Waiting for the Revealing of the Children of God

Romans 8:19-27

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

         From this text today, I want to reflect on the phrase, “Waiting for the revealing of the children of God.” 

Back in April, it was not my day to give words of tribute to our pastor, teacher, and friend, Dr. Turner, on the occasion of his retirement from teaching at Duke Divinity School.  But as I begin, I want to offer thanks that are relevant to this sermon today.  I could make a very long list, but I will limit to three words of thanks.

There are many things that I have to thank William C. Turner for.  I have met pastors of Black Baptist congregations before whose first reaction to me was to be suspicious of what kind of angle this white man is playing.  I don’t blame them.  They have good reason to be suspicious.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least part of Rev. Turner’s reaction to me when I showed up at Mt. Level was to wonder just what I might be up to.  But whatever his range of thoughts may have been, his public and official reaction to me was never anything but care and welcome.

            Some of you may think I still have a ways to go on this next matter, but I have to thank him for teaching me how to preach.  I was at best a mediocre preacher in my experience up to the time I came to Mt. Level.  I found in our conversations that Dr. Turner and I had similar ideas about what a sermon should accomplish and how it should be structured.  But I had never had such a week-by-week training school of how to make the most of the divine opportunity of standing behind this sacred desk.  While I still have much to learn, my colleagues at Shaw tell me I have become a decent preacher over the years.  You all have had to endure my training, periodically sitting while I inflict my schooling in this craft.  And you all have been very good to help me understand when I am doing better, or maybe not so much better.

            But by no means least of all, I have Dr. Turner to thank for helping me to grow into a robust and rich understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit.  I explain to my students in theology class that I come from a kind of Baptists whose doctrine of the Trinity is weak, almost replacing the Holy Spirit with the Bible.  Dr. Turner’s writings on the tradition of the holiness churches and their relationship to the invisible institution of the black church before white people would allow free public worship by enslaved Christians—these have awakened me to a lively and powerful understanding of the Spirit’s work in the church.  His insights and guidance helped me not to ignore the way other theologians pointed me toward the Spirit’s work. 

            So today on the festival of Pentecost, the high holy day of the Spirit and the church, I cannot but stand before you to offer praise to God the Spirit who comes to us, pursues us, convicts us, calls us, fills us, and drives us onward toward God’s purpose for us.  We gather today to worship God who is Spirit, and we must worship in spirit and in truth.  We cannot come trampling the courts of our God who sees deeper into our hearts than we can see ourselves.  We cannot gather with pretense of self-righteousness before the convicting Spirit of God.  We cannot fast, cannot pray loud, wordy prayers, cannot try to impress others with our vocal expertise, cannot wear fashionable displays, cannot boast of our righteousness, and expect to please God who is Spirit.  We worship in truth.  We come and offer our righteousness as filthy rags before the Holy Spirit of God.  We humble ourselves to pray with pleading for the Spirit to fill us and guide us.  We gather in this sanctuary made sacred not by our feet, but by the Spirit who sets us on our feet every gifted day that we awaken into the world God has made.

            “Come, Spirit!  Come!” is our worship cry.  “Send the power!” is our plea to the God of heaven and earth.  Like the disappointed and confused, yet hopeful followers of Jesus in the first century, we bring ourselves together into one place, and behind closed doors we await the Spirit promised to us by Jesus.  We long to be nothing less than the very body of Christ, Christ’s presence on this piece of ground, a glimpse of the glory of God enlivened by the unction of the Spirit.  The church, the household of faith, gathers in the Spirit’s power to be the church, to be God’s people, the beloved community living as God created us to be, in fellowship with one another through our shared life in the Spirit.

            This is the festival we celebrate today, and it is good and right to seek to know how the Spirit works and leads us on a day like today.  The apostles found themselves surprised to know the way that the Holy Spirit would work among them.  Empowered by the Spirit’s movement, they served God in ways that they had not imagined.  The Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the festival also encountered the surprising work of the Spirit, hearing the preaching in their own languages from dozens of lands and locales in the known world.  Pentecost reminds us that no matter how much we thought we knew about God, God will still surprise us in the work of the Spirit.

            The texts for today include the story of the first Pentecost Sunday in the history of the church.  We have already acknowledged that story from Acts and will have it in mind throughout our worship.  However, I am focusing on the epistle for today.  It speaks to the kind of experience that the earliest church gathered in Jerusalem had faced as they waited for the coming of the Spirit with power.  Even though the first Pentecost of the church had happened during the first half of the third decade from the birth of Christ, what we might call the “30s,” Paul is writing more than two decades later about a similar pattern of experience in relation to the Spirit.  Yes, the Spirit had come at Pentecost with power.  Yet the Christians in Rome found themselves also waiting to see what the Spirit might be about to do. 

