In our reading for today I want to point out a language difficulty: we use the word you to mean YOU. But we use the same word to mean “YOU ALL.” In this passage we are reading today it may come across as a message for you, personally. Something you should undertake as a Christian individual. That’s not the way it is written. This is like being in a three-legged race. You know how two people get their ankles tied together and have to run, together, to the finish line? Well, imagine that your ankles are tied with everyone else in this community of faith. Now run to the finish line. If one of us falls, we all don't make it. For any of us to reach the finish line, we all have to reach the finish line. As Mary Hinkle writes: All of the verbal forms are plural. The words are a window on what life in Christ looks like in community. One is tempted to imagine Paul saying, "Don't try this alone." His advice is addressed to a bunch of people, and much of it concerns their shared life.
Romans 12:9-21 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
SERMON I have an ugly confession to make. I watched an episode of the Steve Wilkos show. In my defense: I had a lot of laundry to fold and it was the channel the tv was set to when I turned it on.
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| Train Wreck at Montparnasse |
I couldn’t take my eyes off it. But lo and behold, there was a redeeming quality: a sermon illustration!
On the show Friday, a teenager and her parents confront the father of her daughter. He was 20 when he got their 16-year old daughter pregnant. To complicate matters, it was a bi-racial hook up. The dad is African American, the teen girl is white. So there was an age gap and a cultural gap to overcome. Shows like this are fueled by hostile confrontation.
So, there was a confrontation between the baby’s teen mom and adult father. There was confrontation between the parents of the teen mom and the baby daddy. There was confrontation between Steve Wilkos and the baby’s father. Then it was everyone, the teen mom, her parents and Steve Wilkos screaming and crying and chastising the baby’s father. You get the picture.
For a moment, imagine yourself in that situation. Your teen daughter pregnant with an adult man’s baby, in a cross-racial relationship, which means the opportunity for cultural misunderstanding is multiplied. How would you respond? Well, I know a lot of you and I could imagine most of you discussing the health of the baby and its mom and trying to figure out how best to help your teen daughter get her life back on track, finishing high school, figuring out career options, making the best of an unwanted situation. Our focus would be on our daughter and her child. Our natural inclination would be to distance ourself and our loved ones from this bad man. I could imagine restraining orders, garnished wages, custody battles perhaps.
I can’t imagine many of us taking the young man into our home. Getting him a job. Driving him to college classes. That’s what this teen mom’s parents did. I kept waiting for them to be really ugly. But they only ever sounded like angry parents disappointed by a child’s behavior. They kept lifting up how much they had wanted something better for Charlie, the baby’s daddy. They reminded him of the many chances they’d given him. They expressed their expectation that he would treat them and their daughter with respect. But they never really slandered him as a person. They never name-called. They never insinuated he was a bad man. The language they used was always around the idea of the unrealized potential they saw in this young man. In spite of the passionate anger they were feeling, I kept getting the impression that they still wanted the best for this man...in spite of the pain he had brought into their family and the damage he had wrought in their daughter’s life. They wanted him to be a great father to their granddaughter.
Is that what this young man “deserved?” Kindness instead of jail time? A hand up instead of a slap in the face? Hope instead of damnation?
Love must be sincere. (Rom 12:9, NIV) Love from the center of who you are. (Rom 12:9, MSG)
The parents were not operating out of natural tendencies. They were operating on a higher plane. They were operating from a heart with sincere love. In the center of who they are was love. In the midst of their life’s tragedy, their real colors showed. And it was love. I have no idea if they were Jesus-followers or not. They never said, “Because we love Jesus and are trying to live our lives pleasing to him, we will be nice to you.” Their interest was sincere and it was profound and they legitimately felt betrayed but not for what Charlie had done to their daughter, but what he had not done for himself.
