April 22: Numbers 1-3, Psalm 40, Romans 1

Numbers 1-3  We are on to the fourth book of the Torah.  Its name comes from the "numbering" of the Israelites.  Read these with amazement that we have these lists of names of people who lived thousands of years ago.  I once heard a story about a woman who decided that God indeed cared for her and that she should follow Jesus because of all of those names.  "If God cared enough for these Israelites to have their names recorded and remembered to this day, perhaps God may actually care for me…"

Note in 1:48ff that the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, has very specific and different responsibilities from the other tribes.

And note how in Ch. 3 the Levites function as substitutes for firstborn Israelites of the other tribes:
3:40-41:  "Then the LORD said to Moses: Enroll all the firstborn males of the Israelites, from a myth old and upward, and count their names.  But you shall accept the Levites for me--I am the LORD--as substitutes for all the firstborn among the Israelites."  And to "balance the books" money needed to be offered in exchange for the firstborn among the other 11 tribes that weren't "covered" by a Levite.   Here's an example of how the ritual and the technical converge.  How totally human...

Psalm 40  The imagery of this psalm is beloved.
"He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure." (40:2)

I got caught once, when I was a child, in quicksand, and it was terrifying.  I was glad my father was nearby to pull me out.  And as a driver I've been caught in mud (and a couple of times!) in snow where I was really stuck.  What a picture!  God putting our feet on rock!

40:6-9  are quoted in the New Testament of Jesus.
40:9-10 are in a sense about evangelism: about making public all the ways that God has helped us.
The psalmist says he "has not restrained [his] lips"--it's really about the same feeling expressed in the beloved folk hymn: "How can I keep from singing?"
look at all the words about: faithfulness, salvation, steadfast love, mercy.
40:13--a verse absolutely beloved by the Desert Fathers.  One of the prayers that they repeated almost in the way that Hindus repeated a mantra.  It was a prayer they prayed without ceasing all day long.  And we hear its echoes in our Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer:  "O God make speed to save us; O Lord, make haste to help us."

Romans 1   Here we move to a very different genre from the Gospels.   Most of Paul's letters were written from a decade to 40 years before the Gospels.  Though Paul is writing to specific churches often about very specific problems that have come up, he assumes that the recipients of these letters know the stories of Jesus.  Paul writes about the meaning and significance of the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.   Keep in mind, also, that Romans is his most abstract (or general) letter, partly because he was  writing to Christians he'd never met.  He hadn't been to meet the Roman Christians yet, though he had planned to get to Rome on his next journey.  This gives him a chance to tell them what he believes are the most important elements of the faith that they share.

He starts in Chapter 1 with where we are as human beings prior to the coming of Jesus.
EVERYBODY starts out as a sinner in need of God's grace, and completely undeserving of that grace.