            This entire eighth chapter of Romans is a study of the work of the Spirit in the life of the church.  We cannot let ourselves try to create our own way of living, to be guided by our own desires apart from God’s transforming Spirit.  On our own, we will try to earn our place with God.  We will think God owes us something.  We will try to game the system and get over on God and one another.  But the Spirit lifts us out of this self-centered, selfish way.  The Spirit sets us free from sin and death.  We who are united to Christ and one another share in the Spirit.  The Spirit who enlivened the executed Jesus now gives life to our mortal bodies and to the corporate body of which we are limbs and organs.  As a people, we learn to listen for the Spirit’s voice.  The voice of the Spirit has not been isolated in any one of us, but each of us has the Spirit working to guide and shape our lives together as God’s people.  No one has a corner on the Spirit’s leadership. 

Thus, we all listen for the Spirit’s voice in one another.  We listen to the still, small voice of God calling for us from our inmost hearts.  We pray.  We study.  We praise.  We listen.  And often, we must wait.  Paul tells the Romans that in their time, during the fifth decade after Jesus’ birth, creation waits with eager longing.  Creation…that’s a big word, a big idea.  It’s kind of like a popular word from our era, the “universe.”  Creation means everything that exists that is not God, but which comes from God.  It is stars and planets, atoms and subatomic particles.  Creation is plants and animals, rocks and rivers.  Creation is food and drink, atmosphere and soil.  Creation is humanity in community, neighborhood and countryside.

So if our era of living is anything like the era of Paul the Apostle’s living, then we might conclude that also in our time, creation is waiting.  The land on which our sanctuary rests is waiting; the trees that line our parking areas, the grass in the cemetery, and the stones carved with our ancestors’ names are waiting. The timbers that were carted down from Granville County wait with eager longing.  The congregations worshiping across the street and down the road, the neighbors busy in their yards or homes, those sleeping in on a Sunday morning are all waiting.  The residents of Mill Grove who continue generations of family in this part of town as well as the immigrants from Mexico who found this neighborhood attractive and affordable wait with eager longing.  The workers at the Circle K, at the Bojangles, at the Waffle House, and at the Advance Auto Parts are waiting.  The worn out gravel roads, the boarded windows, the wrecked cars all in rows long to be set free from decay.  The poles that support power lines or t.v. and internet cables, the yellow stripes that divide lanes where we drive, even the deep pit where gravel is quarried wait for the revealing.  The new families who found a place to raise their kids off Hebron Road wait.  The hardworking folk who walk down our streets to reach the bus stop so they can go to work are eager.  The dogs and squirrels and cats and foxes and birds who live all around us—all creation is waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.

Are there any children of God in Mill Grove?  How will they be made evident?  What would make anyone believe that there are children of God here?  God made this world, this vast creation, with the purpose of building love and justice for all people, for all of God’s creatures.  In all our efforts and failures, we have not managed to live up to what God wants for us and our neighbors in this world.  Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church recounts our admirable history of serving God through more than a century and a half, and yet we read Paul’s words to the Romans and understand that creation is groaning in labor pains. 

There are labor pains in our neighborhood as flood waters rise through the sewer system into our sanctuary.  We wait for clean up of a mess and for proper repairs of a drainage system unready to handle the rains of the recent storm.

There are labor pains as teachers in our state, in West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado, and across the land, stand up together to tell the legislature and state school board that enough is enough.  Students need textbooks.  Schools need buildings repaired.  Teachers need to be able to afford a place to live and food for their tables.  How long will politicians prefer to pay more for housing prisoners than for teaching children?

There are labor pains in Santa Fe, Texas, near the home of your own daughter Lydia Broadway who found herself driving by ambulance after ambulance on Friday morning a children with gunshot wounds were being driven to the hospital down the street from her home.  All creation groans, waiting for the revealing.  Where are the children of God?  Where are the people who live as Jesus led them to live?  Where are those who love God and neighbor?  Where are they who bind up the wounded they find on the side of the road?  Where will they be revealed.

Paul says that even we groan.  We wait as a woman in labor.  The urgency can be overwhelming.  The possibility of what may come lies beyond a struggle that we fear we may not be ready to face.  We long for our adoption into the family of God.  We know that Jesus has come to us, that we have followed him, that he has saved us, yet we find ourselves longing for the fulfillment of all that it means.  We feel in our bodies the need for the fullness of God, of the Spirit’s presence and power, of the transformation from one degree of glory to another.

All creation waits, longs, groans, for the Spirit to set us free.  Free to be what God made us to be.  Free to live as God calls us to live.  Free to share our lives with abandon, with relentless affection, with humble service toward one another.  Come, Spirit!  Rule in our hearts today!

