God’s Quirky Family

Living in The Story reflections from

Ruth

Acts

I looked up “quirky” in a dictionary and they agree with me: the word really is a compliment.  “Quirky = not quite normal but cool. Unconventional and surprising. Different in a good way.”

When the Living in The Story scriptures couple the story of Ruth in the Old Testament with the stories in Acts in the New Testament, then we can see some of the ways God’s Story has always included all kinds of quirky people. Ruth from Moab and Cornelius from Rome are good examples of unconventional additions to the community of God’s people. It’s not quite normal that these outsiders would have been included; but it’s cool, don’t you think?

The Ruth story is really about Ruth and Naomi and Boaz. Each is a strong, important character; each shows us how God has always been about the business of bringing unlikely people together and redeeming impossible situations.

Old Naomi is a daughter of Israel, part of the 12 tribes sprung from the 12 sons of Jacob. (Now there was a quirky bunch – and not always in a good way! When we read their stories from Exodus and Joshua and Judges, we wish some of their skeletons had stayed in their closets.) But this is Naomi’s family tree for better or worse and even so, everything we know about her causes us to respect her, while the losses and pain of her life make us grieve along with her. Naomi is barren. She has been a wife and a mother but now she is a woman alone who has buried her husband and two sons. She has been full but now she is empty.

Do not call me Naomi anymore, she says to her kinsfolk. Call me Mara now for my life has turned to bitterness (1:20-21).

But Naomi does have Ruth, a faithful daughter in law who refuses to leave the mother of her heart. Ruth is another woman who understands grief and emptiness and who will cling to this woman she loves, refusing to be parted.

Entreat me not to leave thee, Ruth pleads with Naomi, nor to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. (1:16).

Young Ruth is also a widow and thus lives in poverty and uncertainty. Ruth - a foreigner, immigrant, stranger, alien - will face suspicion and distrust from the people of her new home. Ruth, the Moabite will live with disdain and resentment. “Ruth’s ancestry and culture were held in contempt by the people of her new homeland. Moabites were banned from the assembly of the Lord because of their ancestors' sins,” says Kathleen Farmer. There would always be someone who would look down on Ruth and judge this Moabite woman to be an enemy.

Boaz is an insider, a man of Israel endowed with privilege and power and position but - in a risky act of grace - he becomes protector and provider for these two vulnerable women. Out of the fullness of his fields, they find food. Out of the fullness of his character, they find respect. Out of the fullness of his commitment, they find a new home where their emptiness is transformed into abundance.

Ruth bears a son; Naomi becomes a grandmother. And David, the greatest king Israel would ever know, is born from this unlikely heritage. Redemption all around. God has always been about the business of bringing unlikely people together and redeeming impossible situations. Quirky indeed. Quirky in a good way.

Another story in Acts 10 is about Cornelius, another foreigner. Cornelius is not your typical Roman army officer; not your conventional brutal occupier and oppressor as was the practice of the Empire. Somehow, Cornelius had formed a sense of Someone bigger than himself. He had a sense of a greater responsibility to others – to the poor and the under privileged all around him. He had this quirky yearning for Something More.  And so Cornelius’ story reminds us that God honors every yearning; that God will respond to even the slightest breath of hope. Cornelius reminds us that we should never be surprised at the people God may well be bringing together in God’s own time, in God’s own quirky way.

But the Acts 10 story is also very much about Peter and his ongoing conversion. Peter, named by Jesus as “rock,” could be famously hard headed. He was one of the 12 apostles (yet another quirky, unlikely group of people brought together by Jesus.)

Peter was the one who preached that bold Pentecost sermon (Acts 2) proclaiming that God was doing a new thing, an unconventional and surprising work of grace and welcome. But it still took quite a while to recognize what this divine work might mean; it took some time to understand that all people were to be invited and included in God’s grace and welcome. It kept on surprising them (just as it keeps on surprising us) what this quirky new family of God would actually look like.

I have never in my life set foot in the house of a Gentile, Peter protested to the Heavenly Voice. Peter was challenged to rethink everything he had been taught about who is in and who is out; he was forced to re-read his own Scripture and re-interpret what God may be doing and where God may be taking this ever larger, ever quirky Story.

