Put on the Lord Jesus Christ

Proper18A, St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, September 10, 2023, by Sr Annette Fricke, OPA “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” St. Paul-Romans 13:8, 14 As St Thomas Aquinas would put it, because God is Love, we are created out of Love and for the purpose of love. With that in mind, what is Paul saying to us about love? There are some who look at this passage and immediately think about owing debts, in a monetary sense. Some of us have had the experience of borrowing money or items from another person and struggled to pay them back. We know the agony of owing, especially if that person is a friend, someone who is quite dear to us. Even if we don’t know to whom we owe, like financial debt for a mortgage, there remains an albatross over our shoulders until that debt is paid in full. It is a seemingly inescapable moral and/or emotional burden. It carries with it a strong sense of guilt or enormous responsibility. It is something so burdensome that it impedes any action or progress. In the world of finances, we simply need to say “no” to all other financial obligations until the one big debt in our lives is paid off. Most people cannot afford to owe for both a house and a car at the same time without feeling totally buried, under extreme stress and pressure. No one wants to deal with foreclosure or repossession. Nobody likes the feeling of agony either in the present, nor the future. However, once a house and car or cars are paid off, there are still monthly bills of some sort. A recent visit to a new widow pointed this out to me. The thing she misses the most about her husband is figuring out the finances and having him there for consultation on financial decisions. Consider for a moment the way the Presbyterians pray the Lord’s Prayer. In the Lord’s Prayer, we and many others pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That very phrase which sounds so inclusive is a phrase not used by our brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian faith. Instead, they say “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” The other version in modern use is “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Some pastors have mentioned that it really depends on the congregation they pastor as to the preferred wording used. Although every single one of us may think to ourselves that our chosen way of saying it is the correct one, the truth of the matter is, in the original Greek text they are all valid translations. When we prayer the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father, we are always in that realization of knowing that our transformation in Christ is now, but not yet. We continue to struggle with a sense of being both oppressor and the oppressed, the giver and the receiver, the one who hurts and feels hurt as we live our lives out day to day. We are the strong and the weak and everything in between in all our thoughts, verbal interactions, and behaviors. We question ourselves, “How can I turn a conflict into an understanding, a perceived enemy into a friend? Why must there be this painful aberration in our dealings with others?” We know of Christ’s presence in our daily lives, yet we also know that this bane of existence, what some still call a veil of tears, will someday become whole and complete again in Jesus. We were created for love by Love. We are to walk in that love day to day, allowing God to transform us into the loving beings that we were meant to be from our births and from the beginning of creation. It may seem, at times, that our lives are full of sorrow. But life is both a bane and a blessing. There are many times of blessing, if we would only open our eyes to that which is good around us. Take note of the songbirds, the blossoms, and the colors of nature all around you. There are children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. There are healthy relationships for which to give God thanks. Whenever we get caught up in a conflict or struggle of some sort, we should remind ourselves about all the good in our lives. We should consider the loving relationships we have with others. Dwelling on the negative will only drive us downward, possibly into a depressed or angry mood. We should remain open to God’s work through us to be the initiator of reconciliation between us and our source of conflict. Rules are rules, but we must look beyond them and be flexible, showing love and support to those we don’t always agree. Even if we think they are wrong, others may still have some wisdom they can teach us. We should not be quick to judge because from the perspective of others, we could be just as wrong as we perceive them to be. This is the main point of both the Romans lesson as well as the lesson from Matthew. Be slow to judge and quick to reconcile. And how does Paul say we are to accomplish this task? He says that we are to put on Christ. Paul writes about the second coming of Jesus to be an event that is coming soon. It hasn’t happened and we may even poke fun at Paul, just as people have done with the several groups that have predicted the end of the world, we now also know was wrong. Think of it this way, what if we were to think of the end of our lives here on earth as Jesus’ second coming? What if, as some believe, Jesus already came a second time by coming to us in the form of the Holy Spirit? What if God’s restoring us in the end happens when we die? If that is the case, we should be thinking about how we honor Christ in our daily lives, knowing that sometimes sudden death occurs. There are some for whom it is difficult to predict or expect with any accuracy a date and time of death. Both a second coming of Jesus and our own time of death remains a mystery. We are unable to predict the future. The good news is that even though we sin, trespass, or are indebted daily, we are justified by the grace of God. The good news is that our faith will count as righteousness just as it was for Abraham. The good news is that in Christ, we have hope, having been included as God’s chosen ones and the ending to the story of Adam and Eve’s banishment is reversed. The good news is that the law can be both a guide and a sword. It informs us where we have gone astray and guides us into daily faithfulness. We were created for love by Love. Because of God’s gracious and overflowing gift of abundant love towards us in Jesus, we can live in confidence knowing that as Jesus walked in love, we too have potential for that capacity. We too can be shaped into and transformed by that love by putting on Christ. As in I John 2:5b-6, “By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.