Today’s Scripture Reading (February 7, 2018): Romans 15
An ancient Yiddish proverb says that “Man
plans, and God laughs.” As I sit in my office preparing to write, my heart is
also heavy at the loss of a friend. (Just as a point of information, I work a
few days into the future, so by the time you read these words the news will be
just over a week old.) Some might ask if my friend was sick, and he was. And yet his death is still a shock.
He was sick and had been suffering for a long time, but death was not thought
to be close. There was no “calling in of the friends and family” to say
good-bye. His death is just a recognition of the fragility of life. He was alive
last night when he went to bed, but died unexpectedly during the night.
Early this morning we gathered as friends in
his kitchen waiting for the medical examiner and emergency services to arrive. And
we talked about the plans he had been making. Next year, he hoped to be well
enough to spend some time at the beach; he was actively making plans for the
future. But life is unexpected – and plans do not always go the way that we
might want them to go. While it is impossible to just live without making plans
for the future, we understand the Yiddish proverb. When we make our plans, we
can sometimes hear the laugh of God in the background, and his invitation to
just trust in him.
Paul lived an active life, and it seems that he always had plans for what
would happen next. First and foremost, Paul saw himself as a missionary, sowing
the seed of the gospel where no one had ever sewn
it before (or going where no Christian had been before). This idea of taking
the gospel to places where it had never been
heard was part of what Paul admits was the barrier that had stopped him
from going to Rome. The church already existed there. They didn’t need him. Yet, Rome was an important city, and he still wanted to go for a visit. And now, he informs the Romans that he
has made plans and is coming to visit Rome. But first, he needed to take an
offering that he has been collecting from the churches in Asia to Jerusalem.
Then he would make his way to Rome and
possibly stay awhile before he continued on to the frontier of the Empire – Spain.
And Paul would visit Rome; it just wouldn’t
be the way that he had planned. Paul would be arrested in Jerusalem and sent to
Rome in chains. The time he would spend there would be under arrest, and the
hospitality that he would enjoy there would be
done as people came to visit the apostle in prison.
Did he ever make it to Spain? The honest
answer is that we don’t really know. The
Book of Acts, a history of the early church, ends with Paul in prison. But
rumors from the early church indicate that Paul was released from prison and
made it to Spain and that it was after his visit to Spain that Paul is re-arrested and then
executed in Rome. We believe this to be true, although I am not sure
that we can prove it. But the story seems to reveal that even if your name is
Paul of Tarsus, plans can change. I am not sure the God laughs at our plans,
but even Paul would agree that in the end,
it is God’s plan that is the most important. His plan is the one that is secure,
while ours remain very changeable.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Romans 16
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