But once Peter was in the home of Cornelius, in the company of real people who also had been touched and changed and redeemed by God’s own Spirit, he finally got it. “Ah Hah! I once was blind but now I see!” Peter – like Paul - had his own ‘Damascus Road’ experience.

The book of Ruth is 85 verses long, but the words "redeem" or "redemption" are used some 23 times. God's way of doing business is to redeem every situation, every person, every community of people and to bring everything into the fullness and shalom of God’s ultimate purposes for creation. Ruth and Naomi and Boaz and Peter and Cornelius all experienced this grace-full redemption.  

Conventional wisdom is that people tend to form homogenous groups because only like-minded humans can become solid, stable communities. But in God’s Story, there is always a vast and wonderful variety. Like the lively mix of birds sharing my backyard feeder – cardinals and cowbirds, sparrows and doves, starlings and jays – God’s way is a joyful mix of creatures living their lives together in a lovely, eclectic eco-system. This kind of unity in diversity represents God’s own kingdom; it represents God’s way in the world.

God’s way, God’s kingdom means we recognize that we all need each other; that the whole messy mix of us IS God’s plan to bring about our fullness, our wholeness; that the whole lot of us existing together in the community of Christ actually demonstrates and lives out God’s redeeming purposes for the world. This mélange of differences gives powerful witness to Spirit’s ability to break down barriers and build up strong communities of grace and welcome.

When we can relax and rejoice that all of us with all of our differences are vital parts of God’s family; when we can marvel at the unconventional and exceptional people we become when we live well together as God’s community; when we can celebrate that this kind of diverse people may not be typical or normal but it is very, very cool – then I think we’ve got a sense of what it means to be included in God’s quirky kingdom.

Online Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=quirky

Kathleen Robertson Farmer, "The Book of Ruth," The New Interpreter's Bible, Volume 2 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998) 919.

Copyright Charlotte Vaughan Coyle 2014

Three Days in the Belly

Living in The Story reflections from

Matthew 26-28

The Book of Jonah

            On many an Easter morning, we wipe tears of joy as we share in the baptism of some of God’s precious children. Easter is a perfect time to celebrate baptism because for us Christians, it pictures death and resurrection. That’s what this life with Christ is all about: dying to ourselves, admitting we can’t save ourselves, recognizing our own helplessness, giving ourselves over to the Source of all life - The Life that burst from the tomb on that Easter morn long ago - so that, in our own dying we too trust we will find new life. Baptism gathers up all this multitude of meaning and symbolizes all this mystery.

Death.

Resurrection.

We see hints of it even in the little story of Jonah tucked away in our Old Testament.

You remember Jonah. It’s a wonderful story, a kind of parable about human folly and divine mercy. In the story, Jonah is called by God to preach repentance to his mortal enemies (not at all a pleasing assignment) so he promptly boarded a ship that was headed in exactly the opposite direction. But then a great storm rose up out of the chaos of the sea and threatened to swallow the ship and everyone on it, and Jonah figured out that he had not been very successful hiding from God. He convinced the sailors to toss him overboard in order to save themselves. Sure enough – immediately the sea grew calm while Jonah sank into its depths.

But God had a surprise waiting for Jonah, a mixed blessing, as it were. A great sea creature gulped him down and saved him from drowning. And here is Jonah – in the belly of the beast – for three long days and three long nights.

And we hear Jonah’s prayer from the deep darkness:

            Out of the belly of Sheol I cried

                        and the Lord heard my voice.

The waters closed in over me;

                        the deep surrounded me;

            weeds were wrapped around my head

            at the roots of the mountains.

            yet you brought up my life from the Pit,

                        O Lord my God.

When Jonah finally was able to die to himself and his own plans and schemes; when he admitted he couldn’t save himself; when he recognized his helplessness and gave himself over to the Source of all life, then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spat Jonah out upon the dry land.

In the Gospel of Matthew, there is an odd exchange between Jesus and some religious folks who wanted Jesus to prove he was the Messiah. “Give us a sign. Give us proof that you are the Anointed One of God,” they demanded.

