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Romans 13:8-14
Owe
no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has
fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall
not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other
commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love
does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides
this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from
sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the
night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness
and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in
reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in
quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no
provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (NRSV).
I want to begin by making a few
personal remarks. I hope I am not
being too presumptuous by commenting to you about events in my life. Most of you know something about the
recent years and the major opportunities and challenges that my family and I
have faced. In 2009, Everly took
the opportunity to lead the mathematics curriculum for the public school system
of the state of Texas, the second most populous state in our country, and
certainly one of the most influential states in national policies concerning
many areas of our lives. We
decided to make this move largely because of the desire to be near our aging
parents in the last years of their lives.
We had been in North Carolina for almost 24 years by that time. All four of our parents were living and
approaching eighty years of age.
So we perceived the opportunity as God’s blessing to let us share some
time with them after so many years away.
Everly took the state by
storm. She stood out above the
crowd among statewide education administrators. She inspired and energized math teachers and college
professors. Her talents and
leadership drew her into the highest circles of influence. Her candid and forthright words changed
the minds of commissioners and the governor on mathematics education policy. Recognizing what a treasure was in
their midst, she was given near carte blanche to rewrite the curriculum of
mathematics for grades K through 12, and she put all the experience, talent,
skill, and relational ability she had into the task.
At the same time, we realized that
it would be difficult for me to find a job in theological education in
Texas. So we settled for a very
modern kind of family situation. I
worked in North Carolina while living in Texas. I commuted for stints of a few weeks at a time in North Carolina,
then continued my work using the wonders of the internet to teach from
Texas. Thanks to the generosity of
my church family, I always had a place to stay in North Carolina after we moved
out and put our house on the market.
It was a complicated and hectic way to live, but we were making the most
of it.
About two and one-half years after
she started her job in Texas, we discovered that Everly had metastatic cancer
which was focused in her liver and backbone. Doctors were unsure whether it would be worth giving her any
treatment at all, but then decided there was enough chance for improving her
life and extending it that we should try.
The first treatment almost took her life, and in the month-long recovery
from that dose of chemical poisons, she drifted through many stages of
discouragement and hope. God
granted her visions and insight into her remaining life with us. And with great joy, we discovered that
the treatment had brought about a dramatic reduction in her cancer. She slowly regained her strength, and
then began a regimen of chemotherapy that showed promise of managing her
cancer. All of our children were
able to join us in Texas and be with her for this challenging and precious time
of being close to one another.
During that struggle, she came here
to visit you and her many friends in North Carolina. She stood up in this sanctuary and testified of the goodness
of God in her life, in the opportunities she had had to use her gifts, and in
this special time of being available to be away from work and with her
family. Eventually, that early
plan of treatment’s progress diminished, so we began other forms of
experimental treatment. Over a
year of cancer treatments, we developed hope that she might live many more
years. But eventually her ability
to resist the disease ran out. The
last three months involved regrouping, searching for new options, and
ultimately coming to face that she was not getting better. Of course, even near the end, we kept
thinking things would turn around.
With what would only by a little
more than a week remaining, Everly came home for hospice care. The children and I spent all the time
we had with her, and watched her life slowly ebb away. She had given us all she had to give,
and she was ready to leave the troubles of this world. She knew she was in God’s hands, and we
knew that as well. Not quite
fourteen months ago, she went on to her reward and left behind all her pain.
It was, of course, a beginning of a
season of pain for the rest of us.
We had to try to find a way to live our lives without our anchor and
guide. We could reasonably call
these “dark days.” So during this
past year we have sometimes floundered about, and we have sought out the
support, the love, and the counsel of many friends who knew Everly and who know
us. Even though it was comfortable
for me to live in Texas, sharing the home of my parents, it became clear to me
as this past year unfolded that I ought to relocate back to North Carolina
where my job, my church, and my networks of friends remained.
So three weeks ago, Naomi and I
arrived with a truck full of our things and moved in just a couple of blocks
from here on Denfield Street.
