At what is our twelfth chapter in his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul makes a famous turn from the indicative to the imperative.
Although this bifurcation of the most well known of his letters is criticized by Pauline scholars as simplistic, it captures a distinction between the dominant tone of the first twelve chapter over against the prevailing note in those that follow. Paul moves from a concentration upon God’s redemptive initiative in his world through the cross-work of his son Jesus Christ, on the one hand, to the proper community response of Jesus’ followers, on the other.
For many years the twelfth chapter, with its concise, penetrating words of counsel, has been a favorite of mine. One finds in these lines a welcome crispness, an ethical matter-of-factness, a focus upon doing the next thing. Sometimes that next thing’s context is not the exhilarating wellbeing of the community but rather the investment of life and lives in a hope that remains irritatingly unrealized in the present.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
To rejoice in hope is not to drink from the deep and present reservoir of satisfaction. It is to exult preemptively against the present affliction. One rejoices because of what comes, not what has already been. It is no carelessness on Paul’s part that rejoicing in hope serves as prelude to a call to patience in suffering. Pain is the bed in which rejoicing is conceived. Patience is the means by which Jesus’ followers negotiate the hard fact of suffering in a world that they have been told belongs to God and to no other. Paul has no impulse to escape from the present darkness. Yet he is resolute in his instruction, both implicit and explicit, that it is penultimate. The Christ-follower’s vocation is to recognize it as such and to lean into the more glorious future that—already—has begun to undermine the foundations.
As one travels this resolute path, conversation with God is in order. ‘Prayer’, as we persist in calling it against the encroaching archaicism of the language, is no easy, automatic dialogue. Paul enjoins his readers to persevere in the conversation, allowing us to understand that without such effort the thing goes quiet.
Rejoice in hope. Be patient in suffering. Persevere in prayer.
One might have wished for a more euphoric schooling. Paul has none to offer.
Yet he is sure that truth lies this way. And joy, its furtive, beautiful companion.
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