But [Jesus] answered them, “…no sign will be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.  Matthew 12:39-40

             The “sign” Jesus offers is an odd one, don’t you think? Jonah’s sign – Jonah in the belly for three days. Jonah in the depths of the sea, at the roots of the mountains, with the seaweed wrapped around his head. This is a good sign? How can the sign Jesus offers as hope be something that comes from our most hopeless situations?

I’m guessing most of us live much of our lives in the belly of some monster or another. Disease that swallows up all our energy and sucks us dry. Broken relationships that break our hearts and overwhelm us with grief or anger or loneliness, A job that sometimes feels like a black hole with no glimmer of light and air. Financial worries that flood us with fear and anxiety. Death itself: those whom we have loved, hands we have held, lips we have kissed, sunken into the darkest places of the earth.

But it’s there, right there in the despair that we find God at work. And sometimes we discover – like Jonah did – that the belly of the beast actually saved us, kept us, preserved us for a time and gave us a chance to see life from a different perspective.

It is good for us to stare death in the face, to acknowledge our finitude, to recognize the fragile and temporal nature of our living. It is good for us to be challenged to turn away from putting our trust in our own selves and to turn toward God - depending on God’s strength, God’s wisdom, God’s power for our living. It is good to remember that God is God and we are not.

And it is good to remember that God is constantly at work creating life out of death. Sometimes we take life for granted; it’s hard to see God working on behalf of life when we are living pretty well and we think we have everything under control. But when we find ourselves in the belly of a monster, we know what dying feels like. We remember how hopelessness can wash over us like mighty waters as we sink deeper and deeper into despair.

That’s when we hold on to the sign of Jonah because if we are watching for the signals that Spirit is weaving into every hopeless situation, we will be able to see God’s glimmer of light in our every darkness; and we will be able to hold on to hope.

Jonah’s sign also reminds us that our own “three days” in the belly of the beast will not go on forever. In the language symbols of the Bible, “three days” means: “whenever the time is right.” Whenever the soil and the seed discern it’s time for the sprout to push up towards the sun. Whenever the womb and the baby discern it’s time for labor to begin. Whenever the Spirit moves. Whatever it may mean that God’s time is “right,” that’s when one thing passes and another comes into being. It’s good to remember that our days in the belly are not forever.

We can trust this because life itself teaches us that winter will pass and spring will always come; because the flowers bloom again and the frogs sing again and because the darkest night will always fade into the bright light of day.

But there is another reason we trust, we believe, we hold onto hope. Because The Story of Scripture confesses that there was a time in human history when God broke in and disrupted the normal cycles of living and dying. There was a time that the sign of Jonah pointed to when the Spirit of Life reached into the tomb after three days in the belly of the monster and defeated its power. There was a time when – in the power of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ – death died.

And so hope lives.

And so we are Easter People.

Whatever the belly of darkness and hopelessness that swallows us or those we love, we hold onto this hope – that the God of Life is constantly at work creating life out of every death.

Christ is risen.                                                

Christ is risen indeed.

© Charlotte Vaughan Coyle 2014

If I Perish, I Perish

Living in The Story reflections from 

Esther
Matthew 21-25
2 Corinthians 6-11

During the years of the Babylonian Exile, after Persia had conquered Babylon and some of the Jewish people began to make their home in this new land, evidently they were threatened by the possibility of a holocaust. According to the story of Esther in our Old Testament, the devious Haman, counselor to King Xerxes, despised the faithful and loyal Jew, Mordecai, and so he developed a plot to have all Mordecai’s people, all the Jews of Persia slaughtered on one single day.

Mordecai sent word to his adopted daughter Hadassah who had become Queen Esther. Mordecai urged Esther to go before the king and intercede for the life of the Jews. Esther resisted because this was such a dangerous risk: to approach such a powerful king unsummoned. Esther knew her life would be forfeit if she displeased her husband, the king, so Esther sent word back to Mordecai that this approach was too risky.

Listen now for the word of the Lord from this, the story of Esther: (Esther 4:12-16)

When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.  For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” 

Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”                       

The book of Esther is a story of high drama, filled with ironic turns of fortune and karmic twists of fate. But if you have never attended a Purim worship service you may not know how crazy they can be.

