By J.D. Walt

Prayer of Consecration

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.

Jesus, We belong to you.

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Scripture

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

Romans 14:5–9 (NIV)

Consider This

So what do people living in Christian community do when they come to a disputed matter and it breaks down into an irreconcilable conflict? 

They get out their Bibles, stake out the high ground, and play the God card of course! That wasn’t exactly the case with the Roman Christians, yet it was close. We all tend to appeal to a higher authority in order to win the day. 

In today’s text, we have the Jewish argument for Sabbath-keeping and the Gentile case against it. Now watch Paul the Jew weigh in:

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike.

Paul wants them to be clear about the conviction on which they stand. What Paul is not doing is calling for anyone to compromise on their convictions. He is not looking for some kind of mushy middle compromise from people whose convictions are in conflict. Note his play here:

Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 

Remember, Paul is not making the mistake so many in our time make—which is to try and devise political solutions to theological conflicts which require untenable compromises against conscience. He actually does the opposite, leading us to think theologically about political conflicts. (Even prior to this, though, we must discern if we have a theological or political conflict.)

To do this, Paul doesn’t begin by trying to bring the parties together. No, he calls them to stand with their conviction before God. 

Watch his masterful approach:

Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 

Paul shifts the issue from a dispute between fractured parties to a matter of one’s personal relationship with and devotion to the Lord—Jesus. The message: It is God with whom you have to deal. 

In doing this he honors their competing convictions, defusing their division by calling them to stand before God, which is the higher ground of their unity.

For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 

When we find ourselves in irreconcilable conflict over matters of conscience and convictions we are not apt to work them out directly with each other. We must be brought personally before God, who alone can sift and sort our hearts and minds. We must be brought to a place beyond ourselves where we can recover our sense of what personal Lordship means. You saw it right there in the text:

Jesus, I belong to you. 

We must come personally to the place of refreshing our consecration. That we are not our own. That we have been bought with a price. That there are great purposes and designs for our lives which are found most deeply in and through our relationships with each other. 

Behold! In a Holy Spirit–inspired master stroke of divine genius, Paul takes us to the cross. 

For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

When conflict is high and solutions are low, it is only from this holiest of level ground that we can hope to really find each other again. 

And this, my friends, is why the letter doesn’t begin with chapter 14. We needed the full panoramic view of God’s mercy first. 

   

Prayer

Abba Father! We get the sense that our deepest conflicts are not about our conflicts but rather about the deep brokenness in our lives. We have all been broken in and through our relationships, and unhealed, we break others in relationships. We need the healing of the cross. We need our salvation to deepen way beyond a transaction of pardon and into the deep mercies of transforming grace. Lift us out of our conflicted and broken relationships and into your loving presence. Heal us in the deep places. Fit us for relationships with others by forming us in our relationship with you. Holy Spirit, restore us to belovedness that we might become beacons and bearers of belovedness to others—where in embrace we forget even what we were fighting about. Praying in Jesus’s name, amen.