words of fire
burn the closed mouth
they must blast forth
turn the world to ashes
that in the shadowy grey
new life rises

“So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.”

Followers of Christ, we would do well to read this with the following change because the meaning and intent is the same:

“So then, if those who are outside of the law keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were within the law? The one who is not within the law and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and are a Christian, you are a lawbreaker.

A person is not a Christian who is one only outwardly, nor is obedience of the law merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Christian who is one inwardly; and obedience is obedience of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.”

Romans stands as a pillar at the centre of the gospel challenging any and all to try their strength at pulling it down only to find that it is rooted so deeply in Christ that it cannot be moved. We would do well to anchor ourselves to it and listen carefully to those before us who did.

I am thinking about writing a series of sermons based on the Letter to the Romans…depending upon when I write it or how long it is it could be titled “A Summer in Rome” or “16 Days in Rome” or the like.

I am posting this so that if anyone else does it before me I can claim to have thought of it first because I am really that ridiculous.

If Christ is the centre of truth than Romans is the centre of doctrine (for me). I am reading through Karl Barth’s powerful commentary The Epistle to the Romans and it is one of those experiences where you keep saying to yourself “I have read this verse a thousand times before, why have I never noticed it?”

Romans is like the frighteningly beautiful girl at your first dance that you can barely look at without wetting yourself and when you do approach her you make a stupid mess of it all. The best you can hope to do is watch her from a distance and hope one day she talks to you (I know it’s a weird analogy).

Anyhow watch this space for installments.

love bears the burden
of many an angry eye
of many a honeyed tongue
those who simply swear
against those who swear
that their very lives are forfeit
for the longing shadow’s heart

but

the one who would die for you
is not so much a true test

rather

the brilliant bold beauty worth it all
is of the one who would live for you

Today’s service was one focused on praise and worship which was refreshing and comforting and while there was no message per se (there was in the music and it was good) I decided this afternoon would be a good time to catch up on my devotionals.

I am early in the process of working my way through the Bible chronologically, that is, in the order it is believed that it was written. I am greatly appreciating the exercise.

I am currently just finished Job chapter 13 and am always appreciative of the new insights that come regardless of how often one reads something.

Job is suffering.

His seven children have died and his herds have been destroyed. He has been afflicted with painful sores all over his body and to top it off his wife and friends are strongly suggesting this is all his fault.

What we are witnessing in the early chapters of Job is the conflict between two views…a world view and a God view. 

A common understanding at the time (and sadly to this day in many instances) is that bad things happen to bad people. That is, when you suffer it is in response to something you have done to offend God and you must thrust yourself upon God and seek forgiveness.

Job however knows he is righteous (this could be a bad thing). The knowledge of his righteousness runs smack into the stone wall that is the reality of all of his suffering. Job knows he has not done anything to warrant being cursed by God and it is driving him slowly crazy.

Job stands at the crossroads of a new ethos. It is an apocalypse of a sort. A revelation by God that God is involved in creation but not in the way we think. Not in a way that makes sense to us…but God is involved nevertheless. We do not get the comfort of a nice orderly understandable God who rewards the wicked and blesses the righteous in any predictable way. We do not even get the next best thing – a God who has chosen to stand aside from creation while it tears itself apart according to its own rules and momentum.

No – we get a God who is working in and around creation but in ways that we are incapable of understanding.

In the midst of this existential angst Job’s “friends” seek to comfort him and hold him accountable to his hidden wrongdoings by enforcing the current worldview. They point out that Job is arrogant for claiming to understand the mind of God by claiming his own innocence. At they same time they are blind to their own arrogance in claiming to understand the mind of God by pointing out how God works in a nice, clean, predictable way punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous.

Job is us. His friends are more us. His wife is us as well. Caught in a weird mix of blessing and curse. Of starving children in Africa and stupidly wealthy people in the west we seek to understand and claim either God is evil and apart or those who suffer are cursed. 

The one thing we generally do not do is admit to the possibility that neither of those two things is correct and that perhaps we simply have to accept that we do not understand God; that we cannot measure God according to human ways and that ultimately we must continue to be in the business of loving creation despite circumstance.

I appreciate Job for all of this. A deeply honest and frightening text infused with wisdom.

sometimes i wonder
if every me that ever was
will gather at last call
to compare notes
to wonder at it all

we will likely fight
we will likely brawl
till the littlest me
the one most small
stands up and asks
how it ended up like this
and which of us
was the first to drop the ball

so captivated
by the shininess

cogito ergo sum

that one would
take it whole in one’s arms
and gather it
warmth and light
to a hidden nest high above it all
to hold it heavy like Atlas
this welcome curse
this lovely pressing in upon the self
this blinding brilliance
this ghastly gift
this luminescence
this life

Lord’s inside like blood
keeps the life lingering
hidden
taken for grace
taken for granted

Lord’s inside like blood
unseen engine keeps me goin’
but
see’n is believe’n
wanna turn me inside out

but the wounds we make
to reach the ghost in the machine
they let it leak away
and we run down
empty inside

there’s something
comfortable
in a killing way
about the air
and how we breathe
something simple
in a rusting way
about the lethargic largesse
that gives everything
with an empty hand
are we / we are
pigs
fattened for slaughter
wasted and waiting tired
for the welcome
whistling knife

We were talking about Higgs-Boson fields over dinner tonight. Specifically how Higgs-Boson fields are supposed to give other sub-atomic particles mass.

I find these subjects interesting. I am intrigued by the stuff of creation. Yet with all this interest it was not me but my 13-year-old son Caleb who started in on the subject. His mind was filled with quantum questions and propositions that floored me. He proposed theories of temperatures hot enough to bend light; he suggested the possibility of gravity intense enough to warp existence. He posited multiverses and dimensions beyond the three we are comfortable with. When we talked about HB fields being responsible for mass he started talking about the theoretical gravitron particle and its relationship to the Higgs-Boson.

I listened. He talked a mile a minute.

We talked about the speed of light and how Voyager 2 had left the Solar System at a speed of 58,000 km/hr. I told him Alpha Centauri was the closest star at 4.3 light years away and he wanted to calculate how long it would take for it to travel that far.

Caleb is a mechanic at heart. He likes to build things. He likes to take them apart. He likes to understand how things work but he does so increasingly at a theoretical quantum level which fills me to bursting with pride.

Ok I know parents are always talking up their kids. I do it too…all the time. Still to have a conversation with him at this level when he has just turned 13 floors me. Will we be able to converse at this level when he is 15 or will he be well past me by then? A humbling thought.

I gave him my copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time to read. I told him he would not understand a lot of it (underestimate?) but that it is talking at the level he was with me.

These moments are priceless. They help one understand that their children will surpass them. It is a necessary humility.