Several years ago, Jerry and I attended Purim at our friend Rabbi Jeffery’s synagogue. It was a hoot. I normally wouldn't describe a worship service as a “hoot” - until I had been a part of Purim. The children come dressed in costumes; most of the girls as Esther; many of the boys as the king or as Mordecai.

 Even some of the adults got into the fun; one couple we saw were Groucho and Harpo!

The Scripture was cantored, sung in a disciplined singsong way as is typical in every Jewish worship service, and all the reading, of course, was done in its original language: Hebrew. But even those of us who could not understand the Hebrew, even we recognized when the name of the hated Haman was pronounced. And whenever his name was mentioned, we booed and hissed and rattled our noisemakers trying to drown out the sound of his name.

Afterwards, when we gathered for refreshments in the community room, the favorite cookie to gobble up was called “Haman’s Ear.”

 That's why I say it was a hoot.

Jewish worshipers really get into Purim. They “get into it” by thoroughly enjoying themselves and having fun with the story. But they also get into it by making it personal. During Passover, Jewish worshipers affirm: “God delivered US from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.” Here again at Purim – and other times as they remember their history - they confess: “WE have been saved from disaster.”

There is deep irony in the recent events of our nation as – in this season of Purim and Passover - yet another hater of the Jews has sought to wreak havoc and destroy. At the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park Kansas, an angry, pathetic, shriveled up soul killed three people – and none of them were Jewish. Mindy Corporon was there just after the shooting and she found her own father and her teenaged son dying. Even so, at the community prayer vigil that evening, Mindy spoke with a deep conviction that her loved ones were together with God. “We were all having life,” she said as she described the activities of the day. “And I want you to know, we will all keep having life. And I encourage you to have more life also.” This is personal. We are all in this together.

The book of Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not mention the name of God outright. Even so, the story is powerful testimony to ways even the Hidden God keeps promises and continues to work on behalf of the Divine covenant. Even though God is not explicitly named, it is still a story about God and it is definitely a story about how God’s people participate in covenant.

We’ve explored the notion of “covenant” recently: The covenant is the gracious act of God, (Dr. Gene Boring says); it is often associated with deliverance, validation of life and security, total well-being and peace, shalom; it is a saving act.  

“The unity of Scripture lies in the central theme of covenant that runs through every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Subthemes of the covenant -- experiences of pilgrimage and promise, bondage and freedom, duty and blessing, famine and plenty, barrenness and fertility -- weave their way through both testaments.” (Hambrick-Stowe)

Some years ago, the Christian Century journal published an article that reflected on some of the ways the book of Esther fits into the larger story of God’s covenant: “The Book of Esther, with its tale of suffering, crisis and eventual triumph, testifies that we are not trapped helplessly in a destructive global fate…With bold faith, Esther took events into their own hands to secure the future of the covenant. Her story shines as an example of the human side of covenant responsibility…Esther, read through the prism of Christ, points us beyond fatalism toward the hope of the earth.”

It is bold faith indeed that Queen Esther demonstrates. “If I perish, I perish…” She gave herself over to the salvation and redemption of her own people, risking her own life in the process. But this is not fatalism; this is a deep wisdom.

Some scholars place the Book of Esther in the category of Wisdom literature. Not like the Proverbs or Ecclesiastes that recite proverbial wise sayings, this is a story – a story that embodies the lived wisdom of Jewish understanding. Esther and Mordecai see how, in some mystery of the cosmos, she has been put right here in this place “for such a time as this.” Her destiny drives her forward because whatever happens to her personally, it is the covenant that matters. She is committed to participate in the way of God in the world because she knows it is the future of God’s people that matters. This is this wisdom that is the “hope of the earth.”

In our New Testament, the Gospel stories continue the subthemes of the covenant - pilgrimage and promise, bondage and freedom, duty and blessing, famine and plenty, barrenness and fertility – all these experiences of living turn our attention to God’s faithfulness and the great need for wise living.

I’m always amazed when I read the stories about Jesus’ keen wisdom for living. He always seemed to have just the right balance in everything: self-sufficient while at the same time completely selfless and self-sacrificing; always in control and yet always at the disposal of others; proactive and assertive while still being totally responsive to God’s leading.

