The Fulfillment of the Law

 

                             “…love is the fulfillment of the Law.”
                             --Romans 13: 8 -10

Why is the world so angry these days? Why is America so angry? Why are Christians so angry? And why are we all so reflexively defensive? It seems to me that part of the problem is we have forgotten how to love, and forgotten what love looks like, how love acts, and what love costs. A man gets shot and instead of coming together in sorrow and compassion as a nation we start pointing fingers, Democrats desperate to blame Republicans and Conservatives righteously blaming Liberals! Each side bitterly blaming the other. A husband and wife are brutally murdered (possibly by their own son) and our president posts cruel self-righteous messages about how the victim brought it on himself. After a school shooting, instead of coming together in solidarity to protect our children each side reaches for a camera to start broadcasting vitriole and reasons why the other side is responsible for another unimaginable nighmare, another empty seat around some poor family's table. Why is it that we aren't coming together? Why are we treating each other this way? What has happened to us as a nation? As a society? As a people? It's like we are just looking for enemies? Why aren't we treating each other with love?
Perhaps we just need someone to remind us what that is... and what it looks like.

Here at Christmas time we often get quite caught up in the whole sentimental baby in the manger with lovely clean sheep hovering about, breathing their sweet warm grassy breath over the rosy cheeked, pink and freshly swaddled infant. This image of Christmas with its gentleness and radiant beauty can distract us from the truth—Love is hard. It requires sacrifice. It demands patience. And it can be exhausting…and risky. When we are expecting something tender and sentimental, we may be utterly shocked by the truth-- the wood of that manger inevitably leads to the wood of the cross. It’s unavoidable. Love makes us vulnerable, and that is very uncomfortable. Something we (by instinct) avoid at any cost. And yet, here at Christmas that is exactly the image of Christ we are presented with. A newborn child, helpless; the God who is Love lying in a manger, dependent for food and warmth upon His own creation, the comfort of His mother's breast and the warmth of her flesh holding Him close. The rough fingers of his carpenter "father" gently lifting him to change a diaper or at least the straw that makes up His bed.

Love makes us vulnerable, and that is always uncomfortable. And Love maes demands upon us, demands we too often might rather avoid.

But, as Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, “love is the fulfillment of the Law.” The Law is capitalized here because it refers not just to human laws but to the Law of God (as found in the Torah). Think about that; Paul is telling us that all those rules found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—all those hard and fast regulations—boil down to one thing: Love.

Paul gives us three wonderful lessons at the end of Romans that—if we take them seriously—will utterly change the way we treat each other. Especially anyone we might be tempted to call our enemy. First:

                             “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, thus sayeth the Lord.” (12:19)

This tells us that getting revenge (or getting even) is not our business; that belongs to God.

Second:

                            “If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat;
                             if thirsty, give him something to drink.
                            By doing this, you will heap red-hot coals on his head.” (12:20)

Hence, if we begin to think of someone as our enemy, we now know how God wants us to treat them: with generosity and compassion. This is what Love looks like... The answer isn't revenge, the answer isn't cruelty or meanness, but generosity and compassion. Of course, we might think this is just the old "Kill them with kindness" ploy, but is there something more to it? Is the strangeness of this lesson not just about how we treat our "enemies" but how we transform them (and ourselves)... By heaping red-hot coals of generosity and kindness upon them, we might change their hearts... But, more importantly we might change our own. It is hard to hate someone you are caring for, harder even to see them as an enemy when you see their hunger and thirst and their need for help, for compassion, for Love. It seems that the Law of God is asking us not to harden our hearts against our enemy but to become even more like Christ as we approach them. To see them not with the eyes of politics or nationality but with the eyes of Jesus.

Which leads me back to this:

                             “…love [truly] is the fulfillment of the Law…” (cf.13:8-10)

Why do Christians so quickly forget these essentials? Especially in a time of conflict? Whether it is personal or social or even international, what is it about these simple lessons that eludes us? Why does their obvious meaning fade so quickly when our eyes are clouded by anger and resentment?