For many of us, the calling of Vision 150 has become a sign of the Spirit’s presence.  [Vision 150 is a plan to enlarge our church’s ministry in our community, including replacing a no longer structurally sound building with a new facility that will support more community ministries.]  We have grown into the vision, perhaps initially skeptical or doubtful, waiting for the Spirit to take hold of us.  We have seen signs of the Spirit moving in new ministries and in concern for the use of the land beneath us.  We have talked about the need to know our neighbors.  We have recognized that this corner of our town has needs that we may, perhaps, be strategically situated to be able to help meet. 

And still we wait.  We wait to see an adequate down-payment toward building a facility.  We wait for the future breaking of ground and the passing of a treasured but weary landmark as it is replaced with functional spaces for ministry.  We wait with all creation to see what will be revealed.

On the other hand, if we claim to be the followers of Jesus, if we have given our lives to our Lord, if we have the Spirit living in us, then part of what this letter to the Romans is saying to us is that we are the ones creation is waiting for.  We are the children of God, or at least we are called to be them.  God has touched us, laid a hand on us, filled us with the Spirit, and we are the ones to be revealed as the children of God.

All around us, creation is waiting to see if we will step into our calling.  Will we be friends with the people who live on Denfield, Monk, Ryan, Bobs, Todd, Teel, Weeping Willow, Rainmaker, West, Sun Dried, Felicia, Summer Storm, Justice, Shay, Graymont, Melanie, Geranium, Miller, Cozart, Swanns Mill, Genlee, Magnolia Pointe, Fanning, Lillington, and more and more and more?  Will we learn from them what kind of community they long to be part of?  Will we make partnerships with neighbors to see Mill Grove flourish as more than just the houses near a fast food smorgasbord?  Will we reach beyond to Old Farm, Argonne Hills, Danube, and Dearborn, where many of our Mt. Level family live?  Will we be among the voices advocating for a just and equitable plan for improving or rebuilding Oxford Manor?  Creation all around us is waiting to see what will be revealed in us.

And creation waits because it is not clear what is coming.  Too many churches have closed themselves to their communities.  They live far away, drive to their building, dress in their fancy clothes, get entertained, make networking connections, and leave, hoping never to have to talk to anyone who might be walking near their church building.  Many churches have revealed themselves to be the latest version of a social club or an entertainment center, but not to be the children of God who are following Jesus toward God’s purpose of beloved community.  Too many churches are satisfied to share a couple of hours of the week together, but want to be left alone to make their own friends and plan their own activities without concern for the people who live across the street or down the block from where they gather to worship God in the Spirit.

What will be revealed on this piece of land?  Will it be the revealing of the children of God, the ones who love the people they meet on the street, who are willing to make new friends for the sake of the one who they have promised to follow?  Will it be the children of this world who are mostly concerned with keeping up with the Washingtons or the Johnsons and watching their favorite shows and hiding inside their houses to avoid associating with the people they don’t even care to know?  What will be revealed?  All creation is waiting, eagerly anticipating, groaning for redemption and liberation.

We don’t see it yet, but we hope.  We hope, and we wait with patience.  And in our waiting, we already start to live the way that shows what kind of world we want.  As the teachers of nonviolence have taught us, the path to the goal must take on the character of the goal.  If we want to live in a loving world, then the path to get to it is to start loving right here as we walk toward it.  If we want to live in a world with justice, then we need to hunger and thirst for justice as we seek to bring it into being.  If we want to live in a peaceful world, a world of shalom, then we have to become peaceable people making peace with one another as we walk toward our goal.  The means must be as pure as the end.  The road to beloved community is to start building a community of love.  The path to a friendly neighborhood is to start making friends with our neighbors.  We live in the hope of what we are being called to be, but do not yet see.

The Spirit drives us to be the church that Jesus called us into.  The Spirit gives us strength to make new relationships.  The Spirit gives us power to change the character of our neighborhood.  The Spirit calls us to make our home to be the foretaste of the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God in this world.  In our weakness, the Spirit helps us.  Even when we don’t know what to do first, the Spirit is way ahead of us, praying in us and with us for the fullness of God’s purpose to be revealed in us.

All creation waits, and the Spirit is drawing us forward.  The Spirit is ready to make us into the very people God wants us to be.  The Spirit works within and around us to make things happen that we are not sure can happen.  The Spirit is transforming us to be the revelation of the children of God in Durham, on Hebron Road, on this soil and among these trees, on the streets and in the homes.  Will we heed the Spirit?  Will we walk in the Spirit?  Will we let the Spirit reveal to us and to our neighbors that we can be what God has called us to be?

