Doing Well And Doing Good
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Reading
Series I, Cycle A
There is a cliche thrown around the business world that states that people should do well by doing good. This translates into a rationale for doing works of charity and for being generous to employees, customers, and communities. The reason for these good deeds is to engender good feeling and, in the long run, to make more money, in other words, to do well.
By being good to employees, costs for recruitment and training and replacement will be greatly reduced.
By being good to customers, there will be loyalty and an increased willingness to spend money in your place of business or on your brand of merchandise.
By being good to communities, there is often a reduction in taxes, greater ease in obtaining needed licenses and permits, and a general improvement in the opinion of community toward the business.
Many businesses have discovered that doing good often translates to doing quite well financially. Paul almost sounds as if he is saying similar things for Christians in the lesson for today. Christians should do good to do well forever. Or, if we listen more carefully, Paul is really encouraging Christians to do good, live right, and, as he expresses it, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Surprisingly, all this is without a single shred of a promise about doing anything, either doing well or doing poorly.
Often, especially when trying to convince people that they should act in a responsible, Christian manner, people promise a variety of things as rewards for such behavior. Behave as we know we should, and you will be given eternal life, God's love, and other things. Sometimes the promises are more specific, as when our good behavior is promised a reward of a good life, increased wealth, or the admiration of others.
All in all, it sounds very much like the sort of thing most parents use with their children on occasion. If you sit quietly, I'll stop and get you some ice cream, or a hamburger, or a special toy, or whatever.
Paul does none of this. Most emphatically, he promises no rewards for our living up to the way we are supposed to live as Christians. Rather than rewards, Paul simply presents a picture of some of the basics of a Christian life.
First Paul talks about love as the one word that describes a Christian life. Of course, this message has been proclaimed among Christians for centuries, but it has clearly been misunderstood for about as long as it has been proclaimed. Take, for example, Paul's example of how the commandments interact with love. Paul points out that all the commandments are summed up in the instruction, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
In spite of this, many people still seem to hold on to various commandments from the Old Testament, particularly the Ten Commandments, as some sort of guideline to how Christians should live. The commandments are held up as the Law of God for Christians. And this ignores Paul's comment that "love is the fulfilling of the law."
Perhaps this preference for the commandments is simple to understand. The commandments seem to provide easy limits to what we should do, and by the ways we interpret the commandments, the limits are even easier. The commandment says we should not murder, but that is fairly simple for most of us. The commandment says we should not commit adultery, which people seem to find more difficult, but it at least sounds attainable. The commandment says we should not covet, which is certainly more difficult, but something we can work on and at least make it seem as if we can manage it.
In the time of Jesus, the commandments were often reduced to very achievable tasks. Honor your father and your mother, for example, was simplified to providing for your parents in their old age. Simply placing enough money in the Temple storehouse to provide for the needs of your parents meant, at that time, that you had fulfilled all the responsibilities of that commandment.
Luther, in the Small Catechism, takes another approach. He points out that our responsibilities do not end merely with the two people we recognize as our parents. He enlarges our understanding to include all those in authority, and he points out that we should "honor, serve, obey, love, and respect them." While those in authority, by their actions, sometimes make this difficult, Luther has already made the commandment substantially more comprehensive and difficult to fulfill by his explanation.
If we took the Ten Commandments seriously, and tried actually to fulfill the understandings of the commandments we find in the Small Catechism, things would not seem nearly as easy. Suddenly Paul's quoting of Jesus' summary of the law sounds like not such a bad idea after all.
Jesus was asked, in Mark and Matthew, for a summary of the law. He responded with a twofold summary. The first commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." The second commandment is, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." These are exactly the same words Paul uses in today's lesson. Even in the Greek New Testament, the words are precisely the same.
The basic idea, as Paul expresses it, sounds quite simple. Love everyone, and your actions will fulfill the law. The Greek word translated as love is agape, which means a holy love, the sort of love God showed by sending Jesus, and Jesus showed by giving his life for us, the sort of love that does no wrong to a neighbor. When we show that sort of self--giving love for others, we fulfill the law.
