Romans 12:9-21
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. The Epistle reading for September 3 is from Romans chapter 12. verses nine through 21. It reads, let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. rejoice in hope Be patient and tribulation be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all, if possible, so far as it depends on you live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written, VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good here hence the reading. This reading seems a little bit like a grab bag of different suggestions. But what it does is it flows directly from the image of the Body of Christ that we had just before this in Romans chapter 12. Where St. Paul says that we the church are members of the Body of Christ and members of one another, that we should not think of ourselves higher than we ought to think. And that binding together in the body of Christ leads us to this list, a wonderful list that I wish I could touch on every single one and say, and talk about it in depth. But it begins with Let love be genuine. Now this list that we see, let love be genuine. And all of these other things, though, all the different ways that it talks about loving each other inside the church. You could look at these and say, St. Paul is giving us command, we absolutely have to do it. But I think there's another way to look at it. We can say to that this is what we already want to do. We Christians want to love one another. And I think we should think about the all of the ways that our churches care about each other the members of the congregation, you can think of stories in your own life the prayers that we offer up for each other the the ways that we care for each other the the rides that we might give to each other when we show up together and have lunch together or celebrate or or pray or you know, there are just so many different stories. And especially for a pastor who's still relatively new, it's hard to come up with them all. But the idea here is not so much that St. Paul is wagging a finger at the Romans or us but that there's this thing that God has planted in us by the power of the Holy Spirit, to give us genuine love for each other. And that is what really makes a congregation genuine love that we live out with joy. Now there's another side of this as well. There's there's the side of how do we deal with those who are outside of the church who are against us, the those who persecute and the still, the thing that it that Romans tells us is that there's still this love, a genuine love for those who persecute us. So verse 14, Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Or later on and 19 it says beloved, never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of God forbids written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. This reflects the kind of love that Jesus showed for his enemies, the people who were there who were trying to kill him, even said, Father forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. He came to us while we were still enemies of God and made us People in baptism and brought us together into the body of Christ. And so when we face people who persecute us or hurt us, or, you know any kind of of terrible difficulty, we have to say, Let's be like Christ, who loved us while we were outsiders. And so we overcome evil with good. We respond to hate with love. And what that does is that makes enemies into friends. And then we win, right? That's the standard that God sets for us and the love that he shows for us in Jesus. Well, that's it for Romans chapter 12. Hopefully, we'll see you on Sunday. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai