Wouldn’t It Be Lover-ly (Romans 13:8-14)

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately, because, it’s like, really, really important, you know?  I mean, all you need is love, right? Love is a many-splendored thing, as anybody on the love boat could tell you . . . love lifts you up where you belong, I love New York . . . heck, I love American style. Have trouble with your love story?  Then take love potion number nine, and you’ll be a victim of that crazy little thing called love, but don’t worry – there must be fifty ways to leave your lover. We’ve got lovin’ in the morning, lovin’ in the evening, lovin’ ‘bout supper time . . . we’re so much in love with love that we even have our own love holiday, with it’s own Saint, and it’s a wonder his name isn’t St. Love . . .

We use love to sell things, everything from toothpaste to deodorant, from Ford Broncos to Dell Computers . . . or maybe that’s sex we use to sell things . . . I do tend to get them confused. After all, we call the act of sex “making love,” like if we just have sex enough times, love will be somehow generated out of thin air. Love’s become an item, a commodity – if we just have enough of it, our lives will be perfect.  And the Beatles sing about love as if it’s something you get – love, love, love . . . love is all you need.

But at the same time,  we also think of love as an emotion, something you feel . . . I love you, I love my car, I love my cat. We talk about the act of starting to love as “falling in love,” like “falling off a cliff,” as if we can’t help ourselves, it’s an accidental kind of thing – I saw her standing there, and I just flat-out fell in love. This emotional love comes with a pleasurable feeling, a warm-and-fuzzy state of euphoria – flushed cheeks, tingly, prickly hairs-on-end . . . clichéd – but accurate – descriptions of what many of us call “being in love.”

But have you ever noticed that these things wear off after awhile? That cool, sleek car that gave you goose bumps when you first drove it can become nothing more than a hunk of painted metal, especially after a few repairs. That delightful guy you thought was the be-all and end-all of the known universe turns into something ordinary, well-worn, Ozzie to your Harriet – and that little rush when you see him is just no longer there. Scientists – wouldn’t you just know – have studied it, and they’ve found out that pleasurable feeling is caused by a kind of brain-chemical called an endorphin that’s released into the bloodstream when you see your honey, and that eventually, after repeated sightings, it’s no longer released. This takes about seven years, thus accounting for – you guessed it – the seven-year itch.

Marilyn Monroe aside, it’s at this point – if not before – that maintaining a relationship starts to be real work, and loving someone becomes more and more active, more and more trouble. And that’s where Paul comes in, because that’s what love is to him – real, down-to-earth, matter-of-fact, work. In fact, he starts with the image of love as an obligation, as something you owe somebody else. How romantic is that?

“Owe no one anything,” he says, “except to love one another.” And that’s a real downer, because it sounds pretty cold – if we love someone because we have to, it’s can’t be worth much, can it? And what does he mean, owe no one anything, except to love one another? Why would I owe you love, and you me? What could I have done for you that incurred such an obligation? But here’s a thought – maybe it’s not to one another that we owe it to love one another . . . maybe Joe doesn’t owe it to Clara to love her, and Clara doesn’t owe it to Bill to love him, but Joe and Clara owe it to God to do their loving. And this makes sense, because Paul goes on and says “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” and here, as almost everywhere else, Paul is talking about the Torah, the Mosaic law. And Jews are bound to observe it out of covenant obligation to God. So maybe the obligation is to God for Christians to love one another.

In fact, our passage begins and ends with two very similar statements, both about love fulfilling the law. So it’s a good bet that that’s what’s on Paul’s mind – the fulfilling of the law. In fact, the first statement is a premise, and the final one is a conclusion, restating the premise. And between the two is the proof – all you logical Presbyterian types understand that—and he lists four of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet,” and any other commandment – and says they’re summed up by only one: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And note that he doesn’t say replaced by the love commandment, but summed up, gathered together, united, and it makes sense – if you love your neighbor, you certainly won’t kill her, or covet her cat or her husband; you certainly won’t steal from her or commit adultery against her. In fact, he says, love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, it is the fulfilling of the law. Q.E.and D.

He uses this notion of love as the summing-up of the law to prove his point, and the reason he could do this is that it was a common belief among Christians and Jews of the day – Christians, of course, because Jesus had said something a lot like it like it, but contrary to popular belief among Christians, who think that Jesus invented love, it wasn’t original with him, either – it was a common teaching among Jewish rabbis of the day. But if it was a common belief, why did Paul make a big deal out of it? Why did he have to write this paragraph at all?

