Paul has just challenged the Christians of Rome with a To-Do list for living a Christian life. He’s writing to a small community in a large city in a very large Empire. They have come together in the name of a new idea—that God has sent utterly selfless love into the world. Paul is trying to show them how to live together in light of that idea, which in the Roman Empire was radical.
That list is still relevant for us. But I have to tell you: I look at this checklist, right now, and think, “Well, he didn’t make it easy, did he?”
Let’s look at some of the problems with it, from the top.
Let love be genuine.
Is love “genuine” if I sometimes feel really negative about someone I love? Is love genuine if I’m too tired to put out the effort to show my love? What does genuine even mean?
Hate what is evil. Hold fast to good.
Can we even agree on what is good and what is evil? What looks evil to me can be someone else’s idea of goodness. How do I know who’s right? And why “hate?” Can’t I just disapprove?
Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.
But in the previous sentence, Paul says “Let Love be genuine”! Well, what if there’s someone I just can’t stand? I mean, there’s this guy who is just creepy—he stands too close, and every conversation with him is a monologue. Then there’s this woman. She’s sly and smarmy, her smile is fake, and she pretends she likes me just to use me. How am I supposed to love these people, let alone love them with mutual affection?? It’s pretty clear they don’t love me! And I’m sure not going to show them honor until they change their ways. I’d like to see a little honor from them, first.
Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.
Look—I’m just plain out of energy. I’m trying to figure out how work my paid job while I’m still doing most of the housework, keep up with friends, do that special project for the church, get in some exercise, and deal with my own anxieties about my family, my health, my cousin in Arizona, the election and whether I’ll even be able to vote…When am I supposed to have time to be ardent in spirit??
And we can go on all the way through Paul’s list, and we can find issues with every one of the items on that list. It feels kind of hopeless.
Well. Back in the 1980s, I worked for a time in a physical therapy clinic, when I was between “real” jobs. On the lunchroom wall in the clinic was a list of joke “rules” for physical therapists. One of them was: Always assign ten repetitions of any exercise; if you’re lucky the patient will do the three repetitions you really want them to do.
Paul, here, is laying out an exercise program for a Christian life. I don’t know if he expects his Romans to actually do all the things he’s asking of them. I think maybe he’s hoping that if they keep all these suggestions in mind, they will try for maybe one or two of them, starting with the ones that look the most attainable.
So, OK, let’s try that. I’m going to start with “Be hospitable to strangers,” Because I like this one. I really enjoy greeting new people, learning a little about them.
But if I concentrate on that one line, I find myself beginning to question what hospitality really means. Who is really a stranger? What does “welcome” mean? Where and what is “my home,” into which I can welcome a stranger? Is the church my home, or is it already also the home of that “stranger”? Should I say “Welcome,” and make them feel like an outsider, or should I say “We’re glad you’re here,” even before I know anything about them?
Gradually, as I think about home, and who belongs, and who gets to say welcome, I may find my thinking is changing on issues like immigration and homelessness and charity versus justice, and who our Open and Affirming statement actually includes. Eventually my hospitality may extend to demanding more just immigration laws, better funding for low-income housing, or new priorities in city and state budgets and laws.
So I can use any single one of these items on Paul’s checklist as a meditation. As I return to it, over and over, looking for new meaning in just one line of this list, it may grow into something that transforms my life, that opens me to greater love and justice, as Paul intended for his Romans.
The Bible is full of these little exercises. Every one of the parables, every one of the miracles that Jesus performed—like walking on water—all these stories are calculated to crack your rational approach to them. You can take them literally, as many Christians do, and believe that your faith rests on believing these things that are clearly impossible. Or you can dismiss them as absurd fiction and repudiate the Bible as the enemy of science. Or in this case, you can see this list as idealistic poetry, and think no more about it.
Or, you can work with them, think about them until your rational mind gives up and cracks open, and the light of a greater meaning, a bigger truth, comes flooding in.
I think these little rules for Christian living have the same function. I’m going to try another one.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
That’s pretty hard. Any member of an oppressed minority has to deal almost daily with this admonition. Paul is asking Black people to bless the police who beat and shoot them. He’s asking Brown people to bless ICE agents. He’s asking trans people to bless congresspeople who pass insulting and dangerous laws against them.
This is very, very hard work. I think about the mass murders at Mother Emmanuel Church, at Tree of Life Synagogue. In both catastrophes, each of the survivors offered the murderers their forgiveness. I think of a holy man from the Suquamish nation, over in Kitsap County, whose tribe describes him as a man who has given up the “luxury of anger and revenge” as part of his work as a spiritual guide. I think of a friend of mine who prayed daily for a man who was in a position of great authority. This man had the power to do great harm to her and to those she loves, and he did so, and seemed to have no conscience or guilt or even consciousness about causing pain to others. Nevertheless, she called him her brother, a fellow child of God.
One of our former ministers once suggested another exercise. She said, “Choose a person whom you consider your enemy, someone who has harmed you. Every day for a month, pray that this person will receive all blessings, all possible good. Pray it honestly. In the moment of your prayer feel your desire that this person receive goodness. Watch what happens to your internal relationship with this person. You may not ever deal directly with the person, but you may find the burden of your animosity is lifted from your own shoulders.”
The prayers of my friend, the pastor’s exercise, the forgiveness of the survivors, the discipline of the holy man—these are like physical therapy exercises. You know: you practice those exercises a little bit every day. At first, they hurt. They’re hard. You wear out quickly. You forget to do them or deliberately skip them. But if you take them on as a discipline, eventually, you feel your body transforming, your joints bending more smoothly, your muscles stretching and enduring more. Eventually, you’ll find yourself looking forward to exercise time, and you may even work your way up to doing all ten repetitions.
And if you take on even one of Paul’s suggestions as a daily discipline, you’ll find your relationship to it and to other people stretching, expanding, transforming.
The practice of mindfulness has become very mainstream in the last couple of years. Businesses are sending their employees to classes to learn to focus. Schoolchildren are learning how to be present, how to release anxiety. Especially now, in the midst of the crises we’re living through, the ability to live in the present, to be grateful in the moment, is a matter of emotional survival.
And if you are already practicing mindfulness, or even if you are not, you can look at this list as a set of guidelines for the mindfulness of love.
I suggest to you, if you’re so inclined, to read through this To-Do list and find one line you think you’ll be able to act on—as a place to get started. You could stick it up on your wall or your refrigerator or your bathroom mirror. You could put it into your phone and set it to pop up at intervals during the day. Or just sit quietly for a few minutes and think about it. And at the end of the day, you might review your interactions with that one line. How did it feel to relate to others while being conscious and mindful of that line? Did it change your interactions in any way? If you feel truly ambitious, you might journal about it. Watch for its influence in broader areas of your mental and physical life. How are you changing by living in the light of conscious love?
We pray that God’s love, revealed through the Bible and through the lives of others, will transform our own selves into living testimonials of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Amen.