September 6, 2020
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Last week we talked about love, Ubuntu Love which speaks about “I am because we are” and how the collective is part of how we move forward and find our best selves. Today we continue to focus on love, Love Part II, as it were. Love one another, love your neighbor as yourself, love fulfills the law. But this time we are focusing on the negative side of love. Let me explain.
We all remember these? Film negatives. Those strips of perforated plastics that captured the moments of our lives. The toothless smiles of our kids, adventures to foreign lands, anniversaries, and weddings. I remember packing 36 rolls of film in a protective bag as I traveled on a long journey because I didn’t want the x-ray machine to hurt my prized negatives before they could be turned into beautiful pictures. The amazing thing about negatives is that they record a scene in reverse- what is light appears dark and vice versa. They show the negative side of a moment as seen here. The dark suit appears almost white and the white dress is rendered in dark tones. The same happens when we add color, just with multiple shades. We find stark relief in the negatives of photography.
Paul’s words on love seemed to do the same thing. Throwing the commandments full of “You shall nots” in the middle of this moment urging love startled me. It echoes the love passage in Corinthians, “Love is patient; love is kind; (wait for it) love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13: 4-7). Why is it as we strive to talk about love we define it by what it is not?
There is a country music song that cries, “I may not know what love is, girl, but I know what love ain’t” (Eli Young Band). The chorus croons
“Love ain’t you on a sidewalk in your new dress all alone
Love ain’t you calling me ’cause he ain’t picking up his phone.”
Sometimes seeing the negative of something helps us to know more fully what the positive or the affirmative of that looks like.
Even the first word of this passage shows this contrast. “Owe no one anything except to love one another” (v. 8). The beginning of this chapter is about being subject to government authority and ends with paying what is due, paying taxes and revenue, paying respect and honor (v. 7). Then Paul moves from paying what is due to owing love! But this debt of love is not like a financial debt but rather an obligation. We are obligated to love those we encounter. It is not optional. The same way we cannot pick our neighbors and only love the ones who look and act like us. We are obligated to love them all. Much like Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Jesus showed us the perfect love so that we do not need to look for the negative to find clarity. Rather our own human failings show the negative all too easily.
Maybe that is why Paul turns to salvation next; our need for Jesus’ perfect love and the gift of salvation that God gave us when Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Once again, the stark relief is drawn into play. Paul contrasts sleep, night and darkness representing the present age and our human urges versus awaken, light and day as the moral living that love, and more specifically God’s love, can bring. Remember we love because God first loved us! Love is more powerful that drunkenness or sex or jealousy and quarreling. We are urged to put on the armor of light, to wear Christ, as we face whatever darkness comes.
Right now we have three big shadows looming over us; politics, COVID 19 and fire recovery.
Just two months out from the election, negatives are also defining our politics; disapproval ratings, death rates, character deficiencies. Yet as we have already seen what is a negative in one sense is a positive in another. Because we have only two candidates, whatever we see as a negative in one is also a positive for the other. There is a stark contrast between the two men running for president and what they bring to the table. Because of all the negativity of COVID and politics we now see our country, our Constitution, and our community differently. We see more fully the negative side of racial injustice, economic disparity, power politics, discrimination and not heeding science. But as we see our negative side as a nation, I hope we will bring our faith to bear and put on the armor of light, the hope of Christ, as we seek to move through this challenging time. As we see the darkness, we can also choose to look for and find the light and to embrace a gratitude for our ability to vote, to respond, to be active in our democracy.
It can be hard finding the light when we are experiencing COVID fatigue- the wearing down from all that it takes to be vigilant in this time of a pandemic. I know I have struggled with feeling down. But facing the immediate threat of a fire changed the anxiety around the pandemic. I have to say that things shifted when I was putting away the things in my go bag from the fire and then started packing a go bag for an earthquake. Now I know that sounds crazy. But I guess just accepting that as the fires retreated and the smoke cleared, I could prepare for something else, that I pray never happens, but it gave me hope. These big shadows will pass, there will be other things that come along and when we wear the armor of light it helps us to find hope in the darkness.
Our hearts go out to those who are dealing with the devastation of the fires and we continue to pray and look for ways to support our community seeking to be the light in the darkness.
Let’s go back to the strip of plastic with a negative imprinted on it. We need to take that negative into a dark room, a place where no light can enter, for something wonderful and beautiful to be made. It may feel like we are in a dark room right now, but once we process all that is happening, we will be able to see the fullness of love and light! Jesus is with us in our dark room processing with us as we work to bring to fruition a beautiful, radiant, colorful picture of what God calls us to do and be.
Jesus came so that we can be the people of light, creating with God a world where injustice does not stand, where hope is available for all, where truth is worth fighting for and compassion is the foundation of life. Then we will love our neighbor as ourselves, we will be wearing the armor of light and we will be shaping a picture of God’s divine love in our world. That is the picture that God wants to help us create. We can only create that lovely picture after we take the negative and move it through the trays of developing solution.
So when we come and break bread at the table, may the cup of salvation be like the developing solution that transforms us from all the negative that is going on, to bring out the beauty and perfection God has already seen and capture in us! God sees your negative and loves you still! God sees the contrast between what we want and what happens and loves us still. We are asked to love our neighbor because God so elegantly and profoundly loves each one of us! God’s love is perfect, fully developed and stronger than anything we face.
This is the Good News- Love is good news, good news is love and God is love. May we shine the light of the Good News and God’s love to everyone! Amen.
