So Far As It Depends On You

Romans 12: 9-21 Marianne Niesen August 28, 2011

I often give a little introduction to the scripture before sharing it. And, though this text definitely needs some introduction, the first thing I invite us to do is to simply listen. Listen to the words, feel the flavor, relish the intent of Paul’s letter. Then, we’ll talk. So, from the 12th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans . . . (12: 9-21)

Beautiful. Powerful. Inspiring. All of those words could describe this text. In many ways it reminds me of Paul’s famous ‘love text’ in 1 Corinthians 13. That’s the ever popular wedding reading that begins if I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Then it proceeds to list all of the things love is and is not (you know, love is patient and kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude) and ends with and now faith, hope and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love. Of course, just about every time I read this text at a wedding, I delight in telling the couple and the wedding guests that, though it is a nice text for a wedding, Paul did not write those words with a wedding in mind. He was writing to ordinary Christian people who were having trouble living peacefully together. His words were not meant as lofty reflections on romantic love but were rather meant as a practical formula for how to get along – with love – as they were called to do by Christ. That, of course, is about as much as one can venture to say at a wedding since people aren’t there to listen to a Bible study. After all, love is in the air! The practicalities of living it out – not so much.

Well, today’s text is very similar to the one from 1st Corinthians and since we aren’t in ‘wedding mode’ today, it is an opportunity to scratch a bit deeper on what was most certainly a theme for Paul, that great missionary apostle to the gentiles. Let love be genuine . . . love one another with mutual affection . . . do not claim to be wiser than you are . . .if it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all . . .overcome evil with good. The ‘sound bites’ are multitude here! And the advice is practical. Its power becomes even more apparent when we explore to whom he was writing, when he was writing it – and why.

First thing to note – we were not Paul’s target audience. He was not writing for ‘posterity.’ He was writing to real flesh-and-blood people, living in Rome at a particular time in history. And, you don’t need to be a scripture scholar to know that he wasn’t writing to all Romans. No – most Romans at the time could have cared less about a letter from a Jewish-Christian guy named Paul. His letter was narrowly focused and addressed to God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints. That meant to those Romans who were ‘Christ followers’ or Christians. It was a small group. And it was the mid-fifties. That’s important. In the year 54, a new emperor had come to power and his name was Nero – you know, Nero of throwing-Christians-to-the-lions fame. But, that would come later. When he took over from Claudius, one of the first things he did was to rescind an ‘expulsion order’ that Claudius had imposed on all Jews. In the late forties, after an uprising among Jews, probably sparked by their objections to Christian preaching in the area, Claudius had decreed that all Jews had to leave Rome. They were a bad element. Nero allowed them to return.

Now, stay with me here! The vast majority of Romans worshipped Roman gods and acclaimed the emperor as god. The Roman emperor was the lord of lords, king of kings and savior of the world. Jews, of course, took issue with any earthly king claiming divine sovereignty. We saw that in Jesus. So Jews were highly disliked in Roman society and emperors loved to persecute them. They were the ‘mosquitos’ of the Roman Empire. Christians were hardly on the radar yet. Enter Paul – a Jew, a Roman citizen and a follower of Jesus. When Paul began his preaching in Gentile territory, he brought his message to Jews and to ‘pagans’ (or Gentiles) and to a group of people called ‘god-fearers.’ These were gentiles (whether Roman or Greek or whatever) who were attracted to Judaism but who had not become Jews. (They were attracted to the ethics and moral code of Judaism but didn’t follow dietary laws or want to be circumcised.) The early Christian community in Rome was a conglomeration of all of these people. There were Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians and God-fearer Christians. Confusing? Try this…there were Republican Christians and Democrat Christians and Tea Party Christians and Independent Christians and Me-God-and-my-Horse Christians and a few I’m-Spiritual-But-Not-Religious Christians thrown in for good measure. And when the Jews were expelled from Rome in the mid-forties, the Jewish Christians had to leave right along with the others. So, when Nero let all of the Jews return, tensions rose. There was that whole conglomeration of pagan and god-fearer Christians who got to stay in Rome suddenly thrown back together with the Jews and Jewish Christians who returned, very likely wanting their homes and businesses back and very likely resentful of the situation that got them thrown out in the first place. And all of these folks were seen - and treated – as enemies by the faithful Roman-empire people.