Naomi is starting the Masters of Social Work program at UNC-Chapel
Hill. I am back to a more normal
work situation in the same job I have had for over twenty years, teaching at
Shaw University. In locating down
the street, I say to myself, to our congregation, and to our community that
this neighborhood is made up of the neighbors God has sent us to love. So I’m putting my roots here, and
looking with expectation at what God will do with my life and with the life of
the people who are Mt. Level in the coming years. All of my family cannot be together now. Lydia is finishing her bachelor’s
degree in Texas. David is
relocating and starting up a new life in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And we are holding one another close as
we trust that the God who holds our Everly will hold us, too. All of us, in our own ways, by God’s
grace, are striving to lay back the darkness and let in the light.
Well, telling that story was the
hard part of this morning for me.
And it is prologue to what this scripture text will tell us. In the text that was read this morning,
the Apostle Paul makes remarks of the same sort that the Prophet Micah did many
centuries before. As Micah had
posed the question, “What does the Lord require of you?”, now Paul offers the
guidance that we should “owe no one anything, except….” Micah said that it is really pretty
simple. Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with God.
Paul says they should narrow it down to this: love one another.
That’s all you owe anyone.
That’s what Jesus said really mattered. That’s what God expects of you. That fulfills the whole stinking law, every jot and tittle
of it. Of course, you can learn by
studying the specifics of the law, but Jesus already told us how to sum it
up: Love your neighbor as
yourself.
So in the way that you live with
others, if you love them, you will do no wrong to your neighbor. And the law is largely about telling
you what wrongs not to do. So
love, and you won’t do wrong.
That’s why love fulfills the whole law—every bit of it.
Paul was continuing a train of
thought from what to us is the previous chapter. Of course, Paul did not divide his letters into chapters and
verses. Like you or I, he just
wrote out his sentences and paragraphs.
The chapters and verses were added later by readers who wanted to be
able to analyze and talk together about the books in a systematic way. That way, you and I can quickly get on
the same page for conversation and study.
But Paul did not have chapters and verses. So I should say he was continuing a train of thought from a
few paragraphs before.
In our habit of speaking, in
chapter 12, verse 10, he started talking about living toward Christian love
with one another as God’s people.
Just before this section, he had written about how everyone has gifts
from the Spirit, and we are not all the same. But each of us has something to offer to one another and to
the whole group, like parts of the body all have their function. He told them back there, “Let love be
genuine.” Those verses were part
of the wedding vows Everly and I spoke in 1980. That short sentence is now engraved on the gravestone where
she is buried. “Let love be
genuine.”
It was a commitment we shared with
one another. In so many ways, we
certainly fell short of the ideal, but it was a byword for how we knew we ought
to live in relation to the world and the people God had given us. But it is not a statement specifically
about the love of married people.
It is about the love that we have for one another in the church. It is the love God expects us to have
for all God’s children. As
followers of Jesus, married people and families should also live up to this
kind of love. So Paul is making it
plain here. Love genuinely. Love honestly. Love thoroughly. Love wholeheartedly. Love the lovable people, and love the
unlovable people. Love when you
are eager to do so, and love when you are on your last nerve.
But, we may ask, isn’t there
something or someone I can hate?
Paul says to hate evil.
Don’t harbor your evil thoughts.
Don’t plot evil devices.
Don’t fixate on evil responses.
Don’t seek revenge. Hate
evil, but don’t act evilly to oppose it.
Hold fast to what is good.
Keep on imagining the good possibilities. Look beyond people’s troublesome actions to see the good
that is in them. Think of ways to
return good for evil. Do not repay
evil for evil, but put your mind on a noble response to the times when you are
wronged. At the climax of this
reflection, he tells them there is a way to fight evil: overcome evil with good. Let good grow and snowball and expand
and press outward until it overwhelms all the evil it can find. Don’t let evil overcome you. You get out there in all the goodness
that God can produce in you and let that goodness overcome evil.
Paul knew that the times in which
these Roman Christians were living were evil times. Powerful people wanted to persecute them, put them in jail,
fire them from their jobs, take away their homes, make outcasts of their children,
drive them out of town. Rulers
were selfish and devious, and so were their assistants and lackeys. Soldiers and police were directed to
obey the whims of the rulers. They
might not have the strength of conscience to realize that the policies of the
leaders were twisted and wrong.
Paul was not deceived. He
knew his own life had hung in the balance of unjust laws and unjust rulers
before. So he acknowledged that
the times were rife with evil. He
warned the Christians to watch out.
And he taught them that even in an evil setting and situation, God had a
different way for them.