Matthew’s Gospel show us the dilemmas that constantly challenged Jesus: adversaries on every side; companions who were often quite clueless; the fickle crowd. In some ways, the Gospels are other examples of Wisdom literature that show us how Jesus embodied wisdom as he participated in the covenant.

Our Living in The Story Scriptures bring 1 and 2 Corinthians into the mix during the Christian season of Lent and then Easter. In Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, we hear Paul speak of this same wisdom demonstrated by Esther and by Jesus: wisdom that motivates self-sacrifice on behalf on another; wisdom that looks like foolishness and maybe even recklessness to the world. The foolish wisdom – Paul says – of the cross.

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong…GOD is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption… (1 Corinthians 1:26-31) 

“The hope of the earth.”

During Holy Week, we follow the way of the Christ from the highs of “hosanna” toward the darkness of the cross.

“If I perish, I perish” is the lived wisdom of Jesus as well as Esther.

But there is no fatalism here; there is only deep cosmic wisdom. The upside down wisdom of God that gives unceasingly, that loves unconditionally, that saves unendingly. “God is the source of our life – in Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ has embodied the covenant, has become the gospel, and has enacted the salvation that is the gracious act of God - validating life and accomplishing shalom.

If we follow in the way and wisdom of Esther – we will find out what happens on the other side of threat only by walking right into it with bold faith.

If we follow in the way and wisdom of Jesus – we will find out what happens on the other side of death only by dying to ourselves and giving ourselves over to God’s promise of resurrection.

Dying to ourselves is not fatalism; rather it is deep wisdom that allows us to participate in Christ: the hope of the earth, the life of the world.

Mindy Corporon on YouTube 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N1_qcUwTeQ#t=33

M. Eugene Boring, An Introduction to the New Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012).

“Ruth and the New Abraham, Esther the New Moses” by Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe

Christian Century, December 7, 1983. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation.

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1674

The God Who Keeps Covenant

Living in The Story reflections from

Exodus

1 Corinthians

            The ten commandments from the story of the Exodus are represented as the cornerstone of the ancient Law. The first four commandments spell out the human responsibility in our relationship with the God who has created and called us. The last six commandments spell out our human responsibility to one another.

I like to think of the ancient Law of Israel as training wheels that – over the centuries – helped mature the people of God and bring them into a larger, deeper relationship with the God of love who yearns for the love of humanity. The rules and regulations, the do’s and don’ts of the Law were set in place to help form Israel into the people God had created and called them to be.

 The goal of law is not to hold us back; to keep us as small-minded rule followers. Rather the purpose of law is to lead us forward into maturity and freedom.

But the Law is not the Covenant. There is an important difference in the way the Bible talks about the Law and how it describes the Covenant. There is a crucial difference in meaning and function.

When we read through Exodus, after we read about the giving of the Law, we come to a passage in chapter 34 with a remarkable little story picturing intersection between heaven and earth; a “thin place.” In this story it is God who is coming, God who is inviting, God who is initiating covenant with a people who did nothing whatsoever to cause or deserve this relationship. 56 times throughout the Old Testament, God says this is “my covenant.” The language never talks about “our covenant;” rather covenant is what God has done, breaking into the human experience and creating relationship.

Dr. Gene Boring says:

In the Bible, the divine covenant is an event, not an ideal or principle. The covenant is the gracious act of God, taken at the divine initiative for the benefit of humanity. It is often associated with deliverance, validation of life and security, total well-being and peace, shalom; it is a saving act.

Here is the self-giving God who is merciful, (the story recites), who is gracious, who is faithful; the God who keeps steadfast love to the thousandth generation; in other words – forever. This covenant, this event, this saving, redeeming, transforming love is the covenant to which Israel was called.

And this is same basic covenant to which we also are invited.

When the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, he did not use much covenant language (perhaps) because that may not have been common vocabulary in the first century Corinth much as it is not a common word for us modern day Americans. But Paul’s understanding of covenant is clear: God’s saving, redeeming, transforming act of love has been, once and for all, definitively accomplished in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When Paul talks about the covenant, he calls it the gospel.

