Lenten blog | March 17, 2025

A Lenten St. Patrick's Day

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 17th:  Exodus 33:1-6; Psalm 105:1-15 [16-41] 42; and Romans 4:1-12.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day.  If I wear green today, this does not make me Irish.  The outward facing signs of shamrocks and leprechauns, Shamrock shakes and green beer, and corned beef for dinner, may all make a person Irish for a day, but it’s all in a spirit of fun.  The outward facing signs don’t change the inner person.  This message about a person’s accidental versus essential natures is what Paul is getting at in Romans today.  Essential characteristics are those that must be present, while accidental characteristics could be present.  An essential characteristic of people celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, for example, is that they must be humans, while an accidental characteristic is that they actually could be Irish.

The ritual act of circumcision, says Paul, sealed the covenant between Abraham and his descendants and Yahweh their God.  The physical act became a visible sign that acknowledged an invisible characteristic.  He writes, “[Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.”  Paul wants to make a distinction between faith and works.  He wants to argue that faith is the essential characteristic and that the works of faith that follow are the accidental characteristics.  Abraham believed Yahweh before performing the act of circumcision as a sign to seal that belief, and for Paul “such faith is reckoned as righteousness.”  Thus, the essential characteristic of the covenant is faith and this must be present in righteousness.  The accidental characteristic is circumcision and this may or may not be present in righteousness.

From this argument, Paul can proceed to include Gentile (non-Jews) Christians within the scope of the Abrahamic covenant of faith.  He can go so far as to profess that Christians are among the People of God.  I wish he hadn’t taken the unnecessary further step of saying Christians replaced the Jews as the People of God so I will stick to the more positive statement that faith is the essential characteristic of righteousness, of being among the People of God.  We have not replaced or displaced the Jews.  I prefer to think that Abraham’s covenant has been expanded rather than appropriated.

In the context of Lent, we are asked to have faith in Christ Jesus, and Him crucified.  As Paul struggles to argue, we have not earned the salvation that Jesus offers us through His life and death.  If we could accumulate enough works to earn salvation, then says Paul, the cross is “not reckoned as a gift but as something due.”  This makes the cross transactional rather than loving, as earned rather than accepted. 

The essential characteristic of Christianity is right in the name – Christ.  The accidental characteristics are the multitude of ways in which we can understand and practice that faith in Jesus.  There is no one right way.  Embrace the perfect love that God offers to us through Jesus and He through the cross, and then live into that love by how we live so that we may be judge righteous.

  If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.