What a day that first Pentecost of the church was!  Peter went far beyond his own learning to proclaim a new word.  He recognized that the prophets had expected a day when a great transformation would begin.  Whatever the barriers and limits that people had put on themselves, blaming it all on God’s will and God’s plan, the word coming from Peter and the apostles on that day said that God would be shaking things up.  The young and old would all be blessed to see what God can do.  The men and the women would all proclaim the world of God with power.  On that day, Jerusalem changed dramatically, and the change had implications for dozens of cities and regions and language groups for miles in all directions.  It was not a day for narrow vision or limited possibilities.  The Spirit was doing the kind of work that would free creation from its bondage to decay.  The labor pains were ending with the reward of transformation.  The Spirit was bearing fruit that would expand and continue for millennia into the future.

Can we join that movement here in our neighborhood?  Will we join the gospel band?  Spirit, guide us!

Lord grant us the capacity to listen to your Spirit, to wait for the guidance we need, and to step out in public to reveal that as for Mt. Level and our house, we will serve the Lord.  We will be the children of God revealed as the loving koinonia, the communion of sharing our lives and our goods and our gifts with one another for the good of all creation.  Lord, send your Spirit to fill us.  Spirit, change us.  Spirit drive us forward.  Come, Spirit!  Amen, and amen!

***********

Benediction:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.

Send forth Your Spirit; renew the face of the earth.

O God,

Who instructed the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit,

grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise,

and ever to rejoice in Your consolation.

Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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Organizing and Liturgy

At the end of the Durham CAN Delegates' Assembly last night, I gave closing remarks about how we move forward.  The overarching theme was linking liturgy, as the work of the people, to the continuing organizing to be done on policing, jobs, and housing.  Here are those remarks.

Hello.  I am Mike Broadway, Associate Minister at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church and part of the Clergy and Strategy teams of Durham CAN.

It has been some time since we have gathered in this kind of assembly to testify, to plan, and to make promises to one another about making our city and county more of what it ought to be, more filled with opportunity and a good life for all of its residents.  It has been 231 days, to be exact.  For me, it has been even longer.  After four and a half years sojourning in Central Texas, through many changes for me and for Durham, I’m blessed to be among you again as part of this great work of building power together. 

Many preachers have stood before you today, and maybe it seemed like a liturgical assembly at times.  While we preachers are only a small part of the leadership of Durham CAN, it is fitting that we think of this gathering as a liturgy.  The word liturgy means “the work of the people.”  It comes from an ancient Greek term that describes the duties that people in a city have toward one another.  Those with talent, with property, with power, with resources have responsibility to contribute toward making life in the community better for everyone.  Liturgy, not merely the words and actions we do in our houses of worship, is the work we are called to do for the good of one another, for the common good.  It is learning to use the power that God gives us.  It is not confined to a worship service; it expands into public service.  We are all liturgists—we are public servants.

This duty of public service also has deep roots in the story of God’s calling out a people.  Abraham and Sarah of old were told that God would bless them and their descendents.  Those blessings, however, would not be for clutching tightly and hoarding.  They would be blessed so that they could be a blessing to others.  Have you been blessed with a position of influence?  With ability to negotiate?  With connections and power?  With a job?  With a home?  With friendships?  Do you have energy to work?  Do you have a deep resistance to injustice?  In all these cases, you are blessed.  And remember, like Sarah and Abraham, you have those blessings so that you can become a blessing to others.

Today we have testified and poured out our hopes for our neighborhoods, for jobs, for housing, for living wages, for young people’s opportunities to learn and work—these are the liturgical prayers of the people.  In our conversations, we have made progress and promises with one another today.  That’s how we build our power.  We have agreed that the time when we could ignore unjust practices of profiling in policing will come to an end in our city, and we will work together to see that day.  We have taken a first step toward concrete progress, should I say frame, brick and mortar progress, on abundant affordable housing.  We have made plans to strengthen relationships across the community to make sure that our out-of-work neighbors have opportunities both now and in the future to train for, apply for, and to work in good, living-wage jobs.  These promises are just the beginning.  They are the confessions and creeds of the liturgy.  Having recited them, another powerful work of the people begins now.

Take the hand of the people on each side of you.  We made promises and agreements.  We are in this work together.  Turn to your neighbor and say, “I’ve been blessed.”  That’s right.  We’ve all been blessed, and we all have blessings to share.  Now turn to your neighbor again and say, “We have the power.  It’s time to do the work.” 

With thankful hearts for the seeds of justice planted in us, for the blessings we have received, for the Spirit’s powerful work among us, for the visions and opportunities ahead of us, let’s all go forth from this place and do the work of the people.  Thank you all, and good night.

Put On the Armor of Light

This sermon was first preached at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on September 7, 2014.

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 16^th-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.

Our hearts know, Lord.  You are our home.  So lead us now.  Lead, us Jesus.  Lead, kindly light.  Lead and we will follow.  Thanks be to God.  Thanks be to God.