The Third Sunday After Epiphany, January 26, 2025

The Third Sunday After Epiphany, January 26, 2025

The gospel is “…God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). Marcion, the second-century arch-heretic, so despised anything Jewish that not only did he preclude the Old Testament from being considered Christian scripture, but he eliminated any sense of priority that might have come to the Jews. So, he eliminated this “first” wherever he encountered it in the book of Romans. You might ask, “Why is this priority given to the Jews?” Is the answer simply because one must begin somewhere? Jesus was a Jew, and so it started with him. Or did the Jews have some inherent quality that they should be first? No, none of these explanations serve adequately and, in their inadequacy, impair a proper understanding of the entire letter. The Jews are first, not simply for chronological reasons, not for having some quality inherent to them, but solely because of God’s call. God chose the Jews because he could. His call to them was a gift, not a reward. This verse with its “…to the Jew first…” must be read in light of this letter’s ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters. In them, Paul makes an extended argument for the Jews to be included in salvation. His argument, tinged with lament as he lays the basis for his hope, concluded with one of the great promises of scripture, “For the gifts and call of God are irrevocable” (Ro. 11:29). Just so, you have been called into the salvation worked by God’s power as delivered through the Gospel. God called you in your baptism. The gifts he gave you there (the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation) and the call certified there will not be taken back. They are irrevocable!

Prayers from one who questions the gift and the call’s irrevocability.

Heavenly Father, your Son sent forth his disciples with three commands: “Go!” “Baptize!” “Teach!” Fill my heart with thankfulness that someone who heard the command “Go!” came to me as a preacher. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Heavenly Father, your Son sent forth his disciples with three commands: “Go!” “Baptize!” “Teach!” As my heart is filled with thankfulness for my preacher, add to that thanksgiving my baptism into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Heavenly Father, your Son sent forth his disciples with three commands: “Go!” “Baptize!” “Teach!” As I am taught the Word of God, Jesus Christ, fill my heart with thankfulness for the gifts and call I received in that baptism. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Heavenly Father, your Son sent forth his disciples with three commands: “Go!” “Baptize!” “Teach!” Grant that the Institute of Lutheran Theology hear those commands and place them in its students’ ears. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Heavenly Father, your Son sent forth his disciples with three commands: “Go!” “Baptize!” “Teach!”  Give to me such a hearing of those commands that I go forth as an apostle bearing witness to Jesus Christ throughout the days of my baptism. In Jesus’ name. Amen