What do we do now, when all things seem to be falling apart? What do we do when anger and suspicion, hostility and hatred tear at the fabric of our humanity? Are we doomed to this endless cycle of violence and corruption and environmental degradation? Are we powerless if we choose to walk a different path?
In this sermon, based on Saint Paul’s writings (Romans 13.8-13) and the vision of Teilard de Chardin, I explore the nature of love as more than a good feeling. From inside the mystic vision of the power of love we can find a new way forward into a new humanity and a more sustainable and benevolent presence on the Earth.
“What Love Can Do Now”
We’ve read today from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Christians living in Rome. It’s not only a theological piece telling us about the way Paul understands God and the gospel of Jesus; it’s also ethical—that is, the Apostle urges Christians to pattern their lives in response to what he’s seen and heard about God and what he’s explained to them.
Saint Paul wrote this letter 2,000 years ago. It’s old and it’s shaped by outdated ways of understanding families and societies, and things like gender and race, space and time, as well as how Christians relate to the State. But, even though the details are outdated, the themes of his vision aren’t. And that’s especially true of our reading today. Today’s reading is timeless wisdom—it’s a wisdom shared across religious traditions and among many philosophical circles.
It’s a classic text; let’s listen for the ways its timeless wisdom might speak to us today.
1.
“Owe no one anything,” writes the Apostle, “except to love one another.”
We can hardly live today without some kind of debt. “Debt-free” is an ideal but for most of us it’s tough to achieve. Sure, it makes sense for us to be intentional about spending, to avoid living beyond our means and not get mired down in debt. And if we find ourselves mired in debt, it makes sense to create a plan so we can work our way out of the binding debt. “Owe no one anything” is an ideal but there’s one debt no one is free from: the obligation to “love one another.”
Many of us feel a deep obligation to a political party, a peer group, a religious tradition, a racial or national identity. And we’re often unconscious to the ways we put that obligation before what’s essential to being human: love for one another.
We owe love to everyone, not just those who are like us or those we happen to like. When human beings have stewarded this debt, we’ve been at our best. We’ve been at our worst when we’ve not.
2.
“The one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” says Paul. “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.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”
There are religious laws and there are natural laws. When you “love your neighbor as yourself,” you fulfill both of them. For far too long much of humanity’s assumed we’re hard-wired for selfishness and hostility, war, violence, and greed—that there’s something in our nature that tends toward the disturbing realities we see now: the passionate denial of climate change, the global regressions toward authoritarianism, entrenched racial/ethnic conflicts, and vast economic disparities. They seem to be laws of nature.
But they’re not. Newer findings in the natural and social sciences tell that we’re capable of another way. Human nature isn’t driven only by domination; that drive leads toward extinction. When Paul says, “love is the fulfilling of the law,” he’s saying he’s glimpsed into the mystery of humanity and seen what scientists now see—we now know that evolution requires cooperation and partnership. When Paul says, “love fulfills the law,” he is, of course, speaking of religious law, but that religious law reflects natural law. As creatures made in the image of God, we are, actually, wired for love not hatred, partnership not domination, cooperation more than competition.
A more just, equitable, and sustainable way of being human is part of our biology. Therefore we human beings can change the course of history, we can change what’s happening to each other now and to the Earth.
3.
“You know what time it is,” writes the Apostle. You know “it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.”
We know it’s time, don’t we? It’s time to awaken to the ways we all must make short term sacrifices for long term benefits; we know we must fight this coronavirus together. We know it’s time to wake up to the effects of human-driven climate change. It’s time to wake up to the moral reckoning taking place now around racial injustice and inequity. It’s time to wake up to the right every person has for water, food, shelter, education, and health care. Right now, it’s time to wake up and vote, to wake up and vote early, to wake up and vote with with this scripture ringing in our ears. It is time to vote for love not hatred, cooperation not competition, partnership not domination, inclusion not exclusion. It’s time we wake up to the fact that this may be the most important election in history—there’s that much on the line.
4.
“For salvation,” writes Saint Paul, “is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.”
This means that it’s time to stay awake, no matter how dark things get. It’s time to stay awake and not shrink back, not get cynical. To be “saved” doesn’t mean leaving this world and dwelling in some disembodied state in heaven. I’m not saying there’s no afterlife—I believe there is. But what I’m saying is that the goodness that’s the birthright and destiny of every created thing is closer now than it’s ever been.
Seriously. It may not look like it. But we know from the science of evolution that before another major leap in the evolutionary drive there is always a turbulent period in which organisms vie for a scarcity of resources, even to the point of extinction. But those organisms that learn to cooperate and participate with each other not only survive, they make the leap to something new.
“The night is far gone,” writes Paul. “The day is near.”
Don’t give up. Don’t shrink back. Don’t give-in to cynicism or despair. There are laws at work for goodness, justice, and beauty, not just for some but for all.
5.
Then Paul continues. “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.”
There are some problems with this text: the warrior imagery and the metaphors of “light” and “darkness.” They’re too easily manipulated by demagogues, ideologues, and propagandists. Christians have too often been drawn into violent, hostile, and combative movements.
We are to “owe no one anything, except to love one another.”
If we meet abuse with abuse, violence only grows. If we meet hatred with hatred, hatred only grows. If we disregard, demean, and ridicule in response to the same, we’ve brought nothing new and healing into the world. If we fail to forgive, the space between us only grows. There’s too much of this on Twitter, Facebook, and in our neighborhoods.
This is why Martin Luther King, Jr., following Mahatma Gandhi, called for non-violent resistance in the face of the most oppressive powers. “In spite of temporary victories,” King taught, “violence never brings permanent peace.” “We adopt the means of nonviolence,” he explained, “because our end is a community at peace with itself.” Peace is the only way to peace. Love is the only way to what everyone wants and needs most: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
6.
Teilard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest, trained as a paleontologist and geologist, he was part of the archeological team that discovered the Peking Man near Beijing in the 1930s—a discovery of fossils dating back three quarter of a million years. Father de Chardin was also one of the most visionary and important Christian theologians of the 20th century. His theology flowed from his scientific mind and from a soul nourished by deep experiences of Spirit.
During World War One, he served as a stretcher-bearer in the infantry. He lost two of his brothers and several friends to combat. He was forever scared by the horrors of war. He knew conflict. He knew horror. He knew man’s inhumanity to man. But he never lost hope. Why? Teilard de Chardin had seen in the Eucharist, in the Bread and the Wine, a vision for what can be, for what will be. He’d glimpsed a Communion of the divine Soul with the soul of the Earth, with each of us. This wasn’t a mere belief in a creed; his was a real experience of the sacred harmony that’s the essence of all things, the “fulfillment of [religious and natural] law.” Love is not a word that only describes a human emotion, as beautiful as it might be. Love for Teilard de Chardin, was, as it was for Saint Paul, a force of Nature; love is the law that governs all life. We must live in harmony with that law; for love is what we’re made for.
“Someday,” he wrote, “after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.”
The truth is, we will never master the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity. Nature is untamable. Thank God. Love is untamable. Thank God. It’s bigger than we are. And when we love we’re better than we otherwise can be.
When our ancestors discovered fire eons ago, everything changed.
Let’s do it again. Let’s do it now. Let’s discover a new fire, the fire of love. Let us trade in the anger and hostility, the suspicion and cruelty, the despair and fear so epidemic in the world. Let us trade it all in and love instead, no matter what it costs us.
Let us be known* as those who helped change everything for the second time in the history of the world.
*MaMuse is a band with a song that fits this theme perfectly; find an audio recording of the Davis Community Church choir singing it here.