The Radical, Humble Love of the Christian Ethic: Sermon for Proper 18 A

For the first 48 years of my life, the beginning of September meant sitting in a classroom. I spent thirteen years in public school. Then four years in college. Then twenty-seven years as a teacher, and two more in there as a sub. And then, even after retirement, I immediately spent three more years in seminary. The first September I wasn’t in a classroom was a disorienting experience indeed. I started a tradition then of reading a favorite book from my childhood during September—since I was usually sneaking favorite books of my own behind the covers of my textbooks anyway during my school days.

I hadn’t made up my mind yet as to which book I would re-read this year, but as I was meditating upon this week’s scripture readings, I was reminded of a scene in To Kill A Mockingbird, and so fate took a hand.

In the scene I am remembering, seven year old Jean Louise Finch, known as Scout, the young narrator, has just had an awful first day of first grade. She had been scolded repeatedly by her teacher, who had just moved to Scout’s hometown after taking her first teaching job. First, Scout got in trouble because she already knew how to read, and write—not just printing but in cursive!—and been told to tell her father not to read with her any more. Then she had further embarrassed the new teacher when trying to explain why a boy in class, Walter Cunningham, didn’t have any lunch and wouldn’t accept a loan for lunch. The Cunninghams were poor farmers in the midst of the Depression—but they would not accept charity or anything they couldn’t pay back. Rather than thank Scout for the information, her teacher puts her in the corner.

And the day got worse from there. By the end of the day—which also included her getting into one fistfight and two paddlings—she had decided she wanted nothing more to do with school. When her father sat down with the newspaper to ask her to read, she reluctantly told him the story of her day, and the prohibition not to read with her father any more, and begged her father, a lawyer named Atticus, not to make her go. Rather than respond directly to her pleas, Atticus, in his placid, down-to-earth way, instead tries to lead Scout from being angry at her teacher and all her other adversaries that day to being compassionate. He tells her what he calls “a simple trick” to being able to get along with a wide variety of people she will encounter in her life:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

It seems like nowadays we could all use a big dose of Atticus Finch’s advice, grounded in humility and concern for others. As my friend Brooke pointed out last week, such a willingness to learn the perspectives of others as being valid even if they don’t jibe with your own would be truly radical. As Brooke pointed out, one of the meanings of radical is “revolutionary.” But another meaning of radical is “from the root,” “foundational,” or “basic, down-to-earth.”

Today we hear in our epistle and in our gospel some radical ideas about love, compassion, and reconciliation. In our time of division these ideas seem revolutionary, but as disciples of Jesus, these guiding principles of a Christian life are meant to be the very necessary foundation to our lives as new creations in Christ.

On its surface, our reading today from Romans begins by talking about indebtedness, and seems to urge us to own no one anything, just like Walter Cunningham’s family in To Kill A Mockingbird. On the surface, the first verse we hear today seemingly talks about standing on your own two feet, and avoiding being indebted to anyone.

Or does it?

Because immediately after the statement about debt, there’s an exception made: love. We are reminded that there is one debt that we can never repay: the debt of love. In the original Greek, I have learned, there is a double negative in the opening clause, which basically says, “Owe no one nothing.” Now as all grammar nerds and mathematicians know, a negative times a negative equals a positive. Thus, we really owe each other everything. Because LOVE is everything.

Love entails obligation- but also support. Love involves risk-- but also reward. Love involves treating each other as if the other person’s happiness means more than our own, and hoping that love is mutual and reciprocal. When it’s not, we get the gospel reading for today. We all know people who claim that they love someone, and then treat that person horribly. We all know classic “takers” who strategically manage their relations with others so that they gain some advantage, and then discard that relationship when their purpose has been met, or when reciprocal expectations kick in. That’s not love, it’s ownership-- a transactionalization of relationship rather than a transformation of relationship that we are being called to here in this section of Romans.

And to be clear: the love we are talking about here is not a mere emotion, but a commitment and action to work for the good of someone else. The word used for this kind of love in the New Testament, and used over 115 times in the New Testament, is agape. It is not a love that keeps a balance sheet, calculating assets and liabilities, debts and payments. It is a love that is wrapped in the very real understanding of our mutual dependence and interrelatedness with others.

And it is a love that is the foundation of the Christian Ethic, or way of living and embodying our allegiance to Jesus. The verses we hear in Romans today actually form a unit with last Sunday’s section from Romans 12. If you recall, last week we heard the first part of Paul exhortations to the Romans about love as the foundational principle of Christian life. We heard:

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour.11Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.* 12Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;* do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;* for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ 20No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Bless those who curse you? Feed your enemies? Talk about being radical!

The radical love we are called to embody starts from humbly seeking understanding—from being willing to acknowledge the pains and perspectives of others honestly and with an open mind, that rarest of creatures these days. Just as Atticus Finch advised us all, the point of our epistle and our gospel is being willing to be humble, to be open to the perspectives of others:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Atticus’s wise advice echoes that of Paul and of Jesus here. Jesus urges us to never give up on trying to reconcile with and love even those who have hurt us. Paul advises us to learn how to love our neighbors, and get inside their perspectives, by first getting inside the perspective of Jesus—a Jesus who ate with tax collectors and Gentiles rather than writing them off as beyond redemption. That’s what Paul means when he talks about “putting on the armor of light.”

Paul and his generation believed that Jesus’s return was imminent. But when one considers that you never get back an hour once it is gone, it is urgent for all of us, if we are going to claim to be disciples of Jesus, to get on with being just that. Discipleship is a radical way of living in the world because it is based transformation rather transactions as way of measuring our relationships. On ceaseless pursuit of reconciliation, rather than revenge. The “armor of light” is, once again, love for each other, love rooted in our baptismal promises to honor the dignity and worth of every person. Not just the familiar. Not just the “good.” Not even just the repentant, as our gospel reminds us.

And here’s the magical thing about climbing inside the perspective of Jesus. Suddenly we can see the pain and the oppression our neighbors, especially those who exist on the margins of society, endure. When we see our neighbors through the eyes of humility, love, compassion, and charity, we determine to stand alongside them in working for true justice.

In gratitude for the love of God that sustains us and draws into a community—the community of faith, the kingdom of God, however you name it, we are called to love our neighbors as much as God loves us today and into eternity. Even when we or they do wrong, as out gospel reminds us. Even when we or they hurt others. So we love the Lord our God with everything we have, and we love our neighbors as if they were a part of our very own body—because they ARE. The illusion of separation and division is a seed sown from the hells that we put ourselves in when we start trying to wriggle out of the commandment to love each other without reservation, no matter how different those we meet may be from us in background, experience, or culture.

We owe it to our God, and to each other, and to ourselves, to love each other- even if we do that just by wearing a mask or washing our hands. Paul points out what Jesus stated when he formulated the great commandment: that all the law and the prophets boil down to one thing: LOVE. Loving God, and loving our neighbors. God IS love. That’s the foundation of our faith. And it’s radical. May we all be so radical—and so be rooted in the life of Christ.



Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 online service at St. Marin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 149
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20