Of course, this summation of the law is similar to Luther's explanations of the commandments in the Small Catechism. Exactly as it happened with Luther, rather than making things easier to accomplish, Paul makes things much more difficult.
Problems with this idea of love are not new by any measure. In fact, from Paul's writings in the New Testament we can understand that early Christians were quite likely to stress the outward gifts such as healing, prophesying, or speaking in tongues, and frequently to lose sight of the basic duty of love. Not a simple theory, often nothing that looks impressive, but a bedrock for Christian behavior - You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
No longer are we able to reduce the commandments to simple little actions we can hope actually to do, or a few things we should avoid doing, such as murder and adultery. Instead, everything we do or fail to do must be examined against a higher standard. Is this action an expression of the holy love we are called to be showing the world, or is it not?
There are times when the answer to this question is not completely clear, and times when it is painfully clear that we are on the wrong side of the answer. Even worse, it is quite possible that different people can understand the answer in seriously different ways.
The law, in our lives as Christians, has been replaced by this summary, this command to love our neighbors as ourselves. This simple summary makes things much more difficult for us. Now we have to consider our actions not as actions under the rules of the commandments; now we have to consider the way those actions will show the way God's holy love for us applies to everyone.
As if this wasn't enough, Paul continues with an innocent sounding phrase, "Besides this." After making every action of a Christian a cause for consideration, Paul goes on to address those who hear his words. "You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep."
Today we know such a statement as a wake--up call. And, regrettably, such a call is sometimes needed. There are incidents when Christians can seem to be sleeping. There are times when we would rather not be confronted with issues that create problems for us. Issues such as the behavior of other people, while quite suitable for gossip, are often ignored when it comes to our actions.
It is a wake--up call not merely to condemn sinful behavior and move on, as if we have never sinned, but rather to show that holy love for fellow sinners in our lives. It is certainly a given that there are sinful people in this world, and, most certainly there are sinful people sitting in every congregation in the world. And the roll call of sinful people, when we are being honest, begins with a glance in any mirror. When we do that, we see the face of the sinful person we are most familiar with - ourselves.
This is precisely the path Paul takes. Even though we are closer to salvation now than when we became believers, we are still plagued with our tendency to act sinfully. We often know what we should do, but we regularly fail to do it. Paul uses the image of night and day.
We know the night is ending, but in the few waning hours of the night, we are sorely tempted to give in to the easy ways - to follow the ways of the night and not allow ourselves to be bothered by the call to do no wrong to our neighbor.
Paul reminds us of our duty to "lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." That can be the hardest part of all. If only there was something we could do to earn a share in this salvation, then the whole system would be so much easier. If we could do things, if there was a nice list of the things we needed to do to ensure our place in eternal life, everything would be much easier to understand.
But Paul mentions the things we do, our actions to earn a share in God's salvation, our works as "works of darkness," and he is clearly correct. This is really the root of the problem, and the source of our affection for the Ten Commandments. We would really like to be able to do something to be sure we had earned our way into salvation.
In this world virtually everything people have is the result of somebody doing something to earn it. People who have great resources have often worked hard to gather the resources. At the least, they have parents or grandparents or more remote ancestors who worked hard to gather the resources, and others who worked hard to conserve them. Those who have little are sometimes the object of scorn for a perceived lack of initiative, or creativity, or ambition, or opportunity, or something. What we do has a great part to play in what we have.
It seems as if this should also be true about our relationship with God. A simple list of the things we should do to make that relationship better or stronger, or at least to ensure the relationship exists would be quite helpful. Unfortunately, such a list does not exist. If anything, the very idea of looking for such a list of things for us to do is contrary to the basic message of the New Testament and the church throughout the centuries.
We are already assured of God's love for us, because we do know what time it is. This is the time after Jesus died on the cross for us. This is the time when we are called to live out the holy love of God for us in our lives with our neighbors. We have no list of specific actions to take, but we are given the more difficult thing, to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ"; to let our actions and our lives be guided by the example of the self--sacrificing love of God; to follow the example of Jesus in our relations with all our neighbors, everywhere; to spread the good news of God's love in all the ways we act for our neighbors. Amen.
