Overcoming Evil

 September 10 2023

Romans 12:17-13:1-

         Tomorrow we will observe the twenty-second anniversary of what are called the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That is a day that none of us will forget. All of us can most likely remember where we were when we heard the news that a plane had crashed into the first World Trade Center tower. Such news was so unbelievable, so difficult to just figure out what had just happened. As we watched in horror at the smoking wreckage of the first tower, suddenly a second plane crashed into the second tower signaling that this was no random plane that had gotten off course but it was instead a deliberate act  of terrorism. The whole country listened and watched and cried at the appalling loss of life as firefighters tried desperately to save as many of those trapped in the towers as they could. As the day unfolded it was learned that there were two more planes that were part of the attack. One of these planes crashed into the Pentagon, destroying a large section of that building. The fourth plane, which was most likely aimed at the Capital building or the White House, was brought down near Pittsburgh by the brave passengers of Flight 93.

         So, yes, we remember. We remember that this is the day that our country was shaken to its core for its belief, that such actions just could not happen on American soil, was forever shattered. What I also remembered about that attack was the real difficulty that I had with the teachings of Jesus as they related to what had happened. I mean, Jesus could not be more clear when he insists in the fifth chapter of Matthew, that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you. I am thankful that Jesus also teaches us to pray in secret because at that time I am pretty sure saying a prayer for Islamic terrorists in the public domain most likely would have resulted in a swift rebuke from someone. Yet, Jesus demands that we love exactly the kind of people who caused such devastation and destruction. Jesus though, is not alone in his difficult way of dealing with our enemies because, as we just read, Paul is also adamant that we are not to, in his words, “repay evil for evil”. We are supposed to be people who do not seek vengeance on those who have wronged us but we are to, instead, leave the revenging business to God. So, as I turned to scripture in the days after the 9/11 attacks, I thought that there was never a time when I felt that I was out of synch with many others who had every intention of repaying this evil that had happened with a little evil of our own in the form of war on terrorism. And, I am also very certain that there were a large contingent of people in our country who in the days following 9/11, most likely had no intentions of loving these their Islamic enemies let alone praying for them. This was, I suppose, one of those times that the church calls a moment of crisis because here was a time when many of us had to decide whether we were really willing to follow Jesus as he has called us to do.

         As those who can state that we are going to live by the wisdom of the Bible, we have to decide just what are we going to do with these rather difficult passages that we find here in this letter of Paul. As Paul concludes his letter in the twelfth and thirteenth chapters, he is going into greater depth about something that he had written back at the beginning of the eighth chapter, where he states that the mind in the grip of the Spirit is life and peace. This, as we have said previously is a quote from the second chapter of Malachi, where we are told that the covenant that God makes with his priests is one of life and peace. Paul quotes this because he considers those who are servants of God to be priests to God. Last week, Paul wrote of the life that we as priests are to be living, a life that is lived as one body, the body of Christ. Collectively, those who make up the body of Christ are to serve in the Spirit so that by the Spirit our life together mirrors the very life of Jesus. As Jesus was a prophet, so too the body of Christ has those who prophesy. As Jesus served, so also the body of Christ has those who serve. As Jesus taught, so too teaching is found in the body of Christ; as Jesus comforted others so also we bring comfort and encouragement to those who need it. As Jesus so freely gave, we too are called to freely give. And as Jesus modeled the life God calls us to live, so also the body of Christ has those that model the life of Christ to lead us in the ways we are to live. Lastly, Paul says that the body of Christ is where one can find mercy, joyfully given.This is the life that is ours when we, as priests to God, allow the Spirit to orchestrate our life together.