Here’s what is important about all of this . . . when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, he was writing to very real, very human people, who were thrown together in a cauldron seething with unrest and threatened with persecution. His words were not the stuff of theoretical hope and idealistic beauty. “Them were fightin’ words.” Indeed, survival-insuring words. A practical formula for living in a hostile environment with people you weren’t too sure about!

Dear Christian friends, I don’t care what your background – Gentile, pagan, Jewish – work to get along with each other. I know some of you were exiled and some got to stay. It wasn’t fair. Choose every day to get along anyway. Extend hospitality to strangers – that means, to each other! Practice living the love Jesus taught. Do your part. Life is not always fair. Deal with it – not by getting even but by being good. By doing good.

If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. That is the line that really captured me. So far as it depends on you. Paul clearly knew that many things in their lives were beyond their control. That is always true in an empire. It is also true in our day and age. Aren’t there times when you wonder how on earth things are going to get better? Whether it is about our economy or impacting world peace, most of us feel quite small. Just like those Christians living in Rome. There was no Vatican. There were no bishops or clergy. There were no churches or rule books. There wasn’t even a New Testament. There were just ordinary people who heard in the Jesus message hope and promise. There were just ordinary people who heard Paul say so far as it depends on you . . .do not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good . . . so far as it depends on you . . . do not be haughty . . . do not repay evil for evil . . . hold fast to what is good. So far as it depends on you . . . Those were not ‘high-fallutin,’ theoretical words. They were practical every-day-living words because indeed, though not everything depended on them, some things did. Some things always do. They had to figure out how to live together, with people with whom they disagreed in hostile environment. And so it is with us. So far as it depends on us, we too can choose to live transformational, authentic lives of faith – and most often, it does need to be a choice. It does not just happen – you may have noticed that disagreement abounds still. Life in our empire is still challenging.

On this Heritage Sunday, we honor those who, for 50 years or more, have lived out a faith commitment here at St. Paul’s. And, we honor those who, for 50 years or more, have lived out a faith commitment wherever they’ve been. Fifty years is a big deal and I am grateful to all of you have been faithful these many years. So far as it depended on you, you made the daily choices that added up to fifty years or more of faithfulness. And, in the end, that is the challenge for us all. Most of us will never get a fifty-year membership recognition. But, we can all achieve the so far as it depends on us benchmark that is absolutely essential if we are to be the transforming presence in the world to which Jesus called us and to which Paul challenged us. That, you see is the heritage of Christianity. There is a lot we cannot control in this world of ours but we can make daily choices to live peaceably with all. And, if every Christian in the world did that, imagine the difference! If every Christian chose compassion rather than vengeance as a response to hate, imagine the difference! There is much we cannot do, but - so far as it depends on us - if we each made the daily choices to do what we can to get along, we will live the heritage of love and grace that Paul holds out for us all.

I think it is wonderful that we celebrate a baptism today at the 11 a.m. service. Baptism is when we proclaim that so far as it depends on us we will live in such a way that our children will grow up surrounded by, inspired by, empowered by the vision of Jesus. Of course, that involves teaching them but mostly, if we’re honest, we know it involves showing them by our own action that we really believe this stuff about not repaying evil with evil and showing hospitality to strangers and loving one another and living peaceably and all the rest. The great preacher Fred Craddock tells this story . . .

(Because of copyright restrictions, I cannot include the story in its entirety. It concerns a conversation with the father of a newborn baby at a rural country hospital. The chaplain observes that, though the baby is crying, she is OK. The father says he knows that and then observes that he things the baby is ‘mad.’ When the minister asks why, the father explains . . .

“Well, wouldn’t you be mad? One minute you’re with God and the next minute you’re in Georgia.”

The preacher asks: “You believe she was with God before she came here?

He said, “Oh, yeah.”

I said, “You think she’ll remember?”

He said, “Well, that’s up to her mother and me. It’s up to the church. We’ve got to see that she remembers, ‘cause if she forgets, she’s a goner.” [1])

I love that description of what parental and church responsibility is all about – helping us remember who we are and whose we are. And, as Paul knew, we do that best by how we live and how we love. It’s not easy – never has been but it is our task. Our call. May we each commit to do what we can, so far as it depends on us, to live peaceably, with love, in this fractured world of ours. Without such commitment, to use the words of our Georgia friend, we are all ‘goners.’