Today, we are beginning a brand new message series that we’re calling Cornerstones. We are going to take five weeks to look at the bedrocks of our faith. This week will be a bit of a continuation of our last message series that looked at St. Paul’s letter to the Romans because we will again be focusing on today’s second reading which is from the Letter to the Romans.
St. Paul writes: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).
St. Paul says that as Christians we have a single ongoing and unlimited obligation
to love one another, because Christ has loved us first, last, and eventually radically. The Lord loved us radically by laying down his life for us on the cross. We are who we are because God loved us first.
It was God’s love that moved the universe into being. He didn’t create the world because He was lonely and needed something to do. God loved so God created. God loved so God created us and knitted us in our mother’s womb. And then when we sinned and fell short of the glory of God, God loved so God gave his only beloved son. The active powerful love of God created the world and then redeemed it.
In light of this love that we have received, St. Paul says we have an obligation to love others. No one likes feeling obligated, because it sounds like a burden. However, what he is referring to is not so much something on us, but something from us.
As the love of God is poured into us by his generosity, we pour that love into others. Not based on will power but based on God’s power.
From a grammatical sense, love can be a noun or a verb. St. Paul uses love here as a verb. He doesn’t mean love as an emotion or positive feeling towards someone. We have no obligation to feel a certain way about someone else. You can’t command a feeling, but you can command an action. St. Paul looks at love as an action that builds up healthy relationships and acts in the best interest of another.
On the other hand, as we love someone through behaviors, our emotions tend to follow. Love someone by extending an act of kindness. Love someone by showing patience with their shortcomings. Love someone enough to challenge them to better behavior. Love someone as an action and, eventually, your emotions follow.
Love the verb comes before love the noun. Love in action must come before love in emotion. And then the emotion will fuel further acts of love.
St. Paul continues, quoting scripture: “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Romans 13:9).
St. Paul refers to the Ten Commandments, found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The first three have to do with love of God, while the last seven have to do with love of others. St. Paul says that the last seven, all the “shall nots” can be summed up by loving your neighbor as yourself.
In other words, the purpose of all the commands of God are to teach us how to love. The whole reason for the Scriptures and the Laws of God, is to teach us how to love.
St. Paul concludes this section by saying, “Love does no evil to the neighbor,
hence love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). Love fulfills the law. If we aim to love people then we do not have to worry about whether we are pleasing God or doing what he wants us to do because all the laws can be summed up in love for one another. One other thing: Love as a noun can be expressed in general and vague ways.
Love as a verb is only a verb when it is entirely specific. As an individual, you can say you love people, but it makes no difference if you hate everybody in your class. As a married person, it doesn’t matter if you love the idea and the institution of marriage, it matters that you love your spouse. As a parent, it doesn’t matter if you love children; it matters that you love your kid.
There are a lot of people, especially in our small area of Burlington County, who say they love the Church, but they don’t belong to a parish. They don’t commit to any specific place
to serve and grow. To really love the Church, you’ve got to love a very specific parish. GK Chesterton once famously wrote, “Rome was not loved because it was great. It was great because it was loved.”
Over the past few years, after much discussion with the Pastoral Council and the deacons of the parish, it was decided that as a parish, Resurrection Parish would strive to implement a vision of mission to evangelize people who do not like Church. We would do so by developing a plan for our own evangelization and development as disciples. This is why we have been doing “message series preaching,” why we are promoting small, faith-sharing groups, and starting with this series, we will be sending out a daily devotion, “Worship Fully,” based on the Sunday message to all who are signed up for the parish’s Flocknotes.
While the mission of the Church never changes – Love God, love others, make disciples – the methods, the strategies that serve the mission must. We need to be unerringly faithful
to our Catholic faith and the Tradition of our Church. Not nostalgia for a romanticized past that clings to that which is merely antique. The problem with some traditional Catholics
isn’t that they want to return to the past, it’s that they’re not willing to back far enough. They want to return to the 1950’s, or the 1850’s. What we need is a return to the Church Paul was writing to a retrieval and revival of the spirit and soul of the church of the Apostles when the Church was most faithful and most fruitful. We call this approach “dynamic orthodoxy.”
We are going to challenge all of you in the pews to get up out of the pews, to take responsibility for growing in your faith and sharing it.
The prophet Habakkuk wrote at a time when all seems lost in his generation. He complained to God because there was violence and corruption throughout his country of Judah. He was disillusioned as the good and righteous people werepowerless, while corruption and evil seemed to triumph. Meanwhile faith and faithfulness were growing dim in the land. However, instead of disillusionment or despair the prophet turned to God instead: he waited on the Lord.
That’s what prophets and saints and heroes of the faith always do…at whatever sacrifice it takes, they position themselves to be a part of what God is going to do, with them or without them, so that they get to be a part of it.
Then we read that God honors Habakkuk’s waiting and watching; he writes, “Then the Lord answered me, ‘The vision has an appointed time’” (Habakkuk 2:3). God's vision and God's purposes are inevitable, they will absolutely happen. God's vision is coming.
This weekend is all about celebrating the love that you are bringing to this vision, in our community and generation. Vision has an appointed time.