“A privileged position”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Romans 11: 13-24 (Forward, p. 79) CEV p. 1183

Sadly, in our world today, there are many that take their privileged position for granted. It is almost as if they ‘had it coming’, as if they ‘deserved it’. And so, because of this presumption on their part, they forget several key things:

Firstly, they forget that this ‘privilege’ is a gift, a gift from God. Whether that privilege be upbringing, education, location, experience, or one’s place in life, none of these are inherently ours just because we worked to make the best of them. Some would call it ‘an accident of birth’; I prefer to see it as a gift of God.

Secondly, they miss out on the fact that God’s gifts are meant to be used, and used not just for one’s own benefit, but for the benefit of others—and that, not in some paternalistic or condescending way, but lovingly and humbly.

And finally, they can forget that these gifts are not irrevocable. In other words, they can be taken away if misused or squandered.

The apostle Paul uses this image to describe the relationship of Jews and Gentiles within the Christian faith. He tells his readers that the Gentiles have been accorded an incredible privilege, the privilege of knowing and belonging to God. He says it is as if branches from a wild olive tree were grafted into a cultivated tree. And, he says, it is not of their own doing but simply because of their faith in the Lord Jesus. And so, the Gentiles are not to be proud or puffed on account of this newly acquired privilege. Indeed, Paul warns them, the Jews lost their place because they rejected God, because they refused to have faith, and the same can happen to the Gentiles should they do the same.

And so, this has an application to all of us today. Rather than ‘resting on our laurels’, taking our faith, our place with God, for granted, we need to cultivate, nurture, and ever strengthen that relationship. It is like all relationships: they cannot be taken for granted; they need to be ‘worked on’. And so, with us and God, we need to be faithful in worship, in prayer, in study and meditation of the Scriptures, and in obedience to His word and commandments. After all, we have a privileged position, us and God, and would fain never to lose it. Amen.

Forward notes: “Remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you” (verse 18b).

“For a long time, the parish I serve had an outreach ministry that involved preparing a large number of meals for the local emergency shelter. Members of the parish would make meatloaves, which would then be defrosted by volunteers and supplemented with side dishes. One year, the shelter received funding to stay open all winter, not just during inclement weather. So, the number of meals we had to prepare scaled up dramatically. The volunteers and I were incredibly worried about meeting this demand.

“As it turns out, the parish rose to meet the challenge with such gusto that we had enough meatloaf that winter and enough extra to prepare meals for other programs! And, having achieved that goal, the momentum continued, and the parish took on new projects and expanded others. When we work together as a community, with Jesus as the root of all our work, we can do so much more than we can as individuals, and so much more than my limited imagination can dream.”

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