Monday, 24 March

How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel!...My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim: for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy. Hos 11:8-9 (RSV)

Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more... Rom 5:20 (RSV)

What a wonderful word “grace “is. It suggests, yet is more than, generosity, bounty, and blessing. It is a word we regularly use in connection with God’s action. It is fundamental to our understanding of God. And yet, its use is also confusing. A literal reading of Romans 5: 20 would suggest that the worse we behave, the more God blesses us. In fact there have been those who have understood God’s activity in that way. Yet a more nuanced approach comes with reference to the reading from Hosea, in which God is experienced as being in pain on witnessing the corruption and idolatry of Israelite society. In this case, grace isn’t a case of “anything goes”, but a loving restraint, alongside a yearning call to Israel to change. The situation is very definitely not OK, and if it continues, the people will reap the consequences of their actions.

What Paul is saying, in his letter to the Romans, is that Law itself cannot help us overcome our weakness and deliberate fault. What it does is to show us what is wrong. But only God’s grace can actually make the difference, and for that to be so, we need to be honest about our failings and go to God for healing and change.

Loving God, help us to be open to you and to your loving, suffering challenge to us to change.  Amen.

Sue Rowe