Wake Up, Sleeper! w/ Marty Folsom W1

Anthony: Let me read the first passage of the month. It’s Romans 4:1-5, 13-17. I’m reading from the Common English Bible. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday of Easter Prep, also known as Lent, on March the 5^th.

So what are we going to say? Are we going to find that Abraham is our ancestor on the basis of genealogy? ² Because if Abraham was made righteous because of his actions, he would have had a reason to brag, but not in front of God. ³ What does the scripture say? Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. ⁴ Workers’ salaries aren’t credited to them on the basis of an employer’s grace but rather on the basis of what they deserve. ⁵ But faith is credited as righteousness to those who don’t work, because they have faith in God who makes the ungodly righteous. John the Revelator saw a new heaven and new earth. What is the good news? ¹³ The promise to Abraham and to his descendants, that he would inherit the world, didn’t come through the Law but through the righteousness that comes from faith. ¹⁴ If they inherit because of the Law, then faith has no effect and the promise has been canceled. ¹⁵ The Law brings about wrath. But when there isn’t any law, there isn’t any violation of the law. ¹⁶ That’s why the inheritance comes through faith, so that it will be on the basis of God’s grace. In that way, the promise is secure for all of Abraham’s descendants, not just for those who are related by Law but also for those who are related by the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us. ¹⁷ As it is written: I have appointed you to be the father of many nations. So Abraham is our father in the eyes of God in whom he had faith, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that don’t exist into existence.

Marty, if you were preaching from this passage, what insights would you bring to bear? Let’s tell the story of the God we encounter in this passage.

Marty: Well, there’s just hardly anything here, as you can see. Anthony, that was a joke.

Anthony: I got it. I’m with you.

Marty: It’s so packed. I mean, the first thing I would just say is that it’s really an inquiry—the questions. So, what are we going to say and what does scripture say, is to say the nature of this is an inquiry. Which I use the word science for that; this is really the very science of what is really real in the world.

And Paul is trying to engage us with all of those ways that we think that we engage life and maybe engage God. But he is really going to the deepest part of the child that has curiosity to say if we can get life right here, everything’s going to flow from that in a way that’s going to give us the life that’s intended.

So just to recognize that this isn’t all the answers. If we can become curious like children, then we will be living with Paul with the wonder and awe of what it is that gets unveiled along the way—without having to have final statements that we kind of walk away and say, I’ve got it. And so, to live with that curiosity and wonder is to be drawn into the embrace itself.

I think that’s something that we just can’t miss the nature of the structure of what Paul’s doing here. And he is really inviting us into a story. And we could ask, so who is this story about? And it’s really easy to jump to Abraham and think, oh, this is Abraham’s story, but we would be off by at least one step.

This is really a story about who God is, that Abraham is the one who is embedded in this story that God is, is rolling out here. But the nature of who God is and what God has done is really the undergirding nature of what’s going on in this story. And the fact is that God has been faithful in creating and sustaining, and Paul steps into this.

And we are seeing here in Romans that people have all kinds of wrong ideas and so—wrong ideas about Abraham? No, it’s mostly wrong ideas about God and the nature of law and how do we get right with God and what does God do with our messing up, and all that.

And it’s like, hey folks, God is faithful. Abraham’s a great picture to see how God’s faithfulness works out. The nature of getting the story right here, and letting it be about a story about God in the first instance. And to see that Abraham comes for us as one who we recognize reveals something about God. Abraham is a pointer.

I think of the picture that hung over Karl Barth’s desk with John the Baptist pointing at the cross. Abraham’s kind of a John the Baptist. Here he is pointing at the one who is faithful. So, we don’t want to get absorbed entirely with Abraham, but we do identify with Abraham. And so, the nature of what it looks like for us to live within the story is part of the question here.

And so, preaching on what is the nature of faith and to say that the nature of faith is something that we have or we do is going to going to miss the point. The whole nature of gift is going to be significant here. Now we think of science as the world of objects, and so we don’t think about the science of gift.

But if we read this passage with these questions that are laid out and we say, we’re trying to do the science of going, what’s really happening here? Then the science is going to lead us to the idea. The gift is always unconditional. It is given to somebody who doesn’t deserve it, has not earned it, or in any way is compelling the person who is the gift giver to give it, then we are living into what the preaching of this is supposed to do—is that we are absolutely giving ourselves to one who is giving himself to us, and all we’re doing is submitting.

