St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church
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Romans: The Words for Life Romans 12:9-21 August 28, 2005
1. All through this letter to the Roman Christians, Paul has emphasized "getting along." He started out reminding Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians alike that neither one of them had any room to boast – God’s plan included everybody. So they needed to "get along." Then he pointed out how the Law of Moses had been first given to help people get along – but that only made them realize how much they had sinned. It stifled them; it killed them. And nobody can get along when everybody is stifled. How can people keep from being stifled? "Get a mind." "Have the mind of Christ Jesus, and it’ll transform your whole life!" 2. This past week, we’ve [hopefully] done some major mind surgery. We have taken out all the expectations the world imposes on us, and replaced them with God’s expectations. And, just in case we aren’t 100% certain of God’s expectations for us, Paul gives us a little help in verses 9-12. 3. Brian Cavanaugh is a story teller whose books I’ve come to enjoy. He puts Paul’s advice in concrete terms. You many have seen his advice before in other forms, but it bears repeating. He says a family is like a garden. Whatever you plant in it will grow. Today may seem like a strange day to balk about planting gardens, this late in the summer, but it’s really not. There are summer gardens, and fall gardens, and winter gardens, and spring gardens. Different plants grow in different seasons, and we have to plant every season exactly what it is we expect to grow. And, if we don’t plant anything at all, or plant nothing of value, we will harvest nothing of value. We have rock garden by our front driveway. It has three levels, and could be absolutely stunning. But, because neither one of us are very good gardeners, and have more other projects than we have time to do them, more green weeds than colorful flowers grow in it. 4. Those of us who are even minimal gardeners know that planting is only one small part of gardening. Gardens take time and attention. Before you can even start planting, the hard top crust has to be turned over. And you have to do something that keeps the weeds from taking over and protect it from birds and squirrels and bugs. And they need the right amount of sunshine (one man always planted his tomatoes so they would get two hours of shade during the day. His friend said, "I didn’t know tomatoes need shade." The Man said, "They don’t, but I do!") And they need rain. The right amount of rain at the right time. 5. It almost seems like gardens are not worth all the time and energy. But when that first tomato is ripe enough to eat, oh, my goodness! Few things taste better than a tomato you grew in your own garden! Through the long bleak winter, Richard and I practically count the days until a little bit of red starts peeking through the green tomato leaves, and we can have REAL vine-ripened tomatoes. 6. Cavanaugh says, if we want to grow a R.E.A.L. family, we will plant R.E.A.L. stuff – Respect, Encouragement, Affirmation, and Love. To be more specific, we need to plant seventeen rows:
7. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? What if we pushed it a little farther? If Respect, Encouragement, Affirmation and Love grows a REAL family, would Respect, Encouragement, Affirmation and Love also grow a REAL church? You betcha! The same 17 rows that grow a family can also grow a church:
8. Let’s do it! Let’s plant a REAL garden, with the words for life, so we can harvest REAL families, and a REAL congregation! Sower's Seeds Aplenty, fourth planting, Brian Cavanaugh, T.O.R., Paulist Press, New York, 1996, p. 15 |
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