It is not often that the Bible comes alive on demand, particularly when that demand is a past due assignment. However, this assignment has lent itself to just that. Romans 14-15 isn't exactly one of my favorite passages. Paul's teaching on causing a brother to stumble has always felt cumbersome and irritating to me. I've often found myself grumbling, "why must I deny myself for these less mature in the faith? It isn't fair!" But as I was skimming through the chapters in order to complete this assignment, something stuck out to me that I've never noticed in this passage before: the word "joy." Over and over, there it is. Joy. Joy. Joy. Clearly I've missed something.

Christmas is a time of joy. Finals week, not so much. Romans 14-15 is to that dreaded week of exams and papers and final projects what Romans 3 or 5 or 6 is to Christmas. How could these passages be for the sake of joy? Well, a lot depends on your definition of joy. Now I have an intellectual, spiritual definition of joy just like you. But I also have a practical definition of joy, and that's the one I default to. When I'm honest, what comes to my mind first when I think of joy is happiness without consequences. That's not good. This idea of "not causing my brother to stumble" doesn't make me very happy. But doing what does make me happy in this instance does have consequences - my brother stumbles. It's an impasse. How do I get joy out of this mess?

Well, I have an older brother. His name is Josh. We're six years apart, and he's always been the one I looked up to. So one thing I realized is that my idea of a less mature brother isn't the best. It's actually pretty silly - and pretty self-centered. I have a friend named Eli who's 4 years younger than me. We're not related, but we're pretty close. Between working at a church and school, I don't get to go home very often, but when I do it's pretty rare that Eli and I don't get together. Even if all we do is play Xbox or throw a football around, I love spending time with him. Eli looks up to me the way I did my older brother. I realized that my problem isn't so much just that I'm too selfish to care about the stumbling of my brother, but that I don't have the picture of my fellow believers. I need to begin to look at them as fellow followers, broken sinners who don't have it any more together than I do and are probably dealing with the same things I am. They may be looking up at me just as much as I am at them. I thought about the idea of hiking a trail with these two brothers of mine. There may be times I have to slow down so Eli can keep up. There may even be times that I have to carry some extra weight so he can make it up a ladder or down a slick rock face. But there may also be times that I have to hand my pack off to him, or to my older brother. If we were hiking a trail, it wouldn't be a big deal, because only by getting to the top together do we really get to enjoy the accomplishment! If Josh and I got to the summit, but we left Eli behind to do so, the joy we would have would probably be pretty tame compared to the exhilaration we would feel if all three of us made it together.