Sunday, June 28, 2020

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Revised Common Lectionary passages for the Lord’s Day are:

First Reading: Genesis 22:1-14
Psalm 13:1-6
Second Reading: Romans 6:12-23
Gospel Reading: Matthew 10:40-42

The liturgical color for the day is: Green

Rewards. It is about the life of discipleship—that when we live as disciples we will, as Jesus puts it, “receive the reward of the righteous” or the “reward of the prophet.” Rewards. What are the rewards of faith?

The reward does not always come at the end of the story. In this old story there is a reward at the end of the story—the boy is saved. The boy is safe. But the real rewards come in that treacherous climb up the mountain.

“The Lord will provide,” he says it on the way up the mountain. In his confidence he says it. He speaks it. At the end, he even names the place as such. “The Lord Will Provide” is his name for that Moriah. It is his confidence and faith in the faithfulness of God. Abraham experiences again what he has come to know—God can be trusted and God can be counted on.

Such is a reward of faith. That God can be trusted. That God can be counted on. That God’s faithfulness is sure. This is the reward of faith.

When Jesus talks about the reward of the prophet and the reward of the righteous, it comes after a long chapter on the cost of discipleship. It concludes the litany that this life is not an easy one—that being faithful is hard and costly and even daunting.

Where is our reward? Out there, “in the sweet by and by”—oh, yes.  But here too.  Do not neglect to grasp the reward right here—even in this odd moment of our world’s history.  Grasp it right here and now as with Abraham we are making that journey—that long, hard, questioning, and toilsome journey up the mountain.

Abraham stood in his truth. On the way up that mountain he said it to Isaac, “The Lord will provide.” “The Lord will provide”—he was standing in his truth. His truth was that he knew he could trust in the trustworthiness of God.

Even here, even now, the reward is ours, and so we trust in the trustworthiness of God.  “The Lord will provide.”

Rev. Dr. Daris Bultena
General Presbyter and Stated Clerk