Paul could say this because Paul also knew that the
time in which these Roman Christians were living were good times. They were fertile with opportunities
for virtuous living. They could
watch the growth of their love touch their neighbors and their neighborhoods. God was not defeated by the Imperial
power. God was just getting
started showing them all that God can do.
So when they come up against violence and wrong, Paul said to live
peaceably with all. He said don’t
avenge yourself, but stand up against evil by doing good. Don’t flag in your zeal. Be ardent. Be motivated.
Work it out. Yes, work
it. Work that goodness that God
has placed in you. Be intense
about fighting wrong, but do it with goodness.
Paul knew that the Roman Christians
should have hope. Knowing that
hope, they could rejoice even in hard times. They could show patience when they suffered because their
hope is in God. They could
continue in prayer, knowing that God is with them and guiding them into the
next opportunity to overcome. Love
one another. Show mutual
affection. Outdo one another in
doing right and honoring each other.
Make sure no one is in need.
Show hospitality. Love,
love, love, love, love, in word and deed.
Because God created this world to be good. God’s goodness has been poured out in your lives. Good will prevail, even if not in every
moment, if not in every situation.
Even after setbacks, we can build a better world in God’s power and
grace. Death is defeated. Christ is risen. Good will prevail.
Paul had pressed this case hard in
that earlier section, the second half of chapter 12. Then he took a kind of aside. He chased a rabbit.
He made an illustration of sorts.
He planned to finish his exhortation about love, but there was this
little matter of the Empire to deal with.
He started talking about how they should act toward Caesar and Caesar’s
minions. But he talked about it in
vague terms. He talked about his
enemies in abstract terms. He did
not say anything about Caesar, per se.
He didn’t name Caesar or any of the lesser officials. He did not say anything about the
Empire or the Senate or the Roman Legions or the Centurions. He did not name any of the officials or
even their offices.
Instead, he talked in broad
theological terms about divine creation.
He talked about God’s good work in creating humanity as social
beings. He talked about the
concept of authority in the abstract.
He said that having a system of authority is a good thing. Ruling authorities, in general, help
make our lives better. Human
authorities, as a concept, contribute to a better life for us. In the ideal, authorities reward good
and punish evil. According to its
purpose, authority maintains justice.
But of course, Paul has been
talking previously not about theory, but about the facts on the ground. The facts on the ground were that Roman
authorities were prejudiced toward their own kind. The facts on the ground were that Christianity was an
illicit, an illegal community of faith.
The facts on the ground were that everywhere Christianity had raised its
liberating message of God’s love for the least and the lowly, people in power
had gotten angry. From the
synagogue officials to the Sanhedrin.
From the Proconsuls to the Procurators. From the Kings to the Emperors. From the Pharisees to the Sadducees to the who knows who
sees you practicing Christian faith, people wanted to shut it down.
That’s what Paul was telling them
in the discourse about letting love be genuine, hating evil, and overcoming
evil with good. The facts on the
ground were that the authorities, not in concept, but in flesh and blood, were coming
down hard on the Christians. The
facts on the ground were that people who in theory were supposed to keep the
peace were disturbing the peace.
Officials whose job was to serve and protect were self-serving and
destroying lives in the streets.
Paul understood what was what.
He knew that everybody who had a title did not live up to the duties of
office. He knew that power, once
it is in someone’s hands, can become a tool of domination. That is what he and the Christians in
Rome saw. It’s what they
knew. It’s the yoke they felt on
their shoulders.
So he said, in theory, they should
recognize the goodness of authority.
They should cooperate with authority to do good. They should not resist authority just
to get their own way. Paul was not
being a respectability preacher here.
There have been a number of people lately talking about “respectability churchfolk”
and “respectability preaching.”
They mean those people who try to find the fault in an unarmed youth’s
behavior for his own death. They
mean those people who say that if the black community could just work harder to
stay in school, to dress conventionally, to keep a job and keep their noses
clean, then things like Ferguson would not happen. That’s what they mean by the “respectability” view.
But Paul was not talking
respectability, and neither am I.
Paul was not saying that the answer to our oppression is to be more
docile in obeying our oppressors.
He was not saying that the real problem is us, so we need to mend our
ways. No, he knew who was
troubling the world. God was not
doing this. The church’s service to
God was not doing this.