I wonder if that’s how God is with us. More specifically...with me. “Gee: I had such high hopes for you, Julia. I thought you would really take advantage of the opportunities I put in front of you. I love you big, but the love you give back is so small. I set you free from sin and you step right back in. I open doors for you to walk through and you go the other direction. Having said all that...I will never stop loving you and leading you in paths of righteousness for my name’s sake.”
Love must be sincere. (Rom 12:9, NIV) The key to this entire passage is this. Love from the center of who you are. (Rom 12:9, MSG)
It is my experience of God’s renewing love that I most want to share. The limitless fountain of love that is God. The endless stream of mercy that is my experience of God.
In our communion service today we will say “When our love failed, your love remained steadfast.” God’s love is steadfast. On the wall in my office hangs this saying: "It is my hope that my description of God's love in my life will give you the hope and courage you need to experience the love of God in yours."
The Apostle Paul says it this way in the Bible: “We love because God first loved us.” At the core of who we are is our heart. At the center of our being is our heart. On a good day that heart belongs to God through Jesus Christ.
This week in my time of prayer and meditation, the opening prayer has been this: Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts with the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love Thee and worthily magnify Thy holy name.
That prayer is an attempt to set the course of our lives by surrendering our hearts. It’s like our heart is a GPS device. If the coordinates in it are set accurately we will go in the direction that will get us to our destination. If the coordinates are set wrong we end up in the wrong place. If our hearts’ coordinates are off, we veer off-course and end up in the wrong place. If our hearts are set for God, the direction we must go is love and our destination is love.
Which is kind of what Paul is saying in today’s reading. Love must be sincere (the only way for it to be sincere is for it to be surrendered to God.) BUT ONCE LOVE IS SINCERE, then we can: (NOTE: NOT FEEL LOVEY DOVEY. We Can ACT IN LOVE.) In the Bible love is not a feeling. It is a way of living.
From The Message: Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody. Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it." Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
From a heart surrendered to God, the flow is a ripple effect. Moving out in concentric circles from our God-filled-heart we are empowered to: Love our friends. Love other Christians. Love our enemies. Love everyone. Go ahead, look at the passage: that’s the flow of it. Love the people we know. Love the saints (other christians). Love our enemies. Love everyone.
In some very specific ways, Paul tells us what love looks like: Run from evil. Practice hospitality. Serve those in need. Pray. Pay attention. Get along. Befriend. Be a friend to the friendless.
I don't recommend this, but Saturday I re-watched the NBC news broadcast of 9-11. It made me sad and fearful and angry all over again. This week we will be overwhelmed with stories from 9-11 which is as it should be. In remembering we honor those who lost their lives, those who participated in rescue attempts, and have time to reflect on what the last 10 years have meant to us as citizens.
As we hear these stories I'd like to invite you to hear those stories through the amplifier of this scripture. What does it mean to love our enemies. To not repay evil with evil. To let God take care of vengeance. What would it look like if we took those words to heart and lived them out as a country? Is it even possible in the real world to be Christian? And if not, what does that mean?
Honestly, it is so interesting to hear Paul share these ideas. He’s writing about 20-30 years after Jesus death and resurrection. And he isn’t making this stuff up. He is re-preaching what Jesus taught. In fact, much of what he says here Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. In the weeks ahead we are going to read the Sermon on the Mount together. Matthew 5-7.
We are going to take a look at what Jesus says and we are going to ask ourselves if this way of life is really what we thought we signed up for. We are going to continue the hard work of dying to self that God might raise us up new people...capable of greater love than we ever imagined. The more we die to self, the more room God has to grow love in us.
So first Jesus said it. The Paul said it. Then preachers for centuries said it. We studied John Wesley’s way of saying it in a kind of shorthand in the 3 Simple Rules: Do no harm (run from evil), Do good (love in action.) Stay in love with God (let love be sincere.). And now the people of God are hearing again the gospel truth: we lift up our hearts to God in surrender and for re-formation.
Let love be the center of who we are.
Pray with me: Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts with the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love Thee and worthily magnify Thy holy name.
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