Let us ponder this as we approach the celebration of the birth of God’s Love made flesh. This whole turn the other cheek, feed the hungry, care for the sick, visit the prisoners, clothe the naked, care for the vulnerable and the outcast thing isn’t just some liberal agenda run amuck. It is the fulfillment of the Law of God. And it is our call as Christians, as the Body of Christ we are called to live it, to embody it, to love our enemy and bless those who curse us, to give ourselves away, and by so doing to give our flesh to the Love of God. To let God’s love shine through our words and actions we must abe willing to allo the wood of the cradle to reveal the wood of the Cross. This way of life, this way of Love –it is the salt we are called to be for the earth; it is the Light our faith must shine in a world frightened and lost in the darkness of hate.

It is the Law and the Law is Love. What kind of blessing will you become this Christmas? And who will you bless? If you are still looking for a way to shake up your holiday season, let that become your Advent prayer.

Right where we belong--some thoughts on the act of reading Acts

 

“He spent the whole of the two years

in his own rented lodging. He welcomed

all who came to visit him…”

--Acts 28:30

 

This is describing how Paul was being held for trial in Rome.  It sounds kind of like he was under house arrest. I love the phrase: in his own rented lodging.  It sounds so cozy and cheerful. Something out of a British children’s book about a badger, a mole and a well-dressed bear off for a seaside vacation. But what caught my attention was the “two years.”  It is the second time within a few chapters that Paul has been held somewhere for 2 years  (stemming from the charges brought against him by the Scribes and Sadducee and his arrest in Jerusalem [cf. 21]). The implication is that Paul spends at least the last 4 years of his life in captivity: first in Caesarea (cf. 24:27) and then in Rome. 

 

Because the phrase was repeated, it caught my attention. At first, I wondered whether “two years” might be a symbolic length of time.  Something like the idea of Jonah being “three days” in the belly of the whale, or the Jews wandering in the desert for “40 years” or Jesus fasting in the desert for “40 days.”  Most scholars, theologians, preachers seem to treat those numbers as symbolic; possibly just meaning “a long time.”  But, as far as I can tell these “two years” in Caesarea and two more years in Rome have always been read in a literal sense.  Paul was in captivity for 4 years (in addition to travel from Jerusalem to Rome, plus getting shipwrecked and spending a few months in Malta).

 

Anyway, that is how I read scripture—some odd detail catches my attention, and off my little brain goes like a cat chasing a lizard (that was brought in with the potted plants from patio because of the freeze…just saying…).  BUT… this is how scripture reads me.

 

As I was sitting there cogitating over Paul and those two years, I found myself suddenly remembering a strange remark that Agrippa made to Festus (no—not the guy from Gunsmoke). At the end of chapter 26, Agrippa says:

            “That man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”

Which sounds strangely like they are saying: If only Paul hadn’t made that rash appeal to Caesar, he could be free and on his way.  If only he hadn’t been so foolish, if only he hadn’t been so ridiculous, he could be a free man.  But, because he did, now he has to go to Rome and –well, you know what happens there...

 

And now I am suddenly thinking about how it all must have seemed so ridiculous and wasteful.  Two years doing nothing in Caesarea, followed by two more years “doing nothing” in Rome, and –in the eyes of the world—it was all due to Paul’s bad choice; his mistake. If only he hadn’t appealed to Rome.

 

Because of Paul’s rash choice he is forced to curtail his missionary travels and waste these valuable years in a holding pattern.  At least that is what it looks like in the eyes of the world. But, in God’s eyes, it is quite a different thing all together.  Paul is right where God wants him to be. He is doing exactly what God wants him to be doing. He is spreading God’s message of love and salvation to the world—even as he is held in custody. First, sharing it with the local officials and their households in Caesarea (Agrippa, Festus, Felix, et al), and then to the whole world through Rome, where he will be held and then finally (as tradition has it) put to death. Nothing glorious, nothing especially noteworthy, nothing particularly honorable about any of this; and yet, many would say, he changed the world.

 

How often do so many of us find ourselves contemplating those wasted years, those bad choices we made, haunted by a series of “if only” thoughts. If only I had studied harder in school. If only I had gone to law school. If only I had passed the bar. If only I had passed any bar… Sorry, Griffs! If only I had bought Apple when it was $2 a share.

