Love One Another

Matthew 18: 15-20; Romans 13: 8-10

FPC; 9-7-08

          By the grace of God, we are marked as children of God.  More than any other, that statement summarizes the theme of the first eleven chapters of Romans.   In those chapters, Paul discusses what God has done for humanity, how God has accepted, forgiven and shown unconditional love.  The love of God that Paul and the New Testament writers discuss is not sheer sentimentality.  As  one of my seminary professors once said, “we know God loves us not because of the way he feels about us but because of what he has done for us: He gave his Son for our redemption.”[1]  For the first eleven chapters of Romans, Paul focuses on God’s redemptive love delivered in Christ.  Those chapters promote what I would call the vertical dimension of our Christian faith; the relationship between each of us and God.  

          But there is also a horizontal dimension of our faith.  Beginning in chapter 12, Paul asserts the importance of responding to God’s grace by practicing one’s  faith and love in community.  “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, present your [selves] as a living sacrifice…love one another with mutual affection. Then, in today’s epistle reading, Paul states that all commandments-the commands not to steal, not to murder, not to lie-are summarized in this command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

         The love of God triggers love for one another.  Love for one another is a manifestation of love for God. 

         As one biblical writer has said: “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother and sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” 

The vertical dimension of faith was present in the church of Matthew’s day, but the horizontal dimension of faith was absent.  There was dissension in that church.  Rifts were occuring.  In some cases division was being caused by theological differences.  In other cases, petty jealousies and deep seated selfishness were the culprits.  Relationships were crumbling.  Matthew refused to sit idly while the church community disintegrated.    

           Matthew includes in his gospel the words of Jesus that serve as a formula for confronting a person who has committed a wrongful act against you.  At the end of the formula Jesus says, “Treat that person as a tax Collector and Gentile.”  Tax collectors were stereotyped as immoral people.  Generally, they were treated with scorn and contempt.  At first glance, Jesus’ words seem harsh and out of character. 

          In reality, Jesus associated with Gentiles and tax collectors.  Jesus called a tax collector to be one of his disciples.  According to the first gospel, Jesus healed a Roman centurion’s servant who was a Gentile.  

          When Jesus says to treat the offenders as Gentiles and tax collectors, he is advocating that we make such individuals the focus of our ministry.  He is promoting an inclusive community, not one that bars and expels.  He is advocating love, love that goes the extra mile; love that pursues reconciliation; love that never surrenders to revenge or bitterness.  love that seeks unity and the well being of one’s neighbors, even those who have wronged us, is to be a standard ingredient of the communal life we share. 

          “Owe no one anything, but to love one another.”  That first verse of today’s epistle text follows immediately Paul’s instructions to honor civil authorities by paying what is due them-“taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due.”  It is important to follow civil law; but the primary debt we owe is not to the government but to our neighbor: “owe no one anything except to love one another.”  The command to love our neighbor supercedes every other command and rule.

          This past July, a simple act of sportsmanship by Central Washington University softball players Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace won the girls an ESPY award for best moment in the past sports year. The ESPY is a premier sports awards event that honors individual and team athletic achievements and other sports-related performances each year.

          The moment Holtman and Wallace were honored for is one that people are still talking about and will continue to talk about for a long time. It was during a home game at CWU on April 26, when the pair performed a selfless act of sportsmanship, that to them was "just the right thing to do," that caught the attention of the nation.

          During the game, Western Oregon senior outfielder Sara Tucholsky hit her first-ever home run. Distracted and surprised by her accomplishment, Tucholsky missed first base as she ran past it. She turned around to tag the base, but her knee gave out, sending her to the ground in pain. She had torn her ACL.Oregon had no other option but to put in a pinch runner, which would take away Tucholsky's first and only home run of her softball career. The rules of competition were superseded by the rule of love.

          That's when Holtman and Wallace set aside the rules of competition.  They locked their hands under Tucholsky, gently lifted her up and carried her from base to base, allowing her to tap each one. The three players exchanged giggles as they made it around the field.

          "We didn't even know that while we were carrying her around the bases, people in the stands were crying," Holtman said. "We just thought it was the right thing to do. She hit the ball over the fence. She deserved that home run."

          Central ended up losing the game that day and their chance at the playoffs. What they got in return is a memory that will last a lifetime, a moment that has touched more lives than anyone ever imagined, a precious moment of showing love for one’s neighbor.[2] 

          The rule or the command to love one another supercedes all other commands; it is greater than the rules of the state and certainly greater than the rules of athletic competition. 

          It was a Special Olympics.  During a 100 yard race, one of the runners fell to the track.  The other runners walked back to their fallen friend.  His knee was scraped and bloody.  One little girl bent down and kissed him on the forehead.  “This will make it better,” she said. The fallen runner got up and hand in hand, he and the girl finished the race together. 

          “Owe no one anthing, except to love one another.” 

          Let us join hands and run the race of life together, in faith and in love.  

Rick Reilly, the famed sports writer, has written about a high school kid named Jake Porter.  

Jake is 17, but he can’t read, can barely scrawl his first name and often mixes up the letters at that.  But the people around him are learning something from Jake.

          In three years on the Northwest High football team, Jake had never run with the ball, or made a tackle.  He’d barely ever stepped on the field.  That’s to be expected from a kid with chromosomal fragile X syndrome, a disorder that commonly causes mental retardation. 

          But every day after school Jake races to Northwest team practices: football, basketball, track.  Never plays, but seldom misses one. 

          That’s why it seemed crazy when, with five seconds left in a football game that Northwest was losing 42-0, Jake trotted out to the huddle.  The plan was for him to get the handoff and take a knee. 

          The coach of the Northwest team called a time out to talk about it with the opposing coach. The two coaches had a rather focused and intense discussion.  Each returned to his own sideline where the players from both teams received their instructions.  

          Play resumed.  Jake got the ball.  He started to go to his knees.  But teammates stopped him and told him to run, but Jake started going in the wrong direction.  The back judge rerouted him toward the line of scrimmage. 

          Suddenly, the Waverly defense parted and urged Jake to go on his grinning sprint to the end zone.  Imagine having 21 teammates on the field.  In the stands mothers cried and fathers roared.  Players on both sidelines held their helmets to the sky and whooped. 

          Jake’s Mom, Liz, a single parent and a waitress at a coffee shop, ran up to the 295 pound coach of the opposing team to thank him.  But she was so emotional, no words would come. 

          Turns out that before the play that coach had called his defense over and said: “They’re going to give the ball to number 45.  Do not touch him!  Open up a hole and let him score!  Understand?” 

          News about that game spread rapidly.  The next day, a sour, misguided journalist from a nearby big city wrote: “if the mentally challenged want to participate in sports, let them do it in the Special Olympics.  Leave high school football alone.  And for heaven’s sake, don’t put the fix in.” 

          Let’s not be fooled!  It was a good thing that happened in that ordinary small town on a routine Friday night, the result of a three minute conversation between two middle aged high school football coaches.  Since it happened, people in the two towns just seem to be treating one another better.  Kids in the two schools walk around beaming.  “I have this bully in one of my phys. ed. classes,”  the Waverly coach says.  “He a tough, out for himself type kid.  The other day I saw him helping a couple of special needs kids play basketball.  I about fell over.”[3] 

          No wonder Rick Reilly calls that play “The Play of the Year”. 

          Love one another.  That is the primary rule for life in God’s kingdom; a rule that supercedes every other rule, the rules of sports and the rules of Civil authorities.