Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s reading from Romans is like a two-for-one. It is a new testament passage that relies heavily on Genesis. We are getting a taste of the Old Testament and the New at the same time. We’re also getting a reminder about the primacy of faith and grace.
In recalling Abraham’s story, Paul is also calling his readers, and in turn us, to remember how our relationship with God works. He is not denigrating the law, but elevating gift. He makes it clear that the promises given to Abraham were covenant, not contract. They were promises of gifts, not writs of obligation.
Faith was integral to this shift. Faith made trust the foundation of the divine human relationship. No longer was it competition and obligation but trust. This does not eliminate obedience, but makes it the “obedience of faith’, a figure of speech found at the beginning and end of Romans. It is the obedience of one who trusts the other. If I’m working with an expert and he tells me to hand him a tool, I’m going to obey, because I trust his expertise and intent. Abraham’s obedience flows from his trust, his trust that God’s expertise “call[ing] into being what does not exist” and his intent “who gives life to the dead” were legitimate reasons to trust, even to “Hope against hope.”
He hoped against hope for Isaac. He hoped against hope that if he let that knife fall on Isaac, then God would raise him from the dead. He hoped against hope that God was better than the others and he was not disappointed.
Faith asks us to trust God, letting him have the prerogative, making his goodness and providence a gift. Where do we need to step back and be more like Abraham?
- Spencer Hargadon