         Today, we come to Paul’s teaching of the peace that is to be ours when we know ourselves as priests to God through the Holy Spirit. Paul, in the eighteenth verse of this twelfth chapter, tells us to use all the power that we have to make peace with all people. It appears that what Paul is doing in this section is echoing what he taught us way back at the beginning of the fifth chapter where he begins by telling us that since we have been justified by faith in the resurrection we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Here we can begin to see that this making of peace is in some way connected to our belief in the resurrection. We hear something similar in the teachings of Jesus found in what we call the Beatitudes, where in the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God”. This phrase, “sons of God”, refers to those who are assured an inheritance by their Heavenly Father. So, again, there is a connection between our willingness to be peacemakers and the resurrection. We begin to understand this connection a little better when Paul further goes on to say in the nineteenth verse of this twelfth chapter, that we are to, “…never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”. Paul here is quoting from the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy and the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, where it reads, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge …but you shall love your neighbor as your self.” You see, what Paul is saying is that we have to trust that God, through the resurrection, is going to bring forth the justice that all of us long for. This is exactly what Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of John where he says, “The Heavenly Father has given his Son the authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all that are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of Man and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” When we say that we have faith in the resurrection, of course it means that it is our hope of rising to new life in the new creation but faith in the resurrection is also our trust that one day God is going to set everything right. This is why our faith in the resurrection justifies us as being righteous because our belief that God will deal with evil means that we will no longer be tempted to use evil to come against the injustice that we encounter in our world. When we know that God is going to deal with the evil of our world, then we are set free from our demand for justice. We can now use all our power to the making of peace, the seeking of reconciliation and forgiveness. We can give our enemies food and drink all in the hope that doing so will change their hearts in the here and now so that they might not come under judgment in the hereafter.

         Paul goes on to say that we are not to rebel against the authorities which is most likely a warning to his Jewish brothers and sisters in this Roman church. The Jewish people strongly desired to throw off Roman rule. This is why Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they refused to know the ways of peace. So Paul warns them stating that the rulers and authorities had been given their power by God and they too would have to answer one day to God. The authorities, Paul tells us, have been instituted by God to be his servants who carries out the wrath of God against the wrong doers. So, while Paul considers the authorities to be servants of God just as he considers those whose minds set on the Spirit to also be his servants, the work God calls the authorities to do is much different than the work God has for the body of Christ. One way to think about this work is to think about how sometimes fire is actually used to fight fires, as strange as that might sound. This is like the work of the authorities, they use the fire, the violence of the sword, to keep the fire of sin and violence from bringing total chaos on the earth. Yet, while you can fight fire with fire, fire can only be extinguished by water. This is who we, the priests to God are to be, the water which extinguishes the fire of evil by overcoming that evil with good.

         So, as long as we continue to be about the working with God as he brings his good to bear upon an evil world, we must be people who don’t get caught up in the concerns of this world. Should we pay taxes even if those taxes support evil? Paul would say, “Yes”, only because our faith in the resurrection is our hope that God most assuredly will sort everything out in the end. So, yes, we can pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to those we owe taxes , revenue to whom we owe revenue, respect to whom we owe respect and honor to whom we owe honor.

         Lastly, we cannot forget that what we owe to all we meet is love for this is the fulfillment of the law. We know that everyone is worthy to receive love because of the cross where God so loved us that he gave up his Son for us. This is why we now have peace with God because while we were still enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.What is so very difficult for us is to understand that there was a time when God knew us as his enemy, that he looked upon us in the same way we look and feel about our worst enemy. Yet, the love of God would not allow God to simply write us off, but instead his love gave up the most precious gift in order to redeem us. Silver or gold is not what has redeemed us, we are told in First Peter, the first chapter, no, we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. So, now in this evil world, it is our turn to love others just as God has first loved us. This is the work that we are called to do when we know ourselves as being priests to God. We are to bring the love of heaven which has filled our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit, and allow that love to be poured out on our neighbor. When we speak of our neighbor we do not mean just the person who lives next door, but  rather the person who needs our love the most right now, right where we are at, no matter where we are at, this is where our love is to be offered even if that neighbor turns out to be our enemy. When we love we are law-abiding people because love fulfills the law and we can know ourselves as those who abide in the love of God.

