8th Sunday after Pentecost, August 3, 2014

Epistle: Romans 9:1-5

 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Reflections:  St. Paul, himself a stellar representative of his people, was rejected by the synagogues. Through his painful struggle with that rejection, he discerned as call to the gentiles. Nevertheless, he doesn’t write his people off as blind, mean, or ungrateful. Instead, he anguishes over them.

Don’t we all know this terrible suffering, to watch those we love make bad choices, and to anticipate—or even witness—the consequences of those choices? Or to stand helplessly by when the innocent are suffer for no reason at all? I wonder whether, in this, we might be sharing in the suffering of God in Christ.