FROM THE PASTOR
Mystery of God’s Ways
The British man of letters, A.E. Houseman, wrote this eight-word poem:
How odd
Of God
To choose
The Jews
He is not the first to ponder the mystery of God’s ways through the Jewish people, the people of God’s ancient choosing. The Apostle Paul turned the full attention of his passionate concern for his fellow Jews and the continuing purposes of God in the 9th, 10th and 11th chapters of Romas-our Second Lessons these past couple of weeks, including this coming Sunday. It was no abstraction for him. So deeply did he feel about it that he declared that he would even offer up his own salvation in Christ if it could mean that his kin by race could embrace Jesus as Messiah and Lord.
In the wake of the trial and sentencing of the person who killed many in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and in the shadow of too many antisemitic acts of hate every day we need to remember these words from Paul: the Jews are given “the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises, the patriarchs and prophets” (Romans 9:4-5). And in our lesson for this coming Sunday Paul flatly states that the Jews are God’s people, the recipients of these inestimable gifts and working of God which “are irrevocable.”
The final verse of this coming Sunday’s text moves the central truth out beyond the synagogue and the church, to the mission of God to the whole of humanity: “for God has consigned all people to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.” (Romans 11:32) There is, ultimately, no limiting the grace and lovingkindness of God who will not let go-of the world itself!
Many years the pastor of my home congregation, Dean Lueking, wrote a companion verse.
How odd
Of God
To choose
The Jews
No less
To bless
Our race
With grace.
Pastor Stephen Bouman
