“Defining the Law of Love” Romans 13:
8-14 September 6, 2020
Last Sunday’s sermon was about a
difficult situation. Peter was giving
his heart to the Lord, but did so in misunderstanding the plan of God. He did it out of love, but the result was
Jesus telling him “Get behind me Satan.”
This is why understanding what Jesus did for us is SO important. Especially as His witnesses to the
world. It is one thing to say “Love your
neighbor as yourself”, and this morning, we have a guide on how to do
that.
Paul quotes several of the 10
Commandments. That is why we read them
first. To this day, they serve as the
beginning and summary of the law, a checklist of behavior from the Old
Testament to our time. It is God’s given
law.
Paul references four of the last
commandments in his passage today; adultery, murder, theft, and
covetousness. It is connection to Jesus’
own teaching of the law, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
How Jesus summed up the law, “Love
God and Love Neighbor” bears directly on the 10 Commandments. The first five begin with “I am the Lord Your
God…”, explaining Love God… to the second portion, including the “shalt nots”
(from the King James language), explaining love of neighbor.
When Jesus commanded “Love God and love
neighbor”, it summed up the whole law, and the 10 Commandments in
particular. What Paul gives us this
morning is how we live out the plan of God, how we apply love to our lives. He is bridging for the church in Rome the 10
Commandments to their summary from the teachings of Jesus to how the Romans, in
that moment, can be guided in how life is to be lived in Christ. For Paul, we owe everything to God and ought
to owe nothing to each other, except that we love one another.
Why does he push on this point? The answer is in verse 11, “salvation is
closer to us now than when we became believers.” Jesus is closer to His return than when they
became believers. Paul’s urgency comes
from the belief that Jesus’ return could literally happen at any moment. This is the hope that drives his
writing. “You know what time it is,”
Paul says, “You are woken up.” “The
night is far gone.” “The day is almost
here.”
Using the language that Jesus is the
light of the world, Paul presses the metaphor, “put on the armor of
light”. Because it seems like life in
Rome was a party. For Paul, how do we
live life? Well, it is “not in
reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in
quarreling and jealousy.” One thing to understand is that
Paul has not yet been to Rome. This
letter is serving as an introduction of who he is to them. Paul seems to be addressing the stereotype, Rome
had a certain reputation of being “sin city”, how every religious practice of
the empire, from the worship of the God of Wine, to Eastern sexual practices of
worship, to the inter-religious struggles for the faith of the people. Paul is cutting through that to speak of
the right worship of Jesus in love.
Hurricane Laura reminded me of a
current version of ‘a city with a reputation’.
We just passed the fifteenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina wiping out
New Orleans. Fifteen years ago, some
Christian commentators argued New Orleans deserved what it got because it was a
modern ‘sin city’. Some described New
York City in the same way after Hurricane Sandy. It’s not new.
So Paul’s letter to Rome is to
people who are surrounded by such behaviors as they seek to follow Jesus, as
they try to answer the question of HOW they are meant to give their hearts to
the Lord. Paul breaks it out in two
ways. First, by laying out how love is
the driving force of the law and of their behavior. The second is to press the urgency of the
mission because the Messiah is expected back very soon.
The second part of that message is a
tough sell today. The longer Jesus has
been away, the harder it is to sell a sense of urgency to His return. The law of love is far more straightforward,
seeing how the law of loving your neighbor as yourself works out in the Ten
Commandments. You love someone, you do
not murder them. You love your spouse,
you do not commit adultery against them.
You do not steal from them. You
do not get jealous because you want their stuff. That is not how love works. But it not simply about what we are NOT
supposed to do.
What do I mean? If you love someone, you do not murder
them. I hardly think it is an admirable
claim to say that I gave my heart to the Lord because I did not kill
somebody… If that were the measure, most
of the world would be pretty awesome. Jesus
gives us a much better sense of how love connects to this commandment. In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5,
Jesus says, ‘You have heard that it was said to
those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be
liable to judgement.” 22But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you
will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or
sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you
will be liable to the hell of fire.”
Jesus goes on to other commandments, tightening up their
requirements as well. These are usually
interpreted as demonstrating how we humans CANNOT follow the law, proof that we
need the forgiveness that comes in the salvation granted in God’s plan for us
through Jesus.
But I would suggest that these
verses, and the others like them in the Sermon on the Mount, in the context of
Paul’s words today, point at something even more profound. Loving neighbor is not just not murdering
them, it is not being angry with them-but we get angry, so love calls for us to
work out our anger toward our neighbor.
