Reading for Monday, 4th Week of Lent

Romans 7:1-12

“But now we are released from the law, dead to that which tied us up, so that we serve in the new spirit, and not the old letter” (Rom 7:6).

In today’s reading from Romans, Paul draws a stark contrast between the “new spirit” of freedom with the “old letter” of the written law. Letters are funny things. We create letters, then put them together to form words, then put those together to form sentences to communicate with each other. But do we? How often have you heard it said that someone obeyed the “letter of the law,” while trashing its spirit? Or when someone has ignored the letter of the law in order to fully keep its spirit?

What Paul understood was that as soon as we were told what we should not do, that only highlighted what we could do, if we thought we could get away with it, or if we didn’t care about the consequences. The other truth in this reading is that a focus on the “letter” of the law only creates confusion, the kind in which someone may break the letter of the law, while abiding by its spirit, or obey the law while trampling its spirit.

In either case, the letter of the law hasn’t communicated anything other than confusion. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we have been released from this confusion, Paul, insists, free to serve God and others in a right spirit. How do you recognize this right spirit? It is a spirit that seeks understanding, of the law’s ultimate purpose and of one’s motivation.

Lent is a time of self-examination. The new spirit in which we live is one that helps us engage in this self-examination without fear for ourselves. God’s final word to us is not condemnation, but reconciliation. Take a look at the rite of Reconciliation beginning on p. 446 of the Book of Common Prayer. The Church’s rule when it comes to private Confession is this. “All may. Some should. None must.” I pray that each of you may have a blessed and fruitful period of self-examination as we prepare to celebrate the Passion of Jesus Christ.