Rejoicing and Weeping: Sermon on Romans 12:9-16

“Shall we be jolly or sad?” That was the question – the question that appeared in the New York Daily Herald on Palm Sunday that year. With the war swiftly drawing to a close, all sorts of celebrations were getting scheduled over the most solemn days of Holy Week, when Christians were supposed to be mourning the betrayal and death of their Savior. “A queer muddle all around,” the papers said. But Palm Sunday celebrations continued as usual. The people in every church in the city rejoiced together. In the Brooklyn Tabernacle, one preacher lifted up the passage we ourselves heard last week – “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”

The Monday morning paper brought news that had already trickled into the city by the prior evening – the threat was fading, the main enemy force had surrendered. Over breakfast, it seemed like every table in the city was abuzz with the sensation. Although it rained in torrents from morn to night, still flags went up all over the city, flying proudly and joyously. The day after that, at Trinity Episcopal Church at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, members and neighbors alike flocked to the church for a special service of thanksgiving shortly after the completion of a hundred-gun salute in Union Square. Hundreds couldn't even fit into the church to hear the Beatitudes read. Though arranged on short notice, the Lord's Prayer, sung as the organ reached its crescendo, sounded like the unