NOTES for Rom 4:13

As we read the Epistle to the Romans, it becomes important for us to realize that by believing in God we take our place alongside the great prophets and righteous people, inheriting from them not by flesh and blood, but by the spirit. We can accept this, but then we must also realize what today's Gospel reminds us of. If we believe, we cannot renounce what is the necessary companion of our faith. It may seem easy enough, when asked directly, to answer that one believes in Jesus. Yet how difficult it is, because in doing so one is afraid to acknowledge this kinship descending from Abraham. It is often repugnant to admit openly that by believing in Christ you acknowledge yourself as a member of the Church and, what is more, that you attend services. What could seem more uncivilized than taking upon oneself all the outward expressions of a believer: faith is faith, after all, and we all believe in something, but why take everything to such extremes? Yet this simple “uncivilized behavior” is often precisely the necessary confession of Christ, which is always very difficult for us, but without which our faith becomes something abstract and very far from what Paul calls righteousness.