You can't hold hands on a motorcycle

 This week's verses are Romans 9:30-33:

 What shall we say then?—that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith, but Israel even though pursuing a law of righteousness did not attain it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written,

“Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble
and a rock that will make them fall,
yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

 These verses are simultaneously a good treatment of the whole "works without faith is dead" thing, and a good post-Valentine's reality check. The Apostle Paul is talking about the law, about grace, and about relationships.

In the Old Testament, as part of his relationship with the Jewish people at the time, God gave a set of instructions through Moses on how to live the right way. I've talked with a number of married couples who have described a similar thing in the beginnings of their marriages. Maybe they agree that they would always be willing to give up their jobs if the other one had a call to missions work. Maybe they agree that the husband will always bring flowers on Friday. Maybe they agree to stay in shape and try to remain physically appealing to each other as long as they can make their decaying bodies last.

They're rules, but they're also an acknowledgement of the relationship, and of there being two parties in that relationship. "I don't want you to buy a motorcycle" is not a legally binding agreement in a court of law, but it becomes something that is obeyed out of interest in the other person's concerns.

When God gave the law to Israel, he made his concerns clear. He doesn't want us making and worshiping idols. He wants us to be faithful to one another and to respect each other. He doesn't want us eating unhealthy foods or to be careless in ways that could spread infection.  Some of the things he asks are quite specific.

 The problem is that people began to focus more on the law than they did on the fact that it was based in the relationship. People began to focus on the law as a way to justify themselves, and used it to keep score by comparing themselves against others. They no longer saw their righteousness as being based on God's opinion of them, but on what they could do to build themselves up, even if it was at the expense of others.

It reminds me a bit of how more and more people now focus on a career instead of starting a family.  I hear people saying is that they don't want to depend on anyone, or care for anyone, or be joined to anyone. They want to make a name for themselves. They want to build themselves up, exclusively, without partnership, in a way that doesn't obligate them in any way if someone tells them they don't want them to buy a motorcycle.

Neither men nor women are in a hurry to get married. There's a reluctance to commit to a relationship that could potentially end badly and expensively, in a world where everyone everywhere at all times is constantly being bombarded with reasons to cut and run. There's a fear of commitment, or a desire to maintain options. There is no trust in a world where each person is the highest object of their own desire.

The Pharisees were notable in this approach to the law. They made their own guidelines on how to follow the law, things that would make them look like they were more meticulous than God. They wanted to be the source of all holiness. They wanted to be the final authority on what was right or wrong. They wanted to be seen and admired, maybe even worshiped.

They also wanted independence. Much like someone who has their own assets or their own source of income and validation, someone who has their own source of righteousness doesn't feel obligated to God if he tells them he doesn't want them to buy a motorcycle. Why should they care? They're empowered by the admiration of their peers and a rigorous self-justification against rules they made up to get that admiration. They can do what they want. And they did.

Jesus calls them out in Mark 7, where they ignore the command to honor their parents by taking their retirement money and making showy public donations to religious causes with it. They know the command God gave them, based in the relationship they had with him, but they don't really want to do it. They find their own source of righteousness to be more valuable, so they betray their own family and God to establish themselves as righteous in the community.

This is what Paul is talking about when he says that even though Israel had the law, they didn't get counted as righteous for "following" it, while the Gentiles, who had no law of their own, did the right things when they were asked, for the right reasons. They were so happy to have found God that they didn't really mind not getting that motorcycle the other Gentiles had.

 Paul quotes two verses from Isaiah that were popular in the early church in describing how Jesus was the Messiah. Paraphrasing, they say we have a difficult choice in going all in for Jesus, but we are promised that he will stand by us. Those who trust as we are asked to trust are counted among the righteous.

Those who do not trust do so because of a lack of faith in these verses. They don't believe God will not let them down. They don't want to trust him as the source of their righteousness. They want options. They want the freedom to say "I don't need you, so I will do what I want," when asked not to buy a motorcycle. This is the situation most of us find ourselves in nowadays.

Like the Jewish people in Paul's day, we have a Christianity given to us that includes certain cultural expectations, and certain written and unwritten rules. But inside of that Christianity, we find ourselves in the midst of a man-made ecosystem of self-comparison and self-justification. We obey because it boosts our social credit score and helps us to sleep at night. We ignore the invisible things we are asked, because we would much rather make a showy religious display than please the God the religion claims to serve.

Where do you stand? Not in comparison to other Christians, but in the context of these verses. How do you react to the "stumbling block?" When blazing down the superhighway of rules-based self-scored righteousness, did you swerve for the suspension-wrecking pothole of Christ-linked righteousness and find yourself on the off-ramp to the narrow path? Or are you just cruising ahead with everyone else, wondering what that noise is and why your steering is wobbling a bit?

 Paul is saying that the concept that our righteousness does not begin and end with us is a major thing. The verses from Isaiah are God's warning that this would be a big thing to absorb. Many people's religious journeys end up in wreckage because they do not see the rock that will make them fall. They want what they want, and they want to be justified against that, and not against what someone else wants, even if that someone is the creator of the universe. They want to play by their own rules so they can be guaranteed to win.

But Jesus is the source of our righteousness. The law only makes sense in the context of our relationship with God.  He is the one whose preferences they reflect, and he is the one who, in the end, decided it was worth the cost of his son's life to keep us together.