Or as the title of this section is, “waking up” to what it is that God has done. When you wake up in the morning, all you’ve done is wake up to what was really there. But when you’re asleep, then you’re unaware of what is really there. So, the call to wake up that is present within this passage, to recognize that our observing of the world so much leads us to think that reality is just what we see and observe.

But we have to see, as CS Lewis talks about, deeper magic from before the dawn of time to recognize the nature of who God is and what God is doing. And that Abraham is the invitation for us to wake up to the goodness, greatness, grandeur of the grace of God that overwhelms us. To become those who, having been beloved, are able to then bear witness to God and what God has done, and to live with humility and graciousness towards others because we have experienced that ourselves.

So that’s probably a good start as to some of the things that I might do with this passage.

Anthony: Yeah. I so appreciate that because if Abraham is our model of faithfulness, we can sometimes get stuck there because it’s like using Michael Jordan as a model. I might be able to play basketball, but I’ll never be able to play it like him.

And sometimes we look at the faith of another human being who’s gone before. And yes, we aspire to that. But I’ve just found in my own faith sometimes, it’s two steps forward and three steps back. It can sometimes feel a little anemic but it’s God’s faithfulness that we look to and we live in.

And so, I wanted to ask you, as we think about faith that is credited as righteousness, what would you say to someone who maybe is like me? Sometimes it feels strong and sometimes it feels a little puny. What say you?

Marty: Yeah. Well, each of these words, if we carefully say, what does righteousness mean here in this passage?

And we can easily think of righteousness as the standard that Michael Jordan or Abraham sets for us. But to say that the nature of righteousness is being made right with another person. It’s a way of being in relationship and so to say, either we work towards getting right or somebody can gift us with that, which is the point here.

The word credited is to recognize that a gift has been given, and it goes on say to those who don’t work. So, it’s acknowledging that there’s no contribution on the part of the human but that it’s God who is the one who makes us righteous. In other words, something is given to us that we didn’t earn, couldn’t earn, and we then are acknowledging what’s going on.

So, this idea of acknowledging that God has made us right, that we are included because of his choice to include us, that is to say then that our faith is simply waking up to that reality. You have been seen, known, chosen. Acknowledge the reality that is there.

We live in a world that tends to think that science focuses on the world of the impersonal. Science studies the objects of the world. And so, God becomes an object. And we even make our faith an object. You know, how do we measure it? How do we study it?

But to say that what Paul’s doing here—and really the nature of the faith that we’re talking about—it’s a personal way of being. And when we do the science of the personal, it means that in crediting, we listen to the one who tells the truth, and the one who tells that is the God who comes from the person of Jesus.

And so, he tells us that before we could do anything, he has acknowledged, acted in such a way that we would be his. The word “credited” there is to say that his action is more important, more significant. His personal way of being is the reality of our life. And so, we’ve been made right with God by nothing of ourself.

And so, if we feel anemic or puny or unable to do or be something, then we’re going, well, what do I have to do? And Jesus says wrong question. Your inquiry here to just be able to say, oh, there’s nothing I could do. Oh, I get it. There’s no way that I could do anything to earn or to credit to my account anything, because you’ve already filled that account and done all that’s necessary.

So, either I receive it as gift, or I live denying the gift. And so, the very nature of the gospel is at stake here. Are we going to accept, acknowledge, receive [that] we have been included? And people do deny it and walk away from it. But even that doesn’t take away what it is that he has done and is doing.

So, if we judge ourself as anemic or puny, then that’s just our judging ourself, and we’re missing the point. So to allow that to drop away, to be cleansed, to wash away, our conscience is cleansed from all that, to receive the goodness of that invitation.

Anthony: Isn’t it really our walk to wake up and to simply receive with open hands, to receive what God has given to us out of his determinative love? His action on God’s side is so, so important.

And so, as I heard somebody say this week, Buddha’s dying words were strive without ceasing, whereas Jesus’ dying words is, it is finished. So, we get to pick our master, right? Who are we going to walk with and go with? And in this case, we go with Jesus, the one who reveals the heart of the Father.