We are not to insult them or resort to name calling-so love calls for
respect of neighbor. How many
politicians would like to claim Jesus has endorsed them personally, but fall
far short of this most basic standard of behavior?
Each commandment could be its own
sermon on how to love neighbor. Let’s
focus on one from Jesus’ words in Matthew, ‘thou shalt not murder’ is expanded
upon. Jesus says, “If you are angry with
a brother or a sister, you are liable to judgment.” On the other hand, Paul says, “Get angry but
sin not.” And on the other hand, Jesus
expresses anger. I think Jesus was angry
at Peter in our passage last week when he said, “Get behind me Satan.” He was definitely angry when he drove the
money changers out of the temple. But
Jesus does not end at anger.
Rather, Jesus begins with anger, but
how does that work out? Anger unresolved
leads to insult, insult leads to calling people names, all of which makes us
liable for judgement. How does this lead
to murder? Watch the news. A seventeen-year-old kid carries a machine
gun among unarmed protesters and then claims fear for his own life when he
suddenly “has to” shoot them.
Anger is an emotional response,
which is not sinful in and of itself.
Sin enters when we act on that emotion.
No emotion is immune. Feeling
love can lead to jealousy and even hatred when it is not returned. But return to anger. The potential for anger to turn to sin is
huge as anger often provokes an unconsidered response. How quickly can we get angry and then say
something we regret? That’s
insulting. Or a heated debate reduces to
name calling?
Read the Sermon on the Mount, see
how Jesus deepens how love should lead us through his discussion of other laws,
such as committing adultery, such as ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth’, such as making a promise, to the extension of the command to love our
neighbor as something that includes even our enemies. In the second half of Matthew 5, it feels
like Jesus is making impossible demands on us.
But it is more than that. Jesus
lays out how it is that we are to translate specific pieces of the law into how
we then live them according to the principle of ‘love thy neighbor’.
So what happens when we fail? And we will.
That is part of the free gift of salvation Jesus offers us through His
death and resurrection. We fall short in
loving neighbor? We are freely forgiven
by the Lord who loves us. Gives us the
chance to try again, to get a fresh start.
That
is the guidance, even the motivation, for giving our hearts to the Lord. There is not a life we cannot touch for the
better. There is not an opportunity we
should pass by that would allow us to use this beautiful thing we have been
offered, salvation, to pass along the light of Christ.
To follow the guidance that we must
love one another as our ethical compass is no easy thing. It is too easy to codify the process and lose
the love in the process. Love motivates
the code of do’s and don’t’s, but then it becomes its own idol. Do this, you are okay for my church, do that,
and, sorry, the door is closed, may it not hit you on the back in the name of
Jesus as you leave.
Took me a second to realize, but I
just did what Jesus warned against.
“Christian” rules that become more important than love, they make me
angry because they hurt people. So I
wrote about it, adding my own little biting comment at the end-an
insult-because I believe life is more complicated than a simply list of
rules. So I took a moment, asked
forgiveness, and did not change the wording, because it so fits the message of
the day.
Understand that when someone tells
me I should not do something “because the bible says so”, it makes me
pause. Because the Bible says a lot of
things. Rather, the rule of thumb about
not doing something should be ‘does it defy loving one another’? That is the principle that should guide our
Bibler reading.
I think that is why Jerry Falwell
Jr. gets such huge headlines for the things he has been accused of. The ethical standards of Liberty University,
based in the more fundamentalist wing of the church, are so ‘in your face’, it
feels like the Bible is used as a tool to spank the sinner, not as an
instrument of love. The perception of
hypocrisy then splashes his own sinfulness all over the news.
I think that is why we can get so
stuck on how to ‘share our faith’. The
cultural stereotype is ‘believe in Jesus or else’. But our faith is far richer, far more
textured than that. Where there is love,
there is Christ. When our hearts are
motivated by love, there we can offer our hearts to the Lord. If we make that connection.
The first question to ask as a
Christian is not “What do I need to do?”
Rather, it is more fundamental, “Why will I act in love?” Paul takes us to the law, to loving neighbor
as ourselves, as his starting point, which is fine as a primer, as a ‘how to’,
as a way to get started. But even more
basic than that, consider these points:
I love because Jesus first loved me.
I was a sinner and, by love, I am forgiven. Jesus loved me so much that He gave His life
for me. Jesus loves me, this I know, for
the Bible tells me so.
May the love we show as we offer our
hearts be empowered by the love Jesus
has for us. Amen.
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