To the Corinthians, Paul recites the words he was taught from the tradition he had received; words that have continued on to this day: “Jesus took the cup after supper saying: ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’” (1 Corinthians 11:25).

“The new covenant in my blood,” the Christ claims.

“The blood” – through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the life of the eternal God who is merciful, gracious, faithful and abounding in steadfast love has now been transfused into the life of the covenant people.  

“The new covenant in my blood,” the Christ claims.

“New” – in the sense that the “old” has been fulfilled, its purpose accomplished. “New” in the sense that “what-was” now is what it was always intended to be.

And the new covenant - this event, this saving, redeeming, transforming love that has broken into our world by the gracious act of God for the benefit of humanity – this once and for all divine intersection has birthed a new creation in the covenant people of God.

“There is a new creation,” Paul says, and so now we who have been brought into this new covenant by the grace and mercy of the faithful God who keeps covenant; we are made into the covenant people God had intended from the beginning.

Yes.

But.

We know all too well the “already and not yet” character of this new creation. Those of us who say “yes” to this covenant mystery still have much growing and maturing and becoming yet to do. We know full well we are in process as we are being transformed into the image of this Christ by whose life we live. Just as Israel stumbled repeatedly in their journey with God, just as the Corinthians struggled to live faithfully, so we too recognize our own inability to keep covenant and be the people we are intended to be.

We realize we sometimes still need training wheels.

Even so - the covenant remains. Even so – the gospel, this event, this gracious act of God has been accomplished and endures to all generations. Again, Dr. Boring says:

God's covenant cannot be nullified from the human side...This can be done only by the covenant's Maker. The covenant people can ignore the covenant or refuse to live by the responsibilities to which it calls them, but they cannot "break" the covenant in the sense of revoking or annulling it...The faithfulness of God calls for a human response, but is not conditional on it.

We might refuse or resist living in relationship with this God of mercy and grace and faithful love. We might – like Israel and the Corinthians sometimes did – keep on trying to live by our own rules, our own law. Whenever we choose to live that way, we perpetuate the ancient cycles of  “the sins of the fathers…” This phrase from Exodus is used to describe how our own fallen human character and behavior tends to reproduce itself in society’s children and children’s children.  But even in the face of this social reality of inter-generational brokenness, the promise of the God who keeps Covenant – the promise that is proclaimed as far back as Exodus is that God’s steadfast love continues far beyond the “third and fourth generation” on to the “thousandth generation.” In other words – forever.  

An important part of our maturing and growing is learning how to expose these patterns of brokenness within us that sometimes can be invisible to us. An important part of growing is finding the courage and wisdom to change those patterns and to stop the cycles of brokenness that continue to damage future generations.

This is why the words from Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 are so crucial: because here Paul gives us the key to breaking those crippling cycles and thus living into the new creation God has implanted within us. That’s why it is so crucial to stay connected to a covenant community - because as a people who are covenanted together within God’s covenant of love, we can lovingly help each other break those vicious cycles and better live into the transformed image of Christ.

When we read through 1 Corinthians, we can’t help but see their struggles: division and competition, pettiness and self-centeredness. In chapters 11-14, Paul is dealing with a variety of issues that distracted the church’s focus on their mission and threatened their witness to the gospel.

Sometimes Paul takes an approach of law: do this, don’t do that. But in chapter 13, Paul describes an undergirding powerful reality; he describes what it looks like when people who have been covenanted by love actually live within that covenant. When love happens, the character of God is being reproduced within those who love. The God who is merciful, patient, gracious; the God who “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…” causes us to become like this as well. Not because we try hard, but because we have been incorporated into the very life of the God; because we become participants in the life of God whose love never ends.

The divine covenant, the gospel, is an event, the gracious act of God; it is a saving act, taken at the divine initiative for the benefit of all humanity. The God who keeps covenant has accomplished covenant once and for all.

And – at the same time - it is an ever-present, ongoing, continuous event in the lives of God’s covenant people. Every moment of every day, God’s steadfast love is at work transforming hearts, clearing vision, opening minds, permeating lives.

M. Eugene Boring, An Introduction to the New Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012).