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Love – Fulfilling the Law

September 4, 2005

by Rev. Rodgers Spencer

We have nearly completed our series on Romans. We hope this series has been helpful to you. You may not realize it but the facts are that over the centuries this letter has had a profound impact on the church. While it would be so fascinating to know the immediate reaction of the church at Rome to this letter, we do know the impact of this letter on such persons as St. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Karl Barth. Some would even consider this epistle that most important theological book written. That is strong stuff.

Paul’s general theme for these final weeks of this series deal with the ethical responsibilities of those being saved. Chapter 12 began with the consecrated life, "present your bodies as a living sacrifice:" followed by the exhortations that "love should be genuine:" and "bless all persons, live peaceably, and overcome evil with good."

The first part of this chapter deals with our relationship to the state and then Paul turns to how a person can fulfill the law.

He begins, "owe no one anything." Well, if you are a credit counselor that might sound like good advice. However, if you are the head of the Credit Department of a Bank, you might want to qualify that statement.

Of course, Paul’s economic society and today’s economic society are worlds apart and where would our economy be without credit? Plastic credit cards seem to make the economy grow.

I knew a couple who, some years ago, had saved enough for a down payment on a new house. They had two incomes, no children, no debts, yet had trouble getting a mortgage because they had no credit history. They paid cash. But there was no history of their paying of debts since they never had any. They were told go out a buy something, on credit, and then pay it off. They did and bought a car so they could show they were credit worthy.

Were Paul living and writing today, I don’t know how he would have begun this sentence, ‘owe no one anything’. I just know that we cannot take the first part of this sentence alone. We also must consider the second part which is; "except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law." Paul isn’t concerned with economics but with personal relationships.

The debt of love cannot be repaid. "Owe no one anything except to love one another." On the surface this sounds like good practical advice. Which it is.

But there are those would agree with this love but only if you are white, Anglo-Saxon. Then we might love you. All others need not apply for love. If fact all other better get out of that persons way. For a so called "Christian Nation" there are way too many hate groups in this country. From border vigilantes to neighborhood and school violence to spray painting of graffiti or epithets we see the signs of their lack of love.

If one could only take a magic wand and wave it over society and cause all this anger to disappear what a wonderful world it would be.

We have witness this week tremendous acts of love there can be no doubts about that. But we also witnessed acts of utter and complete frustration and anger.

The love [agape], which is the word Paul uses here, is hard and must be worked at all the time. It is neither glamorous Hollywood nor casual friendship. It is a self-giving for the enrichment, benefit of another. Paul calls for the difficult task of real love and concern for real people whom we met in everyday life, and not the theoretical love for humanity as a whole.

Neither Paul nor Jesus offered any quick and easy solution. Consider the parable like the Good Samaritan and the Father with two Sons. These illustrate just how hard it is to do the loving thing. Not impossible just hard.

We know what the rules and regulations are, but we also know that at a patricidal time, the most loving action that can be taken might be to ignore those rules. I was reading of David McCullough’s 1776, and more than once he conveys the idea that persons were torn between loyalty to their mother country, England, and loyalty to their present situation. What was the loving thing they should do? From the distance of some two hundred years the answer might seem obvious. But at that moment it was hard. In even more dramatic way this was played out during our Civil War.

Even within the life of the church it is hard to do the loving thing at all times

We know the rules and regulations yet we feel that we need to be more accepting of those who hold values which might challenge the values which we hold.

If only the solution to that were easy then much of the tension within the church and within society would vanish or at least not be at a volatile stage.

The few areas which Paul does identify as to where we need to be more loving are limited to the commandments and I see his list as being suggestive and not exhaustive, he concludes with this word ‘Love you neighbor as yourself."

In our service of worship you will note that following the prayer of confession there is the assurance of pardon and then I often say, "as God’s redeemed and forgiven people remember what our Lord said: Love the Lord with all you heart and with all mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself."

Historically Calvin saw the Law as giving guidance as to how we were to live. Therefore, it follows the prayer of confession. Luther, on the hand, would read the law before the confession, as basically saying, we have not lived this way, therefore confesses. Calvin said - having confessed, now live this way.

This of course fails to answer the basic question, "what is the loving thing that I am to do at this moment." Often we feel we are left on our own to decide.

I heard at two examples this week of persons or groups seeking to do the loving thing within their power, only to be told, no, the rules don’t allow you to do that.

Mat I suggest that the beginning of the answer to that question "what is the loving thing to do" is to be found here at this table. We must first accept the love that God offers us as shown in this sacrament, before we are able to show and share that love with others. To put it another way, if we need to fill our own bucket with God’s love, so we can fill someone else’s.

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