         The point Paul wants us to make is that when the Spirit takes hold of our minds, guiding and directing us, then we are to do everything in our power to be at the good work of making peace. This work is difficult but it is far from being impossible. I know this to be true because I have witnessed the making of peace behind prison walls. I was part of a team of men who took the gospel message to a select group of inmates at Belmont Correctional over the course of a weekend. As a means of demonstrating God’s love to these men who felt that God wanted nothing to do with them, we took with us a dozen homemade cookies for each resident. Belmont has over two thousand inmates so, yes, we brought a lot of cookies, enough to fill a U-Haul truck. Well, at our worship service on Saturday night we focused on the need for the residents to forgive those who had wronged them. They wrote the names of all those who they felt had wronged them on slips of rice paper and, when they were ready, they were to come forward and place their slip of paper into water which dissolved their paper, symbolically washing away all of the old hurts they needed to let go of. Then at the end of the service each resident who was part of our weekend received a bag with two dozen cookies. These cookies they were told were not for them but were instead to be given to someone in the general population that they needed to be reconciled with. The cookies were to be given as a means for good to overcome evil. As you can imagine, this was tough work in a setting such as a prison yet it was amazing when we gathered together the next day, there were wonderful stories how God used those cookies and the willingness of these men to make peace right there at Belmont Correctional. After I had a chance to witness the power of this simple gesture many times there in prison, I thought to myself that this is something that ought to be attempted on the outside. So, here is my challenge to you; think and pray about who it is that you need to be on better terms with, someone you feel has wronged you in some way. Then get busy making some cookies or if baking is not your thing, go and buy some. Then go, go and knock on that door and deliver the cookies. That is all that is necessary to be a peace maker as God calls us to be. Making peace can be hard, perhaps the hardest work involved is to swallow our pride, but as servants of God we need to get on doing this work with every bit of our power that we can muster because being about the making of peace is what God has called us to do. We can only imagine what it would be like if people when speaking of us as Christians would say, yes, they know us, they know us as those people who work hard at making peace. Amen!

Privilege, Power or Priest

 September 3 2023

Romans 12:3-16

         With tomorrow being Labor Day, I can’t help but think of when I attended school. You see, for some of us, Labor Day was the official last day of summer vacation. Memorial Day was the beginning of our vacation, July 4^th was somewhere about the middle, and when the first of September came, the end was near. You see, this going off to school was part of who we were when we were young because this meant that we were to see ourselves as being students. For twelve years, being a student was not just something that we did but rather it defined who we were. When people would ask who we were we would often say that we were a student who attended such-and-such a grade at a specific school. So, for twelve years there was no question about who we were to know ourselves as being because along with all of our family connections we had a new identity placed upon us, that of being a student. And it was important that we started seeing ourselves as being students because if you knew yourself as a student then you also understood that students are supposed to study; that’s just what students do. So, over time, you were supposed to catch on that studying was to be expected and that there should not be any resistance when called on to do so.

         Well, this knowing ourselves as a student for twelve years or more, this is a great help in figuring out what it means for us to be a priest for God. This, after all, is what Paul is trying to teach us here in this twelfth chapter of Romans. This knowing that we are to consider ourselves to be a priest is a  theme that runs through this section of Paul’s letter. And not only are we to know who we are but Paul also begins this chapter by telling us that we are to know our God as being a merciful God. God’s mercy is his choice to give us life when we deserved death for our disobedience. God makes this choice out of his steadfast, faithful, love which has always loved us and always will love us whether we are obedient to do his will or not. So, because we know God to be a God of a holy love then we also know that we can trust God to provide everything that we need for life. As God’s treasure, we can be certain that God is intently focused upon what is going on in our lives. Our God is aware of what we need before we even utter a prayer. It is crucial that we have experienced our God as a God who is merciful because only then are we set free from the anxiety, worry and fear, that drive the people of our world. In our freedom, we are to be those who seek first the kingdom of God and be people who will pursue his righteousness. So Paul speaks here about the truth which Jesus told his disciples, in the seventeenth chapter of John, the third verse, where he prays, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” These first few verses of this twelfth chapter of Romans challenges us to ask ourselves just how well do we know God because our life in the age of the resurrection depends upon this knowledge.

         Well, Paul not only insists that we know with certainty just who our God is but in our section of this twelfth chapter for today, Paul wants us to consider just how well do we know ourselves? Just as when we were in school we had to know ourselves as being a student so too in this new life in the Spirit, Paul wants us to know ourselves as being a priest, a servant of God. When we know the tender mercy of God through which we have been given life instead of death then Paul says the only logical next step is for us to offer ourselves in service to this God who loves us. As a priest we are to offer up the desires of this earthly life, sacrifice them, so that the Spirit might reign in us and give us eternal life. Once we have experienced God’s love and mercy for ourselves, then we are to go and show to others the very same love and mercy God has shown to us. So, through us who are priests to God, the love of heaven finds a home here on earth.

