Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost A 2008

16 Pentecost A 08
August 31, 2008

Romans 12:9-21
9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 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." 20 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." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Genuine Love

What would you say genuine love was?

Love which is not genuine is love that masks self-interest. The love men and women have for each other is in most real respects conditional and ultimately selfish. Erotic love is the desire to possess the other. Most marriages and love relationships are about scratching each others’ backs, as are most family relationships. One loves one’s children basically because one is biologically programmed to do so. One is really loving an extension of oneself. To love one’s neighbors in one’s own community is also somewhat selfish. By doing good for one’s neighbors, one earns respect and love that can be cashed in on when needed.

None of these things are bad. God has given us the instincts for the marriage relationship and the parenting relationship and the social relationship. These instincts help us to survive and thrive and enjoy our lives. Of course, if we desire more than our share of these things, we create situations in which we damage ourselves and others and create conflict and turmoil in our lives.

But desiring these things is not bad in itself. In this we differ from our Buddhist friends, who believe that the only true spiritual wholeness is in the decimation of all desire. Jews and Christians do not regard the desire for marriage, family and social connectedness to be bad desires, even though they are sometimes the cause of pain and suffering.

But it seems clear from the whole tenor of the letter that Paul is addressing the Christians in the church in the city of Rome about real love, pure love, unmitigated love. Genuine love, as he eventually makes clear, is the lived-out implication of God’s love. And as we saw in the early part of Paul’s letter to the Romans, God’s peculiar love is for the very people who despise and ignore him. The Christian community manifests this genuine love in two principal ways: among themselves in community, and between themselves as community and the outside world.

In the community of disciples of Jesus, this love is manifest in the commitment to share in each member’s joy and sorrow. It is to practice mutuality in all things, that is, not always to be only a recipient of the community’s love, but also to give love to the community. It is to be generous to the community in giving time and money and talent. Genuine love in the community of the church is to seek always to make the other more important than the self, to encourage and honor and uplift the other. It goes without saying that forgiveness is at the very core of this practice.

Love is not genuine that cannot forgive.

God’s peculiar love is also manifested in the community toward the outside world. God loves those who have never heard of him, or have heard of him but ignore him anyway. Genuine love is therefore very intentionally welcomes strangers. Genuine love is especially for those who are outside of our various circles of concern, outside our marriage bond, outside our family connections, outside our religious community, outside our political party, outside our geographical and national neighborhood.

The only hatred we are to harbor in our hearts, Paul is saying, is for the evil that inspires more evil. Do not repay evil for evil, Paul says, because the moment you do, you have become a servant of the very evil you deplore. Genuine love repays evil with blessing, for this is the way God’s resurrection power works in the world.

We heap hot coals on the heads of our enemies by loving them. If any of you are angry at anyone, think of it. If you not only give up your claim on whatever it is you think your enemy has taken from you or kept from you, and turn instead to bless and care for him or her, you are guaranteed to freak them out.

Of course, to heap ashes on one’s head was an ancient rite of repentance, as we see at the end when Job says “I repent in dust and ashes.” Paul may therefore mean that by loving an enemy we help that enemy to discover the wrong they are doing and change their direction.

Of course, we must be careful if the enemy sincerely intends to harm us. I see nothing in the scriptures that encourages deliberate self-destruction. Someone said, “Forgive you enemies, but never forget where they live.”

But even if we must keep our distance, we can nevertheless pray for our enemies, and ask God’s blessing on them. I have tried this, and I can tell you that the results are often amazing.

And remember God’s word: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” I have to say, those words scare me. It’s written in Egeria’s diaries and in other early Christian documents that Christians used to have prayer services specifically that God would forgive their enemies and would indeed shower them with blessings. Can you imagine?

Another element of God’s love for us is his willingness to come among us and be our friend. If God, who is so far above us in power and majesty, sees fit to descend and be among us, how can we socialize only with those who live as we do? How many of us are close to people that are far below our class? How many of us care for and love people who have terrible reputations in the community?

We are to take thought of what is noble in the sight of all. And the way Paul defines nobility is the willingness to not only forgive but to actively love one’s enemy. Such nobility creates buzz, to use the modern word. When people see such abnormal and unconventional behavior, they talk about it. It becomes news.

It is good that people love their spouses and the families and their immediate neighbors, but this is not news. News is when something changes, something unusual takes place.

Something like giving one’s life for one’s enemies. Something like resurrection from the dead.

Father Daniel Berrigan, a rather amazing figure in American history you should take some time to get to know, once said, "If you want to follow Jesus, you had better look good on wood.”

Jesus commanded his followers in Matthew 16 to take up their own crosses in order to follow him. By this is not meant the usual suffering that comes into every life. Such suffering in unavoidable. God certainly wishes to walk with us through that suffering, but this is not the cross.

The cross is the power of the world in collision with the kingdom of God. It is loving a world that despises God. It is the quintessence of Paul’s command to overcome evil with good. For Jesus did not repay the incredible betrayal and torture and injustice and death that he suffered with violence or even with judgment. Instead he suffered it with the full understanding that God’s justice would finally prevail, if only he stood out of the way and allowed God to be God. Jesus was executed because he refused to bow to the powers of the world, and at the same time manifested God’s love for that very world.

The cross is God saying “I love you” to a world that is murdering him. And that love is more powerful than the worst violence the world can do. To believe this is to believe in Christ. To reject this is to reject Christ and everything he stood for.

This is why forgiving and being forgiven is at the very heart of following Christ. This is why bounteous grace and service flow out of the font of every faithful congregation to everyone who doesn’t deserve it in the least. Indeed this is the very heart of what we believe. It is the center. It is all that really matters.

Amen.

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