God is not fickle! That is the good news in today’s first reading from Romans. In Romans 9-11 Paul deals with the issue of his fellow Jews who refuse to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Paul previously asked the question about his fellow Jews, “I ask, then, has God rejected his people?” Has God rejected the Jews as his chosen people. Paul’s swift and firm answer is, “Of course not!” (Romans 11:1). Why because God is always faithful, God is not fickle. He does not give up on people ever. Paul states in today’s first reading, “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” The gift and the call of God to the Israelites was the covenant: “I will be your God and you will be my people.” This call of God is irrevocable.
This is good news not only for our Jewish brothers and sisters but for all of us. If God were a fickle God who changes his mind on a whim and takes back his gift whenever he feels like it than our hope of salvation would be built on sand. Maybe God would tire of us. Paul boldly proclaims that the true God is not a fickly God but a God who is rich in mercy and more faithful than a mother or father. As Paul affirmed early in this letter:
“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword…For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35, 38-39)
So, the one true God is not fickle but full of love for us and nothing can separate us from this love of God. This love of God was made real and fully present to us in the life, the ministry, the Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
All we can do is stand in wonder before God and put all our faith and trust in his will and his ways as we hear in today’s reading.
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!”
Image: “Jerusalem_Western Wall_6_Noam Chen_IMOT” by Israel_photo_gallery is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.