The key is in the word “fulfill,” and his declaration that love fulfills the law – he’s saying that it doesn’t just sum it up, it doesn’t just recapitulate it, but it satisfies the purpose that God intended for it. And that’s about as radical as it comes . . . Paul is saying that love does what the law was intended to do, it fulfills its role.

But this creates a problem for us Christians: isn’t the whole point of the Gospel grace? Isn’t the point that our being made right with God, being justified, being saved, is free, and that we don’t have to do anything, in fact we can’t do anything, to merit it? This love your neighbor stuff sounds like just another thing you have to do to get saved. Hasn’t he just substituted loving your neighbor for abstaining from pork, for remembering to wash up before a meal, or for not touching a corpse? Isn’t this just works righteousness in disguise?

But Paul’s not talking righteousness here – he doesn’t even mention the word once, or salvation, either. For Paul, that was never the purpose of the law, to make the Jews  – or anybody else, for that matter – righteous before God. For Paul, the law’s purpose was never to provide salvation. The purpose of the law to Paul is to reveal the glory of God to the nations, so that “Israel might be God’s light to the world.”¹ And so fulfilling the purpose of the law has nothing to do – in Paul’s mind – with whether someone is saved or not.  Rather, it’s to show the glory of God to the world, to reveal the meaning of life in the Lord. In a Christian context, we might say it’s the heart of evangelism. Through our communities united by love, we’re to be beacons to the world. This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.

That’s why Paul puts it in terms of something we owe God: obligation comes after the fact, after receiving something. God has done something for us, sent Christ to Earth to set us free, made a new covenant with us in his blood, and now our obligation, our side of the covenant, is to love one another. Just as Israel’s side of the bargain was to obey God’s commandments, we’re to love our neighbors as ourselves.

  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard from people who used to go to church, but something happened, somebody snubbed them, somebody said something hurtful, or they just got tired of the backbiting and the jealousy. In a lot of churches, far from acting like they love one another, members jockey for power, for control, over whose version of the Gospel will be taught, and in what way it will be taught. That is human nature, I know, but we’re supposed to transcend that, we’re supposed to be better than that . . . I wonder how things would be if people in our churches truly loved one another, and showed it?

And what’s more,  in our passage, Paul is speaking about loving our neighbors, not just other members of our church family. How in the name of you-know-who are we supposed to do that? I mean, I don’t even like my neighbor – he’s crabby, he plays his music too loud, and he yells at my dog. And to top it all off, he’s not a Christian, he makes no bones about it . . . he thinks it’s pretty stupid to worship some two-thousand-year-old carpenter, and how am I supposed to love a guy like that? And furthermore, the gospels make it pretty clear that the definition of “neighbor” is wider than just the guy next door – remember the Good Samaritan? Am I supposed to love people around the world, with whom I have nothing in common, many of whom – lest we forget ISIS –  seem to not particularly love me?

Well . . . yes, but maybe not quite in the way we assume . . . Paul’s not talking about some emotion or feeling, he’s not talking about being in love, about something we can’t help . . . he’s talking about action, something we do. For Paul – and, I think, for most of Scripture – love is action, it’s doing, it’s hard work.  . . . and as we’ve seen, we’re obligated to do it. Even if we can’t stand our neighbor, even if we get tired of his face, even if we think his ideas are dangerously crazy, we are to engage with them, to treat them as if we genuinely like them.

And you know what? When we grit our teeth and treat someone we dislike as if we deeply care for them, a funny thing can happen on the way to the forum – we can develop a genuine affection for them, it happens all the time. For a start, treat everybody as you yourself would want to be treated, and then go further . . . be kind to them, do things for them . . . and most of all, try to put yourself in their shoes, try to imagine what their life must be like. Instead of just shaking your head at something you don’t like, try to understand why they are that way . . . and there’s a name for this kind of thing, there’s a name for the process of getting to know folks, for getting to know what makes them tick, for trying to see things from their point if view, and the name is relationship.

Let’s do a thought experiment.  Over in First John, God is equated with love: “Whoever does not love does not know God,” the author writes, “for God is love.”  God is love. Now: a central doctrine of Christianity is the Trinity, which holds that God is three persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—but also that God is indivisibly one.  In other words, God is in God’s own self is a relationship.  And if God is love and God is relationship, then it follows logically that love is relationship, and relationship is love.  We are expected to be in relationship, for that is where God is, that is where love is.

Biblical scholar Tom Wright says that Paul’s love is “tough love,” in the sense that it’s tough to do, that because it doesn’t spring from the emotions, it comes from the will, it comes from just doing it, as the Nike ad might say.² It’s hard work, but it’s our obligation.  Somebody’s gotta do it, and that would be us.

