Hello, dear reader! Thank you for being here in the sixth week of reading Romans together. As usual I’ll take a little detour into what jumps out at me today, and leave the deeper theology to the scholars. If you have some time, watch or listen to this amazing sermon by pastor Adam Mabry of Aletheia Church in Cambridge, MA, as he unpacks the second half of Romans Chapter 3. He’s a few verses ahead of where we are today, but he also talks about Romans more generally. It is well worth watching, as are all of his sermons.
Romans 3:9-20 (NIV)
9 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
Paul is still intent on demonstrating the thoroughgoing and all-inclusive nature of sin. Weirdly, for me this is another way of saying that we are all of equal worth in God’s eyes. Just as each of us is a child of God and loved by him, each of us is corrupted and corruptible by sin. No one, not even the saintliest among us, can be singled out as “better-than” or deserving of special favors, in this world or beyond. It’s strange to take comfort in that, but it is comforting to me, that we all struggle and suffer these failings of obedience and right thought and action. We are not alone in our sinfulness. It is something everyone shares. And yet, sin can inspire righteous anger as we look around us and see so much going wrong. How to reconcile and express these feelings? Here Paul invokes the Psalms.
The Psalms cry out with us, lament with us, and recognize the wickedness in the world. In this small passage alone Paul refers to five separate Psalms (in order: 14, 5, 140, 10, and 36). How great would it be to know the Bible like that, to be able to salt thought and speech with its verses, to have taken them wholly into consciousness so they’re at the ready when needed. The Psalms are so available to us in times of trouble. I have a friend who prayed the Psalms daily after the loss of her baby. Another friend suffering with years of debilitating pain could only read the Psalms and the Book of Job. Often gritty and honest, these are prayers that endure, unite us across time and space, and form a central part of daily worship for many believers.
What is your favorite Psalm? Mine is 139, which some have titled “The Inescapable God.” It reminds me of what Paul says in our text today (verse 19): The whole world will be accountable to God.
Here’s Psalm 139, verses 7-12 (NRSV)
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.