If the powers that be want to keep
people down, it does not matter how respectably people act. They will get pressed down on. So the answer is to press back. That’s why Paul was saying that they
need to get serious about resisting evil in the world. They should continue their efforts to
overcome evil with good by pressing the authorities to do the good they should
do. But he was not fooled into
thinking that Caesar or his minions were likely to do the good. That’s why he reminded the church to go
ahead and pay taxes to whom taxes are due and revenue to whom revenue is
due. But then he turns the
phrase. He speaks with irony and
from the point of view of faith.
He does not say that some people who demand your respect may not deserve
your respect. No, he is not that
explicit. He does not say that
Caesar has not earned the honor that he wants you to show. No, he is more subtle. He says to pay respect to whom respect
is due. (Wink, wink.) He says give honor to whom honor is
due. (“You know what I mean?”) God deserves our honor. Caesar probably does not.
But just so we don’t conclude that
he means to start blatantly disrespecting the officials, and blatantly dishonoring
Caesar, he goes back to his previous theme about loving our neighbors. Now, we are finally back to the text we
started with. He says owe no one
anything except love. Martin
Luther, the 16th-century reformer translated that verse as a
declarative statement, not an imperative.
He said it means that you don’t owe anyone anything, except you do owe
everyone love. God made us for
love. God made us to love one
another, to be loved by one another, to receive love from one another—God made
us for love. So even Caesar gets
our love. Even the harassing
official on the street gets our love.
Love does no wrong to the neighbor. Love fulfills all our requirements and obligations. Not just a feeling of love, but more
importantly a way of treating someone.
Having made his case about love
that’s genuine, that overcomes evil with good, that supersedes whatever
resentments or desires for revenge we may have, Paul then starts talking about
how important it is for us to stand strong in the face of evil. He does not mean for us to sit back in
our bedrooms thinking loving thoughts about those who do evil. He does not mean for us to wait around the
kitchen table until the tide of evil forces overwhelms and swallows up our
whole neighborhood, our town, our community institutions. He does not mean hiding behind church
doors, shouting and singing while the neighborhood dies. No we can’t just nap while destruction
is happening all around us.
Overcoming evil with good is not a passive admonition.
We have to know what time it
is. It is the time for God’s good
news. It is the time for people to
know that we can live together in harmony. We can live together in love. It’s the time that no one any longer has to be trying to
dominate anyone else. People can
make a life without domination systems.
So if it was not real to you when you first got saved, then it needs to
become real to you now that God is not interested in just a little bit of our
lives. God is not interested in
just 10% of the church people to be part of the struggle. God is not interested in just a token
commitment. God wants the whole of
us. God want you, and God wants
us, and God wants you and me and us to be building the beloved community. That is the whole reason God made the
world and put us in it. God wants
to see that loving, just community come into the light of day.
Paul tells them to lay aside the
works of darkness. Now somebody
might try to twist the term darkness here and make out that dark is equivalent
to black, and that somehow blackness is opposed to God. But Paul was not talking that way, and
we know better than to fall into the trap of that kind of thinking. Darkness here is the absence of
light. Light is the beacon that
shines upon the realities of the world and reveals the truth. Darkness is the world hiding from the
light. What is hidden from the
light is afraid, is ashamed, is deceptive, is indifferent. But in the light of day, we have to
take a stand. We have to show who
we are and what we live for.
Paul says that the light is our
armor. Armor is our
protection. Bringing the truth
into the light of day is our hope, because Jesus himself is the truth. The love of God is the truth. People able to get along and treat one
another right is the truth. Enough
good gifts of God to feed and clothe and shelter everybody is the truth. Letting everyone have a good education
is the truth. Paying people a
decent, living wage is the truth.
Finding ways to keep people in their homes is the truth. Our armor is joining together in the
truth.
You or I alone might try to stand
up to the powers that be and get ignored.
But we are not alone. God
has put us together into a holy nation, a peculiar people. Together, in solidarity with one
another and with God, we can stand up to the powers and be heard. This is the heart of the labor union
movement. The people with the
capital, the people with the money—these people know that they need to organize
into corporate boards and chambers of commerce and political action committees
if they are going to make the world go their way. Their hope is that the workers and the average people will
stay disorganized. A labor union
exists to provide the organization necessary to stand up to the owners and
managers who want to be in charge of our lives. In a way, the church is a labor union of the
neighborhood. We organize together
and care for our neighbors with the intensity and capacity to be a union of
neighbors, loving our neighbors.
