🦁 Epiphany 4-1
Reflection
Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 111. Deuteronomy three, verses 23 to 29, Romans nine, verses 6 to 18.
Well, today, we have Paul Paul's letter to the Romans. This is the church in Rome, and a little background: they were so young as Peter and Paul, and they're considered the two major players at the beginning of the church after Jesus was resurrected. They had two opposing views, kind of the first schism. The first two. What's the word? I want to use your denominate Asians, if you will, of Christianity. Peter felt that following Jesus was a sect of Judaism. It was called the Way. The Way was Jewish. You had to be Jewish to be in the way. You had to follow all the Jewish customs and courtesies, the circumcision, you know, the food you ate, all the that everything stayed the same. You just followed the way.
Paul, on the other hand, Jesus is for everyone. He is the one who took the message the way the message of Jesus, the message of God's love and forgiveness to the Gentiles. Gentile, like everyone else in the world, is not Jewish. So, this reading this morning in Romans is part of Paul justifying his theology. He's in there saying, Well, Luke, Yes, here's what's in the old us. We have Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Rebecca; the kids came from there. And we had Jacob, and he saw that whole story. Okay. But know, it's all about God. And we can come to God. You don't have to be Jewish. You don't have to be circumcised. You don't have to follow the dietary restrictions and all the other rules and things they are in Judaism, then. Anyone? All you had to do was say, God, I believe. I believe. I believe in God. Be the salvation, prayer, whatever you want to phrase it. But that's all you do: believe in God and follow the concepts Jesus put out for us. Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. All the laws and the prophets hang on these two. Everything is about loving God and loving your neighbor.
So Peter and Paul kind of butted heads a little bit. And so today in our reading from Romans, he's sitting here, Paul is saying, hey, you know, this is why I'm saying what I'm saying, that we can take this message out to the Gentiles, the rest of the world. As we know from anthropology, I believe Thomas wondered that there was an early Christian church in China. Of course, we knew the Three Kings from the East probably came from the Orient, but we know they went out when the areas were all known. The disciples, you know, at Pentecost, do their thing. They went out, created the 70 from the 12, and sent them all out. And they went worldwide spreading the news of the way of Jesus. The good news is that you are loved and forgiven; all you need to do is love God and the people around you. So this is a vital part of Paul's ministry because they're saying, wait. After all, part of it is, you know, God's being, you know, God only wants his game. His what? His was. This is the Israel, the Jewish people who are God, And God said they're his chosen.
Because Paul points out, well, the Jean Paul got a little wide there. They've had mixed marriages over the years. They've been enslaved. They've been around with people, other people in the other countries. When they were enslaved, the Cross, Mary, etcetera, etcetera. And now here we come in, and they've brought it in. God can love everybody, and everybody can become a Christian. That's the big story in this reading. Is Paul coming out and saying, Now we don't have to be Jewish? You don't have to follow all the pretenses of the Jewish faith that they had at the time.
All we have to do is love God and our neighbor, and we can send that message to anyone in the world. Otherwise, I wouldn't be a Christian because I have zero Jewish heritage in my life. So you have that. The other one is today real quick in Deuteronomy. This is Moses. Tough time, Moses brought up. The Pharaoh raised hiPharaohknow the baby's story in the Nile bread basket. All that. And he was raised by the Pharaoh, the Pharaoh's servant; the Lord is saying, Well, God came and said, You are going to be the leader of my people and get them out of Egypt. Moses: Like, wait a minute. All right, I'll come here and help you. He can talk to you, but I want you. So Moses, the man who stands, stood at the Red Sea with his arms raised while the nation of Israel passed through, and then he dropped his arms and drowned the entire Egyptian army—that guy.
And now there is a Ben in the desert. We've already heard the story of the man on the water. Everybody's complaining. They're so human, complaining about everything. And God says I've had enough. So this is Moses saying, God told Moses you're not going in. You can go up on this mountain. It's Pisgah. Peace gauge pronounces you. I go up to the top. Look all the way around. All of this is where they're going. But I'm not allowing you to go. And that was when they charged Joshua. Who was Moses? His replacement was to take the people after the 40-year itch in the desert and take them out into present-day Lebanon and that area again.
Moses did all this work, but things didn't go right. And God's like, I'm not going to allow you to go in.
Sometimes, that's the way things work. It is very, very, very difficult for us as human beings, myself, as a control freak, I'm a very type A personality, very much wanted to be in charge, in control. To sit there and say, okay, God, you know, would you do it? And just it may not go the way I think it would. We may be there. There's much discussion about why this happened to Moses and all those things over the years. It just boils down to this: this is what God did, and he did it for his reason. And his reasons don't always have to be known to us. So thank you very much.
