“God Is Our Neighbor”
Romans 13:8-10
When the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa was a young boy, he had a life changing experience because of God’s love flowing to him through another person.
You see, in South Africa, at that time, if a black person and a white person met while walking on a path, the black person was expected to get off the path and allow the white person to pass by.
And as they were passing by, the black person was supposed to nod their head as a gesture of respect.
One day, Tutu and his mother were walking down the street when they noticed a tall white man, dressed in a black suit, walking toward them.
Before he and his mother could step off the sidewalk, this man stepped off and allowed Tutu and his mother to pass by.
As they passed by, the man tipped his hat in a gesture of respect to Tutu’s mother.
Tutu was shocked and asked his mother, “Why did the white man do that?”
His mother explained that the white man was an Anglican Priest.
That he was a man of God, and that’s why he did what he had done.
Tutu would later say: “I decided there and then that I wanted to be an Anglican Priest too.
And what is more, I wanted to be a man of God.”
If a follower of Christ had not shown young Tutu the love of God, would all that Bishop Tutu accomplished through his ministry ever have happened?
Love is powerful, to say the least.
Love changes us.
Love transforms.
Love saves.
And God is LOVE.
We don’t know the result of the love we allow to flow from God through us to others, but there will be a glorious unfolding of it someday.
Paul says: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.”
I just love that.
Paul has been instructing the Christians in Rome to pay taxes and to have no debts not only because of the possibility of punishment if they don’t pay, but as a matter of conscience…
…because it is the right thing to do.
But then, he says something really, really radical.
He says that if there is anything that followers of Jesus Christ owe to another person, it must be nothing other than love.
And this love, as the Christian mystics put it, “has two feet: Love of God and love of neighbor.”
One can’t go without the other because the love of God is inseparable from the love of neighbor, and this is because God has become our neighbor.
At the food pantry there is only one rule.
Because Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,” everyone who comes through the line at the food pantry is Jesus and we are to treat them as such.
Again, the only thing followers of Jesus Christ are to owe other human beings is love.
In 1st John Chapter 4 we are told, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
This is not rocket science!
But it’s also not easy.
And I think part of the reason is that love has gotten so confused for us that a lot of us are pretty much always thinking of ourselves…
…always in the mode of “what’s in it for me?”
But that’s not Jesus’ kind of love.
That’s not the agape or unconditional and unmerited love of God.
Think about it.
We owe God everything—from the water we drink to the air we breath, but God came to earth in the form of Jesus not as a collection agency.
Instead, God came to earth to give Himself completely for us.
And what God asks us to do in return, is to love other people.
It’s not something we do out of guilt.
It’s not a burden.
It’s done out of gratitude for the great love Christ has shown us.
“While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
I suppose that is why God’s kind of love involves loving—even our enemies!
But in order to love others, we really have to be able to love ourselves.
Not too long ago, I had one of those little “aha” moments.
I had been thinking about how, as a young person, I did a lot of things that I knew I shouldn’t do—just to try and “fit-in.”
And when I thought about my motivation for doing these things, I realized: “Wow. I didn’t think very highly of myself.”
I mean, let’s face it.
At times, we can be pretty hard on ourselves.
We are often judgmental, condemning, and merciless when it comes to our thoughts about ourselves.
In the Upper Room devotional Amorelle Brown wrote: “Why can’t I be the loving person I want to be all the time?”
“On a particular day when I had snapped for the third time in a row at an unsuspecting loved one, the condemning thoughts were about to flow.
Then a new thought interrupted: ‘You can’t give what you don’t have.’”
She goes on, “It was as if God were telling me that if I could love myself the way God loves me, I would be able to more fully love others.”
And she’s right.
Our ability to love others does have a lot to do with loving ourselves.
I mean, God loves us more than we could ever imagine no matter what.
God loves us so much that God took all the stuff we do, all the sins we commit, all the written code that stands against us and nailed it to the Cross!!!
This is the kind of love that transforms us and causes us to love others as we have been loved.
Jesus came into the world in order to save us—not to condemn us.
God isn’t merciless towards us.
God isn’t unforgiving.
Why, so often, are we?
(pause)
God isn’t in the guilt business; God is in the love and forgiveness business.
Guilt comes from Satan and torments us—love comes from God and it frees us.
And guilt can cause us to do and say and think some very ugly things---not just about ourselves but about others. Because, so often, what we struggle with in our lives…what we dislike about ourselves—is what we dislike about others.
Back in the 1980’s evangelist Jimmy Swaggart was on several television stations every night, beaming out his revivals.
He was fun to watch, animated and charismatic.
He also majored in judging the thoughts and actions of others—painting himself as sinless and perfect in the process.
And this was especially true when it came to his favorite subject--everything having to do with sex.
Oh, he would go on and on and on about adultery, and the evils of pornography and those involved in it and so on and so forth.
I’ll never forget the shock I felt when he got caught doing the exact things he condemned in others.
This happened with Ted Haggard as well…
…along with a host of other preachers and politicians over the years.
I suppose this is one reason Jesus is so adamant that we not judge others—but that we, instead, look at ourselves, allowing God to perfect us in love, mercy and compassion.
“Do not judge,” Jesus says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your someone else’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
And in order to do this, we must be humble.
And pray for humility.
And the more humble we become, the more love we have to give.
Why?
Humility is not out for oneself.
Humility doesn’t try and push others around.
And humility sees things through a realistic and sane lens.
It says, “Who am I to judge?”
It encourages us to put ourselves in the shoes of another.
True humility is one of the most beautiful things in this world.
Think about that Anglican Priest in South Africa who, because of humble love, did not take advantage of others like he could have--due to his race.
Remember when Jesus was talking to His disciples about what true greatness looks like?
He said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.
Not so with you.
Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
True, unconditional, agape love.
What does that look like?
It looks like Jesus.
And what did Jesus do, although He was God—He humbled Himself to death, even death on a Cross.
He fed the hungry.
He took care of the sick.
He loved the sinners.
He spent time with the outcastes, the lepers, and all those on the margins of society.
He got to know them.
He made friends with them.
In doing so, He changed their lives.
That is what we are to seek to do and be as well.
You know what the word Christian means?
It means, “little Christs.”
We are to be Christ to the world.
And, if we can wrap our minds around this—being Christ to the world, means that we see Christ in everyone we come in contact with—and treat them as if they were Christ Himself.
You know, in our society we tend to think of fulfillment as a matter of getting everything WE want in life—whether it be a Mansion, cars, boats, lots of money—whatever.
But the true path to fulfillment in this life comes through giving ourselves away in service to others.
It seems to me that if we find happiness elusive, perhaps one place to look is at how well we are doing at loving other people.
It is the only debt we are to owe--the continuing debt to love one another as Christ has loved us.
May it be so.
Amen.
