“Where, Then, Is Boasting”
AM Psalm 75, 76 • PM Psalm 23, 27
Jer. 5:20-31 • Rom. 3:19-31 • John 7:1-13
As is often the case, today’s readings speak to one another and do so in ways that challenge us. Jeremiah does that he is known for. (The term “Jeremiad” refers to any wailing about our sins and fallen nature and the dire consequences we will pay for them.) He speaks for God who rebukes the Hebrews as “foolish and senseless people” who have “stubborn and rebellious hearts” and have failed to fear God. As with other prophets in scripture, the language of his lamentations is gorgeous. God reminds us of God’s creative omnipotence:
I made the sand a boundary for the sea,
An everlasting barrier it cannot cross.
The waves may roll but they cannot prevail;
They may roar but they cannot cross it.
But the beauty of the words are in the service of instilling fear of a chastising God, who asks ”Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?” An emphatic “yes” seems the obvious answer.
Then comes Paul in his letter to the Romans. With Jesus and his atonement, he tells us, that chastising God is now one of forgiveness and of the gift of redemption. All of us (and he makes it clear that “all” includes both the Hebrews in Jeremiah’s rebuke everyone else) have sinned “and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all, that is, in the same boat with those with “stubborn and rebellious hearts” whom Jeremiah lambasts, and yet with Christ’s coming all are “justified freely by his grace.”
“Where, then, is boasting?” Paul asks at the end. We should take no pride in the most exemplary behavior, because we are sinners nonetheless, and our forgiveness is fully unearned and free.
The juxtaposition is familiar, of course, and the divide between being saved by works or faith is perhaps the most fundamental in Christian thinking. Nonetheless it especially deserves our attention during the Lenten season. Navigating the tension between the two and what they ask of us is, to me, a worthwhile reflection as we look ahead toward Easter and its meaning and promise.
Written by Elliott West
Elliott is emeritus professor of history at the University of Arkansas. He has been a member of St. Paul’s for more than thirty years.