         What comes next in this twelfth chapter of Romans seems somewhat out of place with what Paul has just written because Paul states that by the grace given to him Paul says to this little house church, “to not think of yourselves more highly than you ought to think but instead you should think with sensible thoughts according to the measure of faith that you had received”. Here it seems that Paul is referring to what he has previously written in the eleventh chapter, where, in the eighteenth verse, Paul warns the Gentiles to not be arrogant toward their Jewish brothers and sisters. Paul was reminding the Gentiles that they had become part of the story of the Jews not the other way around. The issue, as Paul will reveal later, was that the faith of the Gentiles was strong enough that they could eat the meat of idols with no hesitation. Their Jewish brothers and sisters though, refused to eat the meat of idols because this went against the warnings found in the Law. So, the Gentile contingent thought that because their faith was stronger then they were the ones with power. Theirs was a power-brokers mindset looking for what gave them an edge in their social circles and they felt that their faith set them apart from their Jewish brothers and sisters. The Jewish believers of course countered this claim of the Gentiles by stating that they were the real privileged people because they were the ones that God had given the Law and salvation was from them because Jesus was their Messiah King. So do you see how these two mindsets, being either a power broker or a privilege seeker wreaked havoc in this little house church? The problem was that both groups were looking for what set them apart or above the rest of the pack. It didn’t matter if it was their extraordinary faith or their cherished privilege of being one of God’s people, the problem was that they understood themselves as people who were above the rest, thinking of themselves as people who could look down on those who did not fit their criteria.

         What this church was supposed to do instead of thinking how to stand out from the rest was to think with sensible thinking, which sounds a lot like logical thinking which points us to the priesthood.  The faith demonstrated by the Gentiles as a sign of their superiority was really a gift given to them by God not to set them apart but to lead them into greater service, by helping those whose faith was weak to become more certain of the mercy of God. You see, what Gentiles and Jew alike had forgotten is that they were part of one body, the body of Christ. In the body, there can be no “us” and “them”, only, “us”. You see, the whole reason that we must first, present our bodies as the sacrifice necessary for life is that we have a new body, the body of Christ.  We are, as Paul tells us, “… though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” Now, what Paul says next is not that we have been given gifts but instead we have been given the Gift. Through out his letter, Paul speaks of the Gift which in every case refers to the Holy Spirit for he is given to us by the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus has poured out upon us. Here I believe that Paul is thinking of something that he has written earlier as found in the eighth chapter where he tells us that the mind with the Spirit is life and peace. This is as we know an echo from the prophet Malachi, the second chapter, where God speaks of his covenant with his priests, that it was one of life and peace. So, here in the twelfth chapter, Paul is describing this life of the priesthood that is ours when our mind is in the firm grasp of the Spirit. What Paul writes about is not individual gifts, but rather he is speaking about our life together in the body of Christ, where in the Spirit we know ourselves as priests to God. We know this to be true because when Paul speaks of prophecy occurring in the congregation, Paul states that the prophecy is given according to our faith. The faith Paul speaks of is the collective faith of the body for Christ. What Paul is saying here is that God is only going to reveal in prophecy what those of the weakest faith can believe in. As these who are weak in faith hear the prophecy of God and they believe in this truth and watch as the truth of God unfolds, this is when their faith will grow. So, God here is speaking to how the church is to work with those of a weak faith instead of seeing a person’s weak faith as an opportunity for others to look down on them. 

         Yet, not only does the Holy Spirit, in the midst of the congregation, bring about prophecy, he also moves others to serve those in need. The mind of the Spirit can be seen at work bringing forth teaching and words of comfort and encouragement for those who need lifted up. As people give generously and others provide a model of the life God calls us to live, again and again the mind of the Spirit is seen as orchestrating the life of the congregation, those who know themselves to be priests to God. And not surprising, Paul caps off our life in the body of Christ as being a place where people are willing to joyfully offer mercy which mirrors the mercy of God upon which this life is founded.

