Excerpt from Romans 9:6-18

"It is not as though the word of God had failed."

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

In the city of Jurupa Valley, California, there is what appears to be a small clump of bushes. Look closer, with a botanist's eye, and you will see that they are actually all one spread-out individual Palmer's Oak. Look closer still, with a paleobotanist's eye, and you will discover that it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 years old, probably the world's oldest living thing. For millennia, it has grown up, then been burned down by passing wildfires, then sent up new shoots and started again, spreading out a little bit each time.

After the kingly line of David ended, Isaiah predicted that a shoot would come out of the dead stump of Jesse (David's father), that the anointed line of God's favor had not finally ended, that it would spring forth again. Christians claim that Jesus was that shoot. But then he, too, was cut down. And though he was resurrected, still he was no longer with the people in the way he had been. This is what Paul and the Romans were dealing with. It's also what we're dealing with.

Here's how it appeared the word of God had failed: the Shoot of Jesse was cut down. Here is how it did not fail: turns out, the Shoot of Jesse was like the Jurupa Oak, and it sent up shoots, and they were you. And if they are burned down, he will send up more, and more, and more, and each time they will spread further, until the whole world is green and rustling with salvation.

Prayer

God, thank you for making me the heir of salvation, a shoot of the Shoot, the fulfillment of all your best promises to the world. Now give me strength to act like it. Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell, a United Church of Christ minister, is the co-author, with Curtis J. Preston, of the Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ, published by The Pilgrim Press.

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