Called to Love
Called to Love
Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20
September 7, 2008
This was going to be one of the shortest, simplest sermons I’ve ever offered.
Paul went on at great, complicated, theologically dense length in his letter to the Romans, but he sums up his thought quite clearly and succinctly in this 13th chapter: “everything comes down to this: love your neighbor as yourself because love is the fulfillment of the law.”
In Woody Guthrie’s great, “Rolling Along,” there’s a verse that goes something like this: the preacher folded his papers, took up a collection and said I’ll have to be rolling along.”
Love your neighbor as yourself. Church all does come down to that. Church really is all that simple … and church is all that hard.
Now, if I was simply to say, “amen” at this point and then sit down, some of you might be mighty pleased that we finished up with church so soon. Others of you have come to expect a little more out of church than that.
And you all will have noticed that I keep repeating the word “church.”
You see, that is what I take as the key and central element from the readings this morning. In Matthew, Jesus uses the word Ekklesia – church – for the second and final time in all of the gospels. Ekklesia is actually a political term drawn from Greek democracy. It comes from a root word meaning to call, and might best be translated as “those called out.”
The church has always been about call, about the voice of God speaking in and through and to us as we gather trusting that where two or three of us come together there we will be also in the company of Jesus – the one who calls us to follow.
We are the ones who have been called. Called, then, to what?
Paul puts it bluntly, “love your neighbor.” Jesus situates that call within the body itself: deal lovingly with one another always, even and especially when you disagree.
I’ve been pondering this call, this challenge over the last couple of weeks. Y’all all know that I am a political activist; some near and dear to me might say rather that I am a political junkie. So the prospect of back-to-back national political conventions in the year of a wide open and historic presidential campaign is, for me, something akin to getting the keys to the Ghirradeli shop would be to a chocoholic.
On the other hand, given the tenor of so much of our political discourse these days, the more apt metaphor might be “a pig in slop.”
For partisan politics at this moment in our nation’s history is nothing if not full of slop and mud; anger and vitriol. Whether it’s from the Right or the Left, there is way more heat than light emerging from our politics these days. As a proud, life-long liberal, I would like to be able to point the finger at conservatives and say, “you caused this.” But then one look at most any liberal blog forces any honest broker to confess that the log in my eye is problematic, to say the least, and at least as troubling as whatever is in the eye of the other guy.
This mutual blindness to one another is the scandal of democracy in our age.
And that is both a great problem for our society and great opportunity for our church.
You see, as Laurel Dykstra writes in this month’s Sojourners, “Conflict in the church is not a scandal or a shame; rather, living that conflict, together in love, has been the work of the church from its beginning.”
The coming of the kingdom, it seems to me, is not about reaching some point of final agreement on everything.
In fact, that sounds deadly dull to me. Wherever there is human imagination at work there will be new ways of doing things introduced, and wherever there are new ways of doing things introduced there will be conflict. Inertia is not only a law of physics; it is a law of human behavior. Moreover, when two or three are gathered, not only is Jesus in our midst, but at least two or three personalities and egos and work styles and personal preferences are involved. Thus, there will be conflict.
At the beginning of the book of Acts, that account of the earliest days of the church, it says that the disciples were all in one accord. That’s not a reference to a circus act – you know, clowns in a Volkswagon, disciples in an Accord. No, it names a rare moment of agreement, but you do not have to read much further in Acts to find those very same disciples in sharp disagreement about strategy, direction and creed.
The inbreaking of the kingdom then was not about the absence of conflict and the inbreaking of the kingdom in our time will not be about the absence of conflict either, but rather about the presence and power of love to guide us to just resolutions of the inevitable conflicts that will arise when two or three are gathered.
This is the great good news that we have both as a treasure to be tended to in our common life, and as the gospel to share with the world.
It is a treasure to be tended in our common life because we are entering this fall into a season of discernment and refocusing of our mission. I anticipate some disagreements and conflict along the way as we decide together how best to use our time, talent and treasure to further the goals of the kingdom in our community and in the wider world. Our challenge is not to avoid disagreement or conflict in this journey of discernment, but rather to be obedient to Christ’s call to love one another even and especially when we disagree, when we behave disagreeably, when we irritate one another or get on each other’s nerves.
To the extent that we are obedient disciples – to that extent and no further – we are light and more light for a world that dwells in deep darkness. Because when we are obedient disciples we love one another even in the midst of conflict, we practice merciful kindness even when we disagree, we strive to do justice even when we don’t see issues from the same perspective, we walk humbly with God even when we feel that our egos are at stake.
And when we do this – when we stumble ahead by fits and starts but stumbling together, picking each other up when we fall, supporting if not agreeing – when we do this we become a city on a hill.
The city – the polis, in the Greek, the heart of politics – the city, then, is what is ultimately at stake in our being together as church. The city, that gathering together of folks from all over, striving to make connections, is broken in so many ways these days. We are called to tend to that brokenness, to insist that all those who live in it are neighbors whom we are called to love, to be bread broken for a broken world.
In that spirit, we gather at this table, to share in the brokenness of our Lord. Amen.
Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20
September 7, 2008
This was going to be one of the shortest, simplest sermons I’ve ever offered.
Paul went on at great, complicated, theologically dense length in his letter to the Romans, but he sums up his thought quite clearly and succinctly in this 13th chapter: “everything comes down to this: love your neighbor as yourself because love is the fulfillment of the law.”
In Woody Guthrie’s great, “Rolling Along,” there’s a verse that goes something like this: the preacher folded his papers, took up a collection and said I’ll have to be rolling along.”
Love your neighbor as yourself. Church all does come down to that. Church really is all that simple … and church is all that hard.
Now, if I was simply to say, “amen” at this point and then sit down, some of you might be mighty pleased that we finished up with church so soon. Others of you have come to expect a little more out of church than that.
And you all will have noticed that I keep repeating the word “church.”
You see, that is what I take as the key and central element from the readings this morning. In Matthew, Jesus uses the word Ekklesia – church – for the second and final time in all of the gospels. Ekklesia is actually a political term drawn from Greek democracy. It comes from a root word meaning to call, and might best be translated as “those called out.”
The church has always been about call, about the voice of God speaking in and through and to us as we gather trusting that where two or three of us come together there we will be also in the company of Jesus – the one who calls us to follow.
We are the ones who have been called. Called, then, to what?
Paul puts it bluntly, “love your neighbor.” Jesus situates that call within the body itself: deal lovingly with one another always, even and especially when you disagree.
I’ve been pondering this call, this challenge over the last couple of weeks. Y’all all know that I am a political activist; some near and dear to me might say rather that I am a political junkie. So the prospect of back-to-back national political conventions in the year of a wide open and historic presidential campaign is, for me, something akin to getting the keys to the Ghirradeli shop would be to a chocoholic.
On the other hand, given the tenor of so much of our political discourse these days, the more apt metaphor might be “a pig in slop.”
For partisan politics at this moment in our nation’s history is nothing if not full of slop and mud; anger and vitriol. Whether it’s from the Right or the Left, there is way more heat than light emerging from our politics these days. As a proud, life-long liberal, I would like to be able to point the finger at conservatives and say, “you caused this.” But then one look at most any liberal blog forces any honest broker to confess that the log in my eye is problematic, to say the least, and at least as troubling as whatever is in the eye of the other guy.
This mutual blindness to one another is the scandal of democracy in our age.
And that is both a great problem for our society and great opportunity for our church.
You see, as Laurel Dykstra writes in this month’s Sojourners, “Conflict in the church is not a scandal or a shame; rather, living that conflict, together in love, has been the work of the church from its beginning.”
The coming of the kingdom, it seems to me, is not about reaching some point of final agreement on everything.
In fact, that sounds deadly dull to me. Wherever there is human imagination at work there will be new ways of doing things introduced, and wherever there are new ways of doing things introduced there will be conflict. Inertia is not only a law of physics; it is a law of human behavior. Moreover, when two or three are gathered, not only is Jesus in our midst, but at least two or three personalities and egos and work styles and personal preferences are involved. Thus, there will be conflict.
At the beginning of the book of Acts, that account of the earliest days of the church, it says that the disciples were all in one accord. That’s not a reference to a circus act – you know, clowns in a Volkswagon, disciples in an Accord. No, it names a rare moment of agreement, but you do not have to read much further in Acts to find those very same disciples in sharp disagreement about strategy, direction and creed.
The inbreaking of the kingdom then was not about the absence of conflict and the inbreaking of the kingdom in our time will not be about the absence of conflict either, but rather about the presence and power of love to guide us to just resolutions of the inevitable conflicts that will arise when two or three are gathered.
This is the great good news that we have both as a treasure to be tended to in our common life, and as the gospel to share with the world.
It is a treasure to be tended in our common life because we are entering this fall into a season of discernment and refocusing of our mission. I anticipate some disagreements and conflict along the way as we decide together how best to use our time, talent and treasure to further the goals of the kingdom in our community and in the wider world. Our challenge is not to avoid disagreement or conflict in this journey of discernment, but rather to be obedient to Christ’s call to love one another even and especially when we disagree, when we behave disagreeably, when we irritate one another or get on each other’s nerves.
To the extent that we are obedient disciples – to that extent and no further – we are light and more light for a world that dwells in deep darkness. Because when we are obedient disciples we love one another even in the midst of conflict, we practice merciful kindness even when we disagree, we strive to do justice even when we don’t see issues from the same perspective, we walk humbly with God even when we feel that our egos are at stake.
And when we do this – when we stumble ahead by fits and starts but stumbling together, picking each other up when we fall, supporting if not agreeing – when we do this we become a city on a hill.
The city – the polis, in the Greek, the heart of politics – the city, then, is what is ultimately at stake in our being together as church. The city, that gathering together of folks from all over, striving to make connections, is broken in so many ways these days. We are called to tend to that brokenness, to insist that all those who live in it are neighbors whom we are called to love, to be bread broken for a broken world.
In that spirit, we gather at this table, to share in the brokenness of our Lord. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
6:43 AM
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