         As I read this description of a congregation whose outward activities stream forth from the inner working of the mind of the Spirit, it seems as if Paul has something more in mind than just a mere outline of our life together. Much like when you work on a jig saw puzzle, as each piece is put in place the image can at last be seen, this is what seems to be happening as Paul describes the body of Christ. We began with prophecy, and then added service, and alongside we placed teaching, and then we set alongside this, the activity of bringing comfort. Beside these we placed the actions of giving and the work of modeling the life that God expects of us. Lastly, we fitted into place the piece that brought our picture into focus, the action of joyful mercy. As we lay all of these actions together do you see what all these various pieces display? The answer is that they are a  profound picture of Jesus himself.  Jesus was spoken of as being a prophet and he would only reveal what his “little faith”, disciples could understand. Jesus said that he had come to serve and not be served. It is Jesus who taught on the hillside and along the way. It is Jesus who comforted the hurting and the sick, and it is Jesus who freely gave so those who received were told to freely give. And of course, Jesus modeled the life God expects of us calling others to simply, ‘Follow me”. Jesus, the very son of God, is joyfully merciful, going to the cross to offer us mercy all because of the joy that laid ahead of him. As we talked about it last week, the role of the priest of God is to bring heaven on earth. And just what should we expect when heaven comes upon earth? The answer of course is that when heaven comes upon the earth that this will look just like Jesus, who came from his Father’s side in heaven to walk upon the earth.

         So, Paul, in broad strokes, paints us a picture with the actions of those controlled by the inner working of the Spirit and the result is an image of Christ. Yet Paul goes further, and he speaks of what life will be like for those who now know themselves as being priests to God. Paul says that our love is to be real; there is no room here for faking it ‘till you make it. The love we give to others should be without hypocrisy. This love we are to show to others is the holy love of God, the love that desires the very best for someone else regardless of the cost to us. Of course this means to us that the evil of the world should make us sick and we should respond by holding on to what is good for dear life. This is probably a reminder Paul is giving to us that God is working in all things for good and we, as his priests, are to be working with him.

         As priests, we are to love others as our brothers and our sisters in Christ, preferring that they, and not us, receive honor. As those who are servants of God we should be on fire for him, enthusiastic about the work he has called us to do. We are to be joyous people because we have a living hope and in that hope we are people who can endure in affliction. Of course, as priests we need to be constantly in prayer, seeking always the will of our Father. We are to make sure that those who are a part of the assembly have all that they need and Paul says that we are to actively pursue showing hospitality to strangers. So, this real love we show is not just for the people just like us, it is also to be shown to those who are nothing like us so that through the love of Christ they might be a stranger to us no longer. And our love is not to extend outward just to strangers but we are also called to love and bless those who want to hunt us down and persecute us. Again, Paul says, as if we might have misheard him, we are to bless and not curse those who oppose us. Here Paul is quoting the words of Jesus, who in the fifth chapter of Matthew, the forty-fourth verse, taught his disciples that they were to, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” And this is what we will do when we have the mind of the Spirit because this is the very way of God. Paul concludes his teaching of the priesthood by saying that we are to, “Rejoice with those rejoicing and weep with those weeping, being of the same mind toward one another, not with a mind that thinks that they are better than everyone else, like that mattered, but instead, associate with the lowly”. Here Paul ends his teaching on the life of being a priest by ending where he had first began, telling the people of this church that they had better stop all of this thinking that you are somehow wiser than you really are.  They were to remember the teachings of Jesus who said, as found at the end of the tenth chapter of Mark, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all.” This is what this church at Rome had sorely forgotten that true greatness is found not by power brokering or privilege seeking but rather true greatness is when the mind of the Spirit leads us to be a priest to God. 

         And what about us? Are we ready to be truly great? If so, then do we really know ourselves as being priests to God? Are we certain that it only makes logical sense to serve the God who has chosen to give us a life instead of the death we deserve? If we are certain that, yes, our merciful God deserves our service, then let us allow the Spirit of God to be what directs our actions, and know ourselves as the priests that God longs for us to be!Amen!