We live in a time when many so-called Christians give Christianity a bad name through racial hatred, violent rage, and incongruous inconsistency. We have only to look at Charlottetown or even the White House. Yet this problem is not exactly new. Almost from the beginning, especially as belief in Jesus of Nazareth as God’s Son and the Messiah moved from the Jewish to the Greek world and beyond, an enormous variety of beliefs and activities ensued, some consistent with Jesus’ teachings, some not.
Already in his epistles, Paul is struggling with this issue, as Jewish Christians try to impose their views on the new Gentile Christians. And the development of the canon of Scripture – keeping some early writings and blessing them to be used for future generations, and rejecting others – was an attempt to address this issue of unacceptable belief and behaviour in the name of Jesus. Likewise, the early development of the episcopate, elders who are guardians of the faith and signs of unity, were an attempt to bring some order to this potential and sometimes actual chaos. And, likewise, early church councils that gave us our creeds.
The early church in Rome was no exception and it likely had bigger problems than small local churches scattered around the Mediterranean. It was the centre of the Empire where all nationalities, all religions and all social classes came together. Trade brought foreigners from afar, with their strange tongues and strange religions. Some became Christians. There were Jewish synagogues, temples of mystery religions, the official cult of the emperor, pagans from the north and new Christian churches reflecting this enormous diversity.
As one of the leaders of this early church in Rome, how does Paul hold them all together? Today’s epistle goes right to the core of Christianity: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” A simple piece of teaching then sums up all the laws: “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Paul teaches with a sense of urgency, for they were troubled times and some were falling away. He counsels the community to turn away from “the flesh” (Greek, sarx, flawed human nature) to “love” (Greek, agape, self-giving love, modelled on God’s love in Jesus Christ). “Owe no one anything but to love one another.”
When I first heard those words many years ago, I felt a sense of liberation: that this was a command to be creative, to find ways to love in difficult situations, giving permission to love difficult people, permission to love in ways that I thought appropriate even though some might judge me. It was a command to listen to people and get to know them and to see how one could be helpful. It certainly was a helpful teaching in relating with people of very different cultures. Within the church the command is mutual so that it also enables one to be comfortable about receiving love. And I am aware that over the years as a Christian, I have received a great deal of love from fellow Christians and still do. Trite as it is, for Christians, love does make the world go ‘round.
But how do we nurture this love? Let me make three brief suggestions.
First, we pray for one another and our neighbours, and even for those who wish us ill. Today we pray for those whose lives have been or are about to be upset by natural disasters – earthquakes in Mexico, hurricanes in the Caribbean and the United States, floods in south Asia, fires in western North America. We pray without judgement on anyone’s political or religious views. But we also pray for understanding of how our human activities might have accentuated or even caused some of these disasters.
Of course, we even pray for our enemies. I wonder how many of us have ISIS and the Taliban or political leaders we do not like on our prayer lists. Ever so often, I reflect on whom I am really not very happy with these days and add them to my prayer list.
As a parish, we are held together by prayer. Ever so often, praying, I work my way through the parish list. We have our parish directories. They can be prayer lists for us, building an unseen chain of love, as I mentioned to the children this morning. To pray for another is to love them. Of course, we do not pray judgmentally: not, “I pray for that stupid jerk who ran the red light and almost hit me.” We do not know what was on that person’s mind that caused him to run the red light. We just pray for him.
Secondly, we cultivate friendship, especially with those different from ourselves but also, and this can be more difficult, with those perhaps a little bit too much like ourselves. Freud wrote of conflicts caused by the “narcissism of small differences” – how can be thrown into anger and hatred by the ways someone like ourselves reminds us of our failings and thus buttresses us in our narrow identities. Cultivating friendship requires the will to do so and an interest in listening. Listening is a skill and sometimes needs developing. (We cannot say, “I have already heard your story, I don’t want to hear it again. Rather, we listen again, more carefully.) We all need someone to listen. We all have the capacity to listen. Listening says to the other person, your story is valuable, I want to know it. We do not listen because we want to gossip afterwards, though that can be a temptation. Our goal is to see others, indeed to see ourselves, as God sees us. God listens endlessly; we are called to listen endlessly, even if the listening makes us cross or confuses us.
Today we have called “Welcome Sunday” both to welcome back parishioners who have been away over the summer and to welcome new parishioners and visitors. We shall gather in a community meal afterwards and all are invited. The tradition of gathering to eat after worship is an ancient one, the “agape feast” of 1 Corinthians which ran into some problem that Paul had to correct. It has been a source of renewal in the church, for example, in early Methodist love feasts. For us, it is a time to share food and listen to one another. I would encourage you to sit with someone you do not know so well and listen to their story.
Finally, sometimes Christians sin and such sin can badly affect the life of the community, as today’s Gospel illustrates: how Matthew’s community understood Jesus’ teaching about resolving unloving or destructive behaviour in the community. I think Jesus’ words here must be read as having gone through the lens of the church discipline of Matthew’s community but that does not blunt the direction of the advice: talk to the person privately, then with a small group, then expulsion or some form of restriction. The church over the years has tended to follow this advice, though sometimes too strictly, sometimes not strict enough. As modern Anglicans, we have recoiled from being too judgmental about people’s personal lives and areas such as smoking and drinking, not wanting to set up rules. Yet, our reluctance to criticize has sometimes made us overly innocent, for example, when we do not believe a priest could abuse children. All our new child protection protocols are necessary and valuable and reflect the direction of today’s Gospel in saying there are some situations that are intolerable to the community.
But we do not want a church that is primarily about judging each other’s behaviour. If that happens, harmless and even good behaviour come to be seen as suspicious. We are called back to the epistle, “Owe no one anything but to love one another” and “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Those commands build up the church and our relations with our neighbourhood and the community.
Finally, who is our neighbour? In this global world of Facebook and Twitter, our neighbour may be thousands of miles away, in any part of the world. But our neighbour is also still those who share our street or apartment building and the stores, restaurants and pubs we frequent. Our neighbour is those we work with professionally or with whom we are in social relationships. The neighbour is our family, those we are most intimate with. But our neighbour is also the stranger, the Welcome Baby mothers and staff, the other groups that use our space, those who come to us for assistance of one kind or another. Indeed, the apartment buildings and hospital that surround us are our neighbour. And in our relations with all, the command is the same: “Love your neighbour as yourself” and “Owe no one anything but to love one another.” How to implement these commands is the challenge.
Before our community “agape meal”, we shall gather at the Eucharist. For us as Christians, it is the meal above all meals, related to the Jewish Passover meal we hear about in the Old Testament reading today, for it unites us with God and one another, strengthening us for the tasks of love we are called to do. Let us come to this sacred meal with hope, bringing the great network of friends that we all have to the altar, including both our accomplishments and failures in love, and, having received Christ’s body and blood, let us return to the world strengthened and encouraged to do the work of Christ’s love in the world. “Owe no one anything but to love one another”. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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