimes we can be so hard on people shaming them for doubt. And I do not think doubt is the opposite of faith. It’s actually quite useful to faith that we wrestle with things.

And just like you said in terms of your trust of your wife, these things have a way of maturing and growing over time, but allowing ourselves to say faith sometimes looks like two steps forward and a step back sometimes, and you’re just wrestling with things, and that’s okay because Jesus has already overcome the world, right? Isn’t that in part what you’re saying as we wrestle through this?

[00:17:30] Matt: Absolutely. And this is where I think formation is a remarkably helpful idea, as opposed to a purely discipleship perception of faith. Discipleship — and I’m pro-discipleship; I don’t want to be misunderstood. But discipleship tends to be along the lines of like catechesis where there’s some type of a catechetical or ordered understanding of the faith that is, instruct and you’re just told, “Believe this.” And you’re given a lot of great proof texts that, that explain that, maybe even some personal stories from the person teaching. Nothing wrong with any of that.

But it is instructional rather than formative. There’s something in us that has to see the light for ourselves.

Anthony: Yeah.

Matt: When I was first practicing clinically, most of my clientele was 20-somethings who are at that point in life where it’s not your parents’ faith anymore, it’s not your parents’ politics anymore, it’s not your parents’ outlook on the world, but you’re distancing from that and figuring out what you actually believe about these things.

I often interpret discipleship as this is what I feel, Matt Pandell, you should believe. Formation is, okay, you were given all that through the discipleship model, but now allow the Spirit to work within you and inform. Okay, what of that are we to hold and what of that maybe do we need to rethink or put through a new prism to ensure that what we are, the theology we’re building looks like Jesus.

[00:19:01] Anthony: Good stuff.