SCRIPTURE LESSON: Romans
13:8-14
8 Owe no
one anything, except to love one another;
for the
one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
9 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."
10 Love
does no wrong to a neighbor;
therefore, love
is the fulfilling of the law.
11
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 first believed;
12 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;
13 let us
live honorably as in the day,
not in
reveling and drunkenness,
not in
debauchery and licentiousness,
not in
quarreling and jealousy.
14
Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make
no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
MEDITATION
Thank goodness
it’s Friday. That means release and rest
for some of us. It may not be a full-on
Sabbath, but most of us loosen our grip a little on Friday. We take a little longer lunch. We go home a little earlier. We work with a little less intensity. The end is in sight. The weekend is creeping upon us.
Of course,
this Friday is Friday the 13th.
Now I am not a particularly superstitious person – that is, until I
started following the lectionary. The
lectionary can make the most Enlightened of us a bit superstitious. Why?
Because again and again the lectionary lifts up the last text we would
think of preaching. Yet the text it
gives is so often the very text we need to hear. And so I am becoming a little
superstitious. Although I am sort of new
at this superstition thing, I think I can discern a bad omen over my head. For I certainly do not want
to preach about reveling and drunkenness and debauchery and licentiousness. Especially on Friday.
Why do I
feel so unlucky to preach this text on a Friday? Because, at least in this community, Friday
means more than just letting loose in our schoolwork. Friday also means Friday night. Friday night: where we really let loose,
sometimes in ways we hope our field ed supervisors
never see. Friday night: where some of
us try to forget everything we’ve crammed in our brains for the past week. Friday night: where we try to remember that
we’re normal; that we are like the rest of the world.
We let
loose like we do because Friday is the end.
Not the end of our lives or the end of the world. Just the end of our week. Paul, of course, is talking about the
end of the world. He has in mind the big
End, the great exclamation point that concludes God’s good creation. He is talking about the end of the great
night that has hovered over our world for too many years. He is talking about the light, the day, the
new day that dawns in Jesus Christ. And he is welcoming us, even daring us, to
enter into that day. To live like it’s
here. To live like a people who know
that what we see around us is not the whole story. To live like a people who knows that the
night is coming to an end.
In this
eschatological context, and only in this context, Paul sticks his head into our
beloved Friday and tells us to put off reveling and drunkenness, debauchery and
licentiousness. Sure, he recommends we
love one another. He notes that so
loving will fulfill the whole law. Yet
he does not stop there. He messes up his
pretty picture of neighbor love with his fanciful eschatological ethics. He spoils his pristine love-ethic with fear
tactics about the end times. Why,
Paul? Why not let love get the last
word?
I suspect
Paul knows that love can be used to justify just about anything. Love is a great code word for all sorts of
bad ideas. Just look around on
Valentine’s Day if you want to catch a glimpse of the ridiculous things we call
“love.” Paul pushes through the
abstraction of love to the heart of the matter: we live at the end of an
age. Knowing this ought to affect the
way we live. When we live implies
something about how we live.
Since salvation in Christ is nearer now than when we first believed, we
ought to put off the old world and put on Christ. That means putting off the reveling and the drunkenness.
These are
hard words to say. Those of you who know me, know I like to party. And those of you who
grew up in a tradition like mine, know all about party-pooper sermons. I don’t want to go back there anymore than
you do. Furthermore, we all know the
diversity of this community well enough to know how hard it is to make blanket
behavioral assertions. So the ambiguity
of our past and present deadens the impact of Paul’s word to us. I can’t stand here with the power of Pauline
preaching and tell you to quit doing this or quit doing that.
Yet there
is one point of Paul’s I can preach: despite our different pasts and diverse
present, we share a common future. We
believe. And soon, our faith shall be
sight; the clouds be rolled back like a scroll; the trumpets shall resound, and
the Lord shall descend; even so, it is well with my soul! The day that is dawning is good news. We are in Christ, and so reconciled to
God! And with this good news comes a
simple question: are we living into that day?
Or are we living like its still dark out? Do our lives display the expectation of our
Lord?
For the last three years, my buddies have been daring
me to give an altar call during my senior sermon. Fortunately, I don’t have to push that
liturgical envelope today. Why? Because, thank goodness,
it’s Friday. Friday is more than
a day of laziness, unluckiness, and letting loose. Around here, Friday means Communion. On this Friday, as we gather around the
Table, dare to challenged by Paul’s words. Ask yourself if you are living in
expectation. Ask if you are living in
the light. Ask if there is something you
need to put off for Christ’s sake. And whatever you ask, and whatever the answer, come to the Table. For whenever you eat this bread and drink
this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
2.13.04