“For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” – Romans 4:16-17

An ox-cart won for Gordias the crown
of Phrygia, so they say, and Midas tied
the cart’s yoke with a knot so intricate
removing it would win a continent.

Great Alexander, so they say, could not
untie the knot. Perhaps he pulled the pin.
Perhaps he sliced it open with his sword.
His death released the Asian lands he’d won.

Three centuries and some, along came Paul
with no ambition toward war and rule,
but faced with as intractable a knot
as Midas ever tied to hold a cart.

The knot held some, he thought, in servitude,
in hopeless effort to be righteous when
“not one is righteous, no, not one… they all
have turned aside from kindness, every one.”

The knot barred others from the knowledge of
their failure to do good (though honestly
they should have known through what Creation tells
of God’s eternal justice, wrath, and power).

How to release this knot? How meld these two
communities into a house of faith?
How reconcile circumcised with those
uncircumcised, with mutual distrust?

How else? He tied a knot of elegant
and pirouetting thought, a logical
connection that would bind the Church in one,
close fastened, one and all, to Jesus Christ.

What loving, faithful pains he took to show
we travel in one boat, we worship just
one God, we are one Church, wherever we
began our faith’s life’s journey, Jew or Greek.

I wonder, though, if tying up new knots
is all that useful when the animal
needs water, and the lead is all too short,
when dinner waits beyond the leash’s length.

I wonder if the Messianic fingers had
already loosed the knot dividing us,
and if, with all this elegance of thought,
poor Paul re-tied it hopelessly again.

Some months ago upon a mountain trail
I came upon a fence and gate, which served
to give endangered plants a chance to grow,
not be consumed by wandering ungulants.

The gate was closed by string, and at first glance
I thought it held by a close-fastened knot,
and reached toward it, fingernails prepared
to pull and loosen its constricted coils.

But then I looked again. The knot did not
secure the gate. It closed a loop, which I
quite easily unwrapped and wrapped again,
continuing along the mountain trail.

Dear Paul: Is that what you have tried to do?
Is this a loop we can unwrap to make
our way along the Way? Is grace beyond
accessible to us despite the knot?

A poem/prayer based on Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year A, Second Sunday in Lent.

The image is Alexander Cutting the Gordian Knot by Andre Castaigne (btwn 1898 and 1899) – Died 1930 – Public Domain, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=649317.