And the good news, as always, is that the Christian life is a journey, and as Paul himself knew all too well, we’re not yet at its end, we’re not yet perfected, we’re just on the way. But he also knew that we’re not alone on the road, that we have the Holy Spirit to power us, and intercede for us with sighs too deep for words. He knew that Christ is with us all along the journey, and he will be with us every step of the way.  Amen.

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        ¹ Wright, N.T., “The Letter to the Romans,” vol. X in: The New Interpreter’s Bible,12 vols., (Nashville: Abingdon), 2002, p 725.

        ²  Ibid., p 726.

Saying is Believing (Matthew 16:13-20)

      Historically, this has been one of the most contested passages in the Bible, and the reason isn’t hard to find: it’s because of this one verse: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”  The controversy is over how Roman Catholics interpret this verse as opposed to Protestants.  Catholics see this as the basis for Apostolic succession—the doctrine that the authority of Christ is passed down through the Apostles, of whom Peter was the first.  Because they trace their Popes back—virtually at least—to Peter, they hold that they are the one, true Church.  Protestants, understandably, don’t buy this, and they argue that the church was founded on Peter’s confession, not his person, and anyway, they say, you can’t trace the Popes back that far, either literally or virtually.

And being Protestant, you can guess where I come down on this, and I imagine most of you hold the same opinion, or why else would you be here?  Why would anyone associate themselves with a church you consider not to be a valid part of the body of Christ?  It would seem to me to be a waste of time, resources and spirituality.  But there’s more to this passage than a church-authority controversy, so let’s forge ahead.

The Gospels can be read as explorations of the identity of Jesus, as attempts to come to grips with just who he is, and if that’s true, then at first glance this passage would seem to be at the center of that effort: after all, the verb “to be” appears six times in these scant eight verses.  But on closer inspection, it’s not so much about who Jesus is as who people say that he is.  After all, that is what he asks his disciples, “who do people say the Son of Man is?”  And he uses a theological title for himself, the meaning of which is still controversial, but he may be referring to his role as the final judge, whose coming is described in Daniel as “one like the Son of Man.”

At any rate, the disciples answer with what they’ve heard out and about, in the countryside: “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  And notice that people have placed him in old categories, in categories they are familiar with. They’ve assumed he’s something they have seen before, and who can really blame them?  After all, how can a person describe something totally new?  People have to have a referent, something to compare something to, otherwise how can they describe it?  It’s like science fiction movies: why are all aliens kinda like human beings, with appendages and heads and the like?  Or at least, like something else in nature?  Because writers and special-effects people have the same problem: it’s impossible to describe something totally new, totally unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.  Heck, even the Blob looked like a big, hungry slime mold.

But maybe there’s something else at work here as well . . . last week we talked about Jesus’ teaching that it’s what comes out of the mouth that defiles, it's what people say . . . and here Jesus asks who people say that he is.  Are the two connected somehow?  Is this another example of defiling speech?

Well.  After the disciples answer his first question, he asks them another: “But who do you say that I am?”  And though he asks the disciples as a group—using the Greek plural “you”—it is Simon who answers, as often is the case: “You are the Messiah, Son of the living God.”  And I get the feeling that he kinda blurted it out, without thinking, impulsive, as he is often portrayed in the Gospels.  And that’s when it all happens: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah,” Jesus says, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”  And notice that this is not a commendation, he’s not saying “good man, Peter, you got it right”.  Neither is Jesus blessing him: he’s (1) telling Peter he is blessed and (2) telling him what the blessing is.  You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, for, and this is the same as saying “because,” because God has revealed that to you, not anyone human.  Peter is blessed, all right, and the blessing is having Jesus’ true nature given to him by God.

Now.  Following up on our earlier observation about defiling speech, remember that Jesus said that what comes from the mouth defiles because it comes from the heart, but what comes out of Peter is not from his heart, is it?  It’s not from his own consciousness, his own intellect, his own mind.  It’s from God, so it can’t be speech that defiles, can it?  And thinking back, maybe what came out off the Canaanite woman’s mouth was from God as well.  That would explain the apparent contradiction in last week’s lesson . . . If human speech, speech that comes from the heart defiles, no exception, then could what came out of the Canaanite woman’s mouth, like that which came out of Peter’s, be from God as well?

