Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7), Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19, Romans 5.1-8, Matthew 9.35-10.23
Today we have three texts which are all parts of stories. None of them is a complete story in themselves. The Genesis passage comes in following God telling Abram that he is no longer going to be called Abram but Abraham, and that he will be the father of many nations. Sarai, his wife, also receives a new name – Sarah, and is told that she will bear a son. “And Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised; and all the men of his house, slaves born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.” So the text for today begins with Abraham sitting in the cool of the opening of the tent – not labouring, unlike his slaves, but resting from the recent circumcision. Three people appear and Abraham and Sarah begin preparing a meal. I wonder how long that meal really took. Preparing a calf – butchering it, taking the cuts required, and cooking it. Not your average microwave or ready meal.
And today’s text has part of the story from Chapter 18 and part of the story from Chapter 21. In between those parts is the passage that refers to Sodom and Gomorrah, which has an oblique reference in the gospel reading. Which is used at a different point in the lectionary. Confusing, isn’t it? This Sunday and the next focus on the birth of Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah, borne to them in their old age. The passage from Romans, on its own is as dense and oblique as any of the Apostle Paul’s teachings. So what happens before our text today? A Chapter that begins with the title – The Example of Abraham, and in essence is the core of our understanding needed today.
“What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’”
When I studied this at university, I didn’t study this in English. I studied this in the Koine Greek that it was written in, albeit in a book, rather than the original scroll.
Righteousness has a completely different meaning to the meaning portrayed by the Greek. Righteousness in today’s language is the quality or state of being morally right or justifiable. Wikipedia is not normally my go to, but on this occasion has a well written explanation on the meaning of the word righteousness.
Righteousness is the quality or state of being morally right or justifiable. The concept is rooted in religious or divine law and broadly encompasses moral correctness, justice, and virtuous living as dictated by a higher authority or set of spiritual beliefs. It is found in many religions and traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. It is an attribute that implies that a person’s actions are justified and can have the connotation that the person has been “judged” as living a moral life, relative to religious doctrines.
And it can so easily be abused. “I live by righteousness. I am justified by my actions, relative to the religious doctrines of the path I choose to follow.” It gives me the ick. Because it is not what the Apostle Paul is trying to convey. Unfortunately for us, though, there is no equivalent word in the English language that does convey what Paul is trying write about.
“For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as right wise.’”
The Greek has right wise, and quite rightly, you ask what does really mean? The root of right wise is ‘right’ and ‘manner/state/condition’. The right condition. Is that the same as being ‘righteous’? Let us go on with Chapter 4 of Romans.
“Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as being the right condition. So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons as being the right condition irrespective of works:
‘Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.’
Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, ‘Faith was reckoned to Abraham as being the right condition.’ How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the being right wised that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have as being the right condition reckoned to them, and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised. For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the right wise of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.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, 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. 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.’
The right condition for what? The right condition of the heart where the Holy Spirit come and works within you to effect actual moral transformation. Traditional Christian doctrine teaches that righteousness is a gift of grace received through faith in Jesus Christ.
This is often taken to understand that by living by a set of beliefs according to one’s religious practices, one will attain righteousness. Which is what gives me the ick. That’s what the Nazis did. That is what is allowing genocide after genocide to carry on around the world today. But if we take right wise, or the state of being the right condition for the Holy Spirit to work in us, then we no longer adhere to a set of doctrines, but instead focus our eyes on God.
And so from our passage today,
Therefore, since we are made right by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
And by focusing our eyes on God, we can proclaim the good news of the kingdom and heal the sick. When I prepare for a service, I ask God to speak through me. And so it is when I speak with others. And so it is with you. It is learning to lean on God and allow God to speak. Being in the right condition for the Holy Spirit to move within you makes you walk in the presence of God in the land of the living.