We join Durham CAN to operate as a union of people of faith and people
of commitment to press our theoretical public servants toward being actual
servants of the people. The union
makes us strong.
What time is it? Paul says we had better know. It is a time when people full of fear
are trying to shut down and shut out and shout down and shut up the voices of those
who are suffering. They are belittling
and humiliating teachers. They are
closing off access to voting. They
are shutting down jobs and taking them places where the poor workers have no
protections. They are refusing to
hear the cry of the poor. They are
warehousing the desperately unemployed in prisons. They are blaming the victimized and the marginalized for all
the social ills. They are shooting
down our children in the streets.
They are claiming that the 1% deserve to own half of all the goods in
the world.
We’d better know what time it
is. We have to lay aside the works
of darkness. The works of darkness
are many. Hiding out and believing
we cannot make a difference is one of the works of darkness. Get out in the light and stand for
truth. Being satisfied that we
have a home and a job and not caring about others is a work of darkness. Get into the light. Letting some misguided police (I know
it’s not all of them) continue to do whatever they have made it their habit to
do, just because they can get by with it, is a work of darkness. Pressing for reform is our armor of
light. Paul says don’t get
discouraged and drown your sorrows in drunkenness. Don’t go out and party because you think the world is going
to hell anyway. Get into the
light. Shine a light for God. Shine a light for justice. He says don’t take up the ways of the
oppressors and sink into debauchery.
Don’t say that since the world is all corrupt anyway, I will now join
the corruption of licentiousness, and consider that I have a license to do
whatever I “blankety-blank” well please. Being free from the law does not mean
that each of us can be a law unto ourselves. Let a light shine into that despair that wants to give up on
making things work, and let that light bring the hope of Jesus Christ who
showed us another way.
And don’t slip into the darkness of
arguing and quarreling with one another.
We can find a way together to move forward. It is the deceiver that tells us that it has to be my way or
the highway. Let the light of
cooperation and solidarity shine.
And Paul says don’t become jealous of who is getting the credit. If the Mayor or City Manager can bring
a change, then let them claim the credit, even if they did so only because we
pushed them and nudged them and scared them into doing it. If the Police Chief wants to turn
around and start policing in a fair and just and transparent and clean manner,
then let him have the credit, no matter how slow he was in coming around to the
light. If the legislature wants to
do right by our teachers and our voting citizens, let them have the credit,
even if they did it kicking and screaming in resistance to the flood of people
crying for justice. Let the light
shine above and beyond jealousies.
If justice is done, we don’t care who gets the credit. We know God is the one who gets the
credit.
So dress yourselves up to be the
image of Jesus Christ that the world needs to see. He did not count his own life above others. He did not let even the small children
or the disabled widows be disrespected.
He did not tolerate the poor being mistreated or the haughty and wealthy
acting proud. Paul says we should
get dressed in Jesus. Go to our
closets, pull out a hanger with Jesus on it, and put that on. Wear Jesus out into the wide
world. It’s a graphic image of the
deep theological claim that in his life and death and resurrection, we have
been united to Jesus. God has
drawn us into God’s own self. So
our image should be a beacon of God in the world. We are the Jesus the world an see. Jesus is the light of the world, and we keep on shining that
light. Be a light. Be a beacon. It’s a dangerous and troubling time. But it is a time ripe for goodness. The harvest is plentiful. The workers are few. We must work while it is day.
Drawing on the words of songwriter
Kyle Matthews (“My Heart Knows,” See for
Yourself, Benson Records, 2000.)
We’ve thought it through,
And we’ve decided
We’re sure of You,
Whatever happens to us…
Whatever happens to us.
And if you lead
Where there is no path,
Where there’s no way out
And no way back,
We will go where we have to go;
Give what we have to give;
Face what we have to face;
And we will live where we have to live.
Our hearts know where home is.
Our hearts know our home is with You.
The road is rough—
Our courage leaves us.
The way of love
Was never easy for You.
And it won’t be easy for us.
But If you’ll reach down
From time to time
And let us feel
Your hand in ours,
We will go where we have to go;
Give what we have to give;
Face what we have to face;
And we will live where we have to live.
Our hearts know where home is.
Our hearts know our home is You.
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