Quote:

“Day by day we are given not what we want but what we need.  Sometimes it is a feast and sometimes it is swept crumbs, but by faith we believe it is enough to sustain us, only because it comes to us from the hand of God.  Reaching out or own hands to accept it, we learn that it is not our food alone.  It is also the food we are meant to share with the world, a hungry world that is nonetheless suspicious of our food, having been fed both junk and poison in the name of God.” -Barbara Brown Taylor in The Preaching Life

Texts:

Psalm 22:23-31

Genesis 15:1-6, 12-18

Romans 3:21-31

"But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who beleive. For there is no distinction since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

This is some great stuff.  It is quoted regularly, and, despite how frequently it is quoted, it tends to be followed by some sort of justification, some sort of indication, some sort of, "but..." followed by the person outlining some sort of wrongs he or she has witnessed from a particular person or group of people.  WHAT?!?  This passage precludes our ability to create distinction, and it tears down the walls we have so carefully constructed.  We take what has been freely given and then bind it to our ideas of deservingness and righteousness.  It is not our righteousness that justifies us, but the righteousness of God.  It is God's righteousness that inspires the gift, not our righteousness or our worthiness.  

This is the extravagance of our God.  It is the joyous scattering of a promise that is too good to be true, but too incredible to make up.  The gift is given extravagantly, when we look for a morsel of bread, we find a feast.  When we look for an opportunity for penance, we receive absolution.  When we look for a glimmer of hope, we receive a flood of blessing.  Our works, our boasting, our hopes of someday being able to save enough goodness to prove ourselves worthy, are all excluded.

"Abram, look at the stars: count them if you can."

"You know I can't... that's impossible."

"I, who hung the stars, I who orchestrated the heavens, I am righteousness."

"How can I be sure?"

"What about free is so hard for you?"

As though waking up for the first time, the next morning, Abram knew everything had changed and everything had stayed the same all at once.  He was still as human as he'd ever been, but his understanding of God was more real, more palpable, and more complicated than he ever thought it would be.