By being good to employees, costs for recruitment and training and replacement will be greatly reduced.
By being good to customers, there will be loyalty and an increased willingness to spend money in your place of business or on your brand of merchandise.
By being good to communities, there is often a reduction in taxes, greater ease in obtaining needed licenses and permits, and a general improvement in the opinion of community toward the business.
Many businesses have discovered that doing good often translates to doing quite well financially. Paul almost sounds as if he is saying similar things for Christians in the lesson for today. Christians should do good to do well forever. Or, if we listen more carefully, Paul is really encouraging Christians to do good, live right, and, as he expresses it, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Surprisingly, all this is without a single shred of a promise about doing anything, either doing well or doing poorly.
Often, especially when trying to convince people that they should act in a responsible, Christian manner, people promise a variety of things as rewards for such behavior. Behave as we know we should, and you will be given eternal life, God's love, and other things. Sometimes the promises are more specific, as when our good behavior is promised a reward of a good life, increased wealth, or the admiration of others.
All in all, it sounds very much like the sort of thing most parents use with their children on occasion. If you sit quietly, I'll stop and get you some ice cream, or a hamburger, or a special toy, or whatever.
Paul does none of this. Most emphatically, he promises no rewards for our living up to the way we are supposed to live as Christians. Rather than rewards, Paul simply presents a picture of some of the basics of a Christian life.
First Paul talks about love as the one word that describes a Christian life. Of course, this message has been proclaimed among Christians for centuries, but it has clearly been misunderstood for about as long as it has been proclaimed. Take, for example, Paul's example of how the commandments interact with love. Paul points out that all the commandments are summed up in the instruction, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
In spite of this, many people still seem to hold on to various commandments from the Old Testament, particularly the Ten Commandments, as some sort of guideline to how Christians should live. The commandments are held up as the Law of God for Christians. And this ignores Paul's comment that "love is the fulfilling of the law."
Perhaps this preference for the commandments is simple to understand. The commandments seem to provide easy limits to what we should do, and by the ways we interpret the commandments, the limits are even easier. The commandment says we should not murder, but that is fairly simple for most of us. The commandment says we should not commit adultery, which people seem to find more difficult, but it at least sounds attainable. The commandment says we should not covet, which is certainly more difficult, but something we can work on and at least make it seem as if we can manage it.
In the time of Jesus, the commandments were often reduced to very achievable tasks. Honor your father and your mother, for example, was simplified to providing for your parents in their old age. Simply placing enough money in the Temple storehouse to provide for the needs of your parents meant, at that time, that you had fulfilled all the responsibilities of that commandment.
Luther, in the Small Catechism, takes another approach. He points out that our responsibilities do not end merely with the two people we recognize as our parents. He enlarges our understanding to include all those in authority, and he points out that we should "honor, serve, obey, love, and respect them." While those in authority, by their actions, sometimes make this difficult, Luther has already made the commandment substantially more comprehensive and difficult to fulfill by his explanation.
If we took the Ten Commandments seriously, and tried actually to fulfill the understandings of the commandments we find in the Small Catechism, things would not seem nearly as easy. Suddenly Paul's quoting of Jesus' summary of the law sounds like not such a bad idea after all.
Jesus was asked, in Mark and Matthew, for a summary of the law. He responded with a twofold summary. The first commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." The second commandment is, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." These are exactly the same words Paul uses in today's lesson. Even in the Greek New Testament, the words are precisely the same.
The basic idea, as Paul expresses it, sounds quite simple. Love everyone, and your actions will fulfill the law. The Greek word translated as love is agape, which means a holy love, the sort of love God showed by sending Jesus, and Jesus showed by giving his life for us, the sort of love that does no wrong to a neighbor. When we show that sort of self--giving love for others, we fulfill the law.
Of course, this summation of the law is similar to Luther's explanations of the commandments in the Small Catechism. Exactly as it happened with Luther, rather than making things easier to accomplish, Paul makes things much more difficult.
Problems with this idea of love are not new by any measure. In fact, from Paul's writings in the New Testament we can understand that early Christians were quite likely to stress the outward gifts such as healing, prophesying, or speaking in tongues, and frequently to lose sight of the basic duty of love. Not a simple theory, often nothing that looks impressive, but a bedrock for Christian behavior - You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
No longer are we able to reduce the commandments to simple little actions we can hope actually to do, or a few things we should avoid doing, such as murder and adultery. Instead, everything we do or fail to do must be examined against a higher standard. Is this action an expression of the holy love we are called to be showing the world, or is it not?
There are times when the answer to this question is not completely clear, and times when it is painfully clear that we are on the wrong side of the answer. Even worse, it is quite possible that different people can understand the answer in seriously different ways.
The law, in our lives as Christians, has been replaced by this summary, this command to love our neighbors as ourselves. This simple summary makes things much more difficult for us. Now we have to consider our actions not as actions under the rules of the commandments; now we have to consider the way those actions will show the way God's holy love for us applies to everyone.
As if this wasn't enough, Paul continues with an innocent sounding phrase, "Besides this." After making every action of a Christian a cause for consideration, Paul goes on to address those who hear his words. "You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep."
Today we know such a statement as a wake--up call. And, regrettably, such a call is sometimes needed. There are incidents when Christians can seem to be sleeping. There are times when we would rather not be confronted with issues that create problems for us. Issues such as the behavior of other people, while quite suitable for gossip, are often ignored when it comes to our actions.
It is a wake--up call not merely to condemn sinful behavior and move on, as if we have never sinned, but rather to show that holy love for fellow sinners in our lives. It is certainly a given that there are sinful people in this world, and, most certainly there are sinful people sitting in every congregation in the world. And the roll call of sinful people, when we are being honest, begins with a glance in any mirror. When we do that, we see the face of the sinful person we are most familiar with - ourselves.
This is precisely the path Paul takes. Even though we are closer to salvation now than when we became believers, we are still plagued with our tendency to act sinfully. We often know what we should do, but we regularly fail to do it. Paul uses the image of night and day.
We know the night is ending, but in the few waning hours of the night, we are sorely tempted to give in to the easy ways - to follow the ways of the night and not allow ourselves to be bothered by the call to do no wrong to our neighbor.
Paul reminds us of our duty to "lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." That can be the hardest part of all. If only there was something we could do to earn a share in this salvation, then the whole system would be so much easier. If we could do things, if there was a nice list of the things we needed to do to ensure our place in eternal life, everything would be much easier to understand.
But Paul mentions the things we do, our actions to earn a share in God's salvation, our works as "works of darkness," and he is clearly correct. This is really the root of the problem, and the source of our affection for the Ten Commandments. We would really like to be able to do something to be sure we had earned our way into salvation.
In this world virtually everything people have is the result of somebody doing something to earn it. People who have great resources have often worked hard to gather the resources. At the least, they have parents or grandparents or more remote ancestors who worked hard to gather the resources, and others who worked hard to conserve them. Those who have little are sometimes the object of scorn for a perceived lack of initiative, or creativity, or ambition, or opportunity, or something. What we do has a great part to play in what we have.
It seems as if this should also be true about our relationship with God. A simple list of the things we should do to make that relationship better or stronger, or at least to ensure the relationship exists would be quite helpful. Unfortunately, such a list does not exist. If anything, the very idea of looking for such a list of things for us to do is contrary to the basic message of the New Testament and the church throughout the centuries.
We are already assured of God's love for us, because we do know what time it is. This is the time after Jesus died on the cross for us. This is the time when we are called to live out the holy love of God for us in our lives with our neighbors. We have no list of specific actions to take, but we are given the more difficult thing, to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ"; to let our actions and our lives be guided by the example of the self--sacrificing love of God; to follow the example of Jesus in our relations with all our neighbors, everywhere; to spread the good news of God's love in all the ways we act for our neighbors. Amen.