 

If only Paul had not appealed to Rome…

 

But the lesson I learned from those two years with Paul in Caesarea and again in Rome is this:  being a beloved servant of God is not about being right.  It’s not about making “right choices.” It’s about being beloved. We are not defined by our mistakes, or by our successes—in the end, we are defined by the love of our Creator.   And we are called to live in that love, and to be a sign of that love for the world.  And that is exactly what we see in Paul, wherever he was, whatever situation he found himself in, even awaiting his own execution, he was being a beloved servant of God—and, like his master, he was welcoming all who came to him.

 

So, you see, this is how reading scripture works on me.  Even while I am busily distracted by some minor detail or some repeated phrase, foolishly chasing after some strange “two years,” the Lord is there in His love and planting seeds –casting them carelessly onto the soil of my soul.  Some falls on rocks, some among thorns, but other on rich soil where it will bloom, thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold. The trick is remembering He’s not only in charge of the seeds, He’s also in charge of the soil.  Like Paul, wherever you find yourself—in sunny Cancun, or without water and electricity in a frozen Houston suburb-- rest in that love and make welcome all who come.

 

 

Peter's mother-in-law: more than just a joke

“Then the fever left her and she waited on them…”

--Mark 1: 29-39

How often have I heard a homilist (or jokester after mass) comment with some sense of irony on this brief passage about Peter’s mother-in-law.  Countless times I have heard the wry note that this poor woman must get off her death bed to wait on the men. Isn’t that the way it always is! The poor woman can’t even take a sick day! Heck, the implication goes, Jesus only healed her because the men wanted her to fix them something to eat.

            And yes, there is humor to be had here, especially on Super Bowl Sunday.  Therefore, before I go to far, let me first say: men –get your own darned chips! And make your own queso. And when it’s time for the game to start, ask your wives (and mother-in-laws) if they’d like to come sit down and watch the game with you --while you wait on them. 

And maybe during the half-time break, instead of watching Justin Timberlake undress anyone, maybe you’ll take a break and ponder the day’s readings.  There is much to consider her, definitely much more than a simplistic little joke about gender stereotypes.

Hearing these three readings together (Job, 1 Corinthians & Mark) I was left with a picture of our call to serve.  First there is that reading from Job 7:1-4; 6-7 that reminds us of the misery and emptiness one feels when suffering alone.  Job (perhaps like Peter’s mother-in-law) loses hope in his suffering. He even senses that he “shall not see happiness again.” Struggling with a long and seemingly meaningless illness one can lose hope (by golly, some of us lose hope after a couple of days with a cold or a sore throat! And some of wonder whether we will ever see happiness again when the guacamole runs out before the chips!!! Aargh! The horror—the horror…  Why is this happening to me? Why has the Lord turned against me? And why have the Patriots just called another time out???  Please Lord, don’t let Tom Brady have a wardrobe malfunction?

Then there is the reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (9:16-19; 22-23) in which he proclaims that he makes himself “…a slave to all… becoming all things to all, to save at least some…” and this he does “for the sake of the gospel…” that he too might have some share in it.  What does that tell us? Well, here’s what it says to me: It’s not about you [Herman Sutter]!  It’s not about whether you look good in the eyes of the world or whether you seems successful or even whether you get a fair share of the chips and queso!  It’s about the gospel of the Lord. It’s about spreading that gospel in whatever way and however best you can. And that may look different every time, and with every different person you meet (and serve).  Sometimes you will need to be weak, and sometimes you will even need to be a slave in order to serve the Lord’s gospel. But why? Because, as Jesus says near the end of Sunday’s Gospel reading, “For this reason have a I come…” This is the reason we are here. This is our mission. Our vocation. Our call from the Lord: to preach the gospel.

  And when the Lord touches us, when He takes our hand, we no longer want to lie in bed, we no longer want to bemoan our sufferings, when we feel His touch, our soul responds; and I think that is what Peter’s mother-in-law is an icon of. Wen Jesus touches her, she immediately gets up and serves. Like Paul, she becomes a servant for the Lord, that she too may have a part in His gospel, and in the spreading of His love.

So, when you hear someone make a joke out of this verse from Mark’s gospel, perhaps you will remember –it’s a lot more than that.