Well.  There’s a technical word for what happened to Peter, and that’s revelation.  Revelation.  God has revealed to Simon Peter just who Jesus is . . . And it certainly isn’t for any visible reason, it certainly isn’t because he is a tower of faith nor anything.  In fact, as portrayed in the Gospels, he’s the one who messes up the most.  But there’s another spin to be put on it as well . . . many scholars think Peter is used as an example by the Gospel writers, that he is supposed to represent the disciples as a group, to represent the average disciple.  If that’s the case, then the revelation is given to the disciples as a group, and the church is founded on the the Apostles as a group.  It’s worth noting that that’s apparently what Paul believed, that his status as Apostle, as the recipient of a revelation directly from God, authorized him to found churches.  In fact, he believed that Peter’s mission was to the Jews and his was to the Gentiles, and he acted on that belief by planting churches all across the Middle East.

And here’s the thing: if you take that view, then the church is not founded upon the person of Peter—whom Jesus calls Satan just a few verses after this--but neither is it founded on his testimony, as some have claimed.  And if you look at the witness of the entire New Testament, a good case can be made that the church is founded not on one person, but on a revelation from God.

But Pastor, you might ask, isn’t the church founded on Jesus the Christ?  After all, that’s what the hymn says, isn’t it?  “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord?”  Well  . . . yes.  And what is Christ himself but a revelation from God, a revelation of what God is really like, what God’s concerns really are, what God wants us to do?  John doesn’t call him “the Word of God” for nothing . . .

And so the church, the ekklesia, in Greek, is established based upon a revelation from God, an intrusion of God in the world, an intervention, if you will.  And the church—in the person of the apostles, represented here by Peter—is given the keys to the kingdom, which the Roman Catholic Church has interpreted literally, as in you can only get to heaven through them, but it’s pretty clear that what Jesus is referring to is being able to decide what is bound and what is loosed.  And “binding and loosing” is rabbinical language which refers to doctrinal and disciplinary authority.  In other words, the apostles—with Peter as their chief representative—and the church they form are given the responsibility to decide what should become doctrine and what shouldn’t.

In other other words, the church is given the authority to interpret the will of God’s to the world.  And in Matthew’s Gospel, the manner in which Jesus pronounces what is “binding” and what is “loosed” becomes a model for how the church is to practice its task.  We saw it last week: Jesus declared centuries of Jewish doctrine, doctrine based on revelation from God, null and void when he said “. . . it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles."  Mark wasn’t just whistling Dixie when he said “thus he declared all foods clean.”  As Biblical scholar Mitchell G. Reddish writes “Scripture is not static; it must be reapplied to new situations. Just as Jesus applies the teachings of the Torah in fresh and creative ways, the church must be emboldened to interpret the teachings of Jesus in new and inspired ways, attempting both to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus . . . and to be open to the voice of Jesus that speaks through the church to new situations and problems.”

And right about now, it would be useful to look at how our denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), exercises its authority to bind and loose.  It’s particular interpretation of Scriptures is contained in its constitution, which has two parts: the Book of Order and the Book of Confessions.  Both contain theology, both contain our interpretation of the revelation of God that is contained in Scripture.  In other words, both parts contain what we have bound as our guiding doctrine.  The Book of Confessions holds our basic theology, our doctrine, as expressed in, well . . . confessions, historical statements of belief.  There are eleven of them, ranging from the Nicene and Apostle’s Creeds, both from before 350 AD, to the Brief Statement of Faith from 1983.  The Book of Order contains our ecclesiology, our theology of doing church, which is based on New Testament principles and the theology contained in the Book of Confessions.

The thing is, our theology, as contained in our constitution, is changeable, it is adaptable: our motto is “reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God.”  Like Jesus, who set about overhauling the theology of his day, our charge—and notice that it is a charge, an obligation—our charge is to preside over the binding and loosing in our day.  Notice I said “preside over:” it is not our task to reform ourselves.  The motto is “reformed and being reformed,” and note the passive construction: we are being reformed, and the one doing the reforming is God.  Our job is to discern, to figure out how God wants us to change. It is to make space, to enable, the binding and loosing dictated by God.

As Presbyterians, we have a process—naturally—honed over the past five centuries, for the orderly way of letting the Holy Spirit, the Scripture, and God’s revelation in the world guide the reforming of the way we do business.  A problem is that until very recently, there were no such methods for reforming individual congregations.  Because each congregation has its own “theology,” its own way of doing things, within the broad bounds of our denomination’s way.  I believe that each congregation is called to be reformed and always reforming, lest they become irrelevant to the world.  After all, the vocation of each congregation is the same as the church as a whole: to proclaim the Gospel in thought, word and deed.

So I invite you, sisters and brothers, to join in a season of prayerful discernment, prayerful thinking and asking God how we are being called to that vocation.  We’ve gotten a start in our Sunday school class of last Spring, and I ask you to help think about it, pray about it, and keep this question in your heart: “How are we to witness to and serve our world?”  Amen.