As You Are Able
Text: Romans 12:9-21
Commandments tell us who we are.
Commandments—laws, as we sometimes call them—guide us. They identify us to ourselves and to others that we are the people who follow these particular rules and laws and rituals.
Commandments tell us what we value most. They identify things that we have singled out as necessary and worthy of attention. And they show us whom we trust for guidance and to whom we have given authority to decide what is good and what is not.
Commandments distinguish us from other people who do not follow them, who hold different values, who acknowledge different authorities.
The Bible is full of lists of what are in fact commandments, even though we do not always think of them that way. There are the famous lists of ten —more or less; it depends on how you count—of ten commandments that appear in Exodus and Deuteronomy, more formally called the decalogue, or ten words. Jesus’ sermon on the mount (in Matthew) and on the plain (in Luke) are lists of commandments. And so is the list in today’s reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans.
For Paul, followers of Christ live in a special way. The experience of Christ has changed them. They, in turn, following the way of Christ, will bring about a change in the world.
This Christian way of life is based on what our Bible translates as genuine love, but which Paul more exactly calls here “love without hypocrisy.” And he then goes on to tell us what that might mean. What seem to be imperatives in our translation—commands—in the first part of this passage in Romans are really describers. This is what un-hypocritical love looks like, says Paul.
Love is abhorring evil, holding onto what is good, loving one another, outdoing one another in affection. These characteristics of love lead to ways of behaving, which Paul, never being timid, then lists for us, exhorting us as followers of Jesus what to do. Commanding us.
There is in this passage a prejudice to generosity. A way of looking at people, at communities, and at the relationship between them with generous eyes. In practice, this means giving people the benefit of the doubt. To assume that they mean well, that others are mostly like us, that they are good as we are good. And an unwillingness to see them as evil.
What is evil is not doing what Paul says to do. To do the opposite. To abhor evil does not mean to identify and prosecute evil people. It means on the contrary to leave judging to God. And not by thinking that God should someday and in some way vindicate and enact our wrath, but rather that it is not ours to judge. We are not so wise. And it is not our job to take vengeance. Do not repay anyone evil for evil.
This is a strange and hard saying for us to hear. Yet Paul is clear. These descriptions and commandments represent core Christian values. They are not the same as the values of all people and institutions, but Paul insists that they are the values of followers of Christ. They are world-changing. Imagine what things would be like if Christians kept as one of our most dearly held principles that we would never return evil for evil. Imagine if we followed that principle.
Discussions about such things usually turn eventually to the wickedness of our enemies. There may be people we do not like, people we are afraid of, people who even threaten our existence, people who seek retribution because they think we have harmed them. These are the definition of an enemy. Though we may conclude that our enemies are not nice, that they are nasty and dangerous, yet we are commanded to empathize with then and bless them.
In the end we are responsible for our own actions. We are not forced to do evil because of what we see as the evil of others. Our job is to act according to the teachings of Jesus, which Paul reflects here.
As much as you are able (as far as it depends on you, as Paul writes), live peaceably with all people.
Paul does not hold us accountable for the actions of others. But neither does he let us off the hook. We are not asked to do more than we ourselves can do, but we are not allowed to do less.
This is a commandment regarding how to live. It is not about what to say, or what to believe, or what to proclaim, or what to think. It says nothing about the various motives we or others might or should have, or explanations, or equivocations. As much as we are able, we are to live at peace with all people. It says nothing about what we want to do, or what we are willing to do. Only what we can do. It is a commandment.
Jesus brings a new way of operating. Jesus is the Way. The way is based on both love for others and an expansion of which others are included. Paul here provides details. Love for others is not a little bit of charity, and not a bit of forgiveness. It is mutual affection. It is striving to get the first prize in honoring other people. It is being humble. It is weeping when others are in sorrow (and not rejoicing, even if they are not ours).
We may suffer for following these commandments of Paul. This is one meaning of Jesus’ remark in Matthew that we read today: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. The cross is the suffering we undergo because we are following the strange and hard way of Jesus. The cross is not a requirement, but a likely consequence of acting the way Jesus, and Paul here in Romans, commands us to act.
Yet the tone of Paul’s list is not downbeat but joyful. This is the way the whole world can be, will be. This is the way people will act. Imagine how great that will be. How freeing that will be. Imagine love without hypocrisy. Imagine it.
Jesus preaches about and Paul is trying to implement a different way for people to live together. Christians, Paul is saying, are known by their visible attempt to follow these commandments. It distinguishes them from others.
These commandments remind us who we are. Lovers of friends and enemies alike. People of the Way. Followers of Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God.
