Grace, Mercy, and
Peace to you in the name of Christ our Saviour.
Last
week, we heard Paul’s statement about how God has gifted various church members
with faith appropriate for different roles in the church. Paul declares that we
are one body in Christ with many members, and that each of us brings unique
gifts into the community.
In
the Catechism found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, we acknowledge that
“according to the gifts we have been given” we are to carry on Christ’s work of
reconciliation in the world, here and now, where we are and while we are here.
Paul
acknowledges that we will not all do this the same way. We do not have to all
march in step together, but rather we are to exercise the unique gifts we have
each been given in our own unique ways. Not everyone has the same gifts. Not
everyone has to follow Jesus in just the same way as the next person. The best
news of all being, of course, that no one is expected to do anything that God
has not already equipped us to do.
I
labelled it as “Team Church” – all working together, using our unique gifts, to
be a community called church, a community called to be a living sacrifice in
the name of Jesus.
The reading from Romans today could be considered a group covenant for Christians, a list of core values on which the activities and ministries of church are built, a reminder about how we are meant to live in the days between worship services. Paul’s words are a description and an invitation to Christian community.
So what it is that
he calls us to do? Let’s see if I can set it up in “Ten Commandments style”:
1.
Love
genuinely
2.
Overcome
evil with good
3.
Love
one another
4.
Show
honour to one another
5.
Be
fervent in spirit
6.
Rejoice
in hope
7.
Be
patient in suffering
8.
Be
constant in prayer
9.
Show
hospitality
10.
Bless
those who persecute you
11.
Be
sympathetic
12.
Live
in harmony with one another
13.
Do
not repay evil with evil
14.
Live
peaceably
15. Do not avenge yourselves
Ok so that was way more than ten. Paul has a lot to say about what it means to serve Christ! But there is one common theme: Love.
Love is the overarching paradigm for the whole of Romans chapter 12, the first half about loving God and the second half about loving each other. Paul echoes Jesus in calling attention to love as the key moral norm for God’s people. Jesus had said that all the law and the prophets hang on two commands: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. At the beginning of our reading today, Paul assumes that his audience knows that they are to love, and he presses them to make their love for each other genuine.
Genuine love is more than just being nice to people. Genuine love has a moral orientation toward the good. When we show love toward someone, we are moving them toward God’s goodness. To love someone is not simply to cater to specific likes and dislikes of that person. It is rather to act toward them in ways that help them experience more of God’s goodness.
And while we don’t always like to talk about good and evil as if they are polar opposite absolutes from each other, there are evils in the world that we do need to fight against. There is so much hate, oppression, injustice, deception, manipulation, and violence in the world. We really cannot just sit back and ignore what is going on if we truly believe in justice and peace and freedom, can we?
But Paul tells us that we are not to repay evil with evil. When we oppose those who do evil in our world with anger, we are more likely to perpetuate the evil they do. So how then do we respond to evil? In the same way Jesus did. Jesus knew that only the willingness to respond to hostility with peace, to respond to hatred with forgiveness, can redeem evil. We need to respond with love, genuine love.
Love which does not reject evil is not genuine. Genuine love must reject the systemic evils in our culture and society. This does not mean rejecting the individual, rather rejecting hateful ideology, language, and actions that deny the humanity and prevents others from living fully and freely as God intended.
This is what Jesus meant when he said that those who want to follow him will have to take up the cross. He was calling us all to follow his pattern of responding to evil by not retaliating, but by embracing those who do evil with mercy and kindness and forgiveness. Only when we can embrace those who do evil in our world with genuine love can we hope to respond to what they do in a way that will bring real change – responding to violence with forgiveness, responding to hatred with compassion, responding to hostility with peace. When we do, we have the chance to change not only what they do but more importantly who they are. As we embrace those who do evil, we have the chance to make a change that can create peace and justice and freedom.
The
Gospel of Christ has always been counter-cultural in many ways, but for
centuries “Christendom” masked this reality, in an assumption that we lived in
a “Christian society”. As Christendom has come to an end, Christians have to
make a conscious choice, not just once but multiple times, daily, to choose
whom to follow. To discern how to be in the world but not of the world. Making
the decision to take up Jesus’ cross and respond to the world’s evil with genuine
love is how we will begin to see real change in the world.
As
Christians, we are called to live by a different standard in all parts of life.
It is easy to attend worship each week and leave it all at the door on your way
out. To live according to Paul’s core values that I listed before is a daily commitment.
So why don’t we make that commitment to ourselves and to each other now? Repeat
after me:
I
promise to show hospitality toward others.
I
promise to live in peace and harmony with others.
I
promise to be sympathetic and compassionate to those around me.
I
promise to do good and let God be the judge.
I
promise to bless those who persecute me, and to do what is honorable in the
sight of all.
I
promise to overcome evil with good.
I
promise to rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, and be constant in prayer.
I
promise to have real and genuine love for others.
By
making these promises to each other, we have committed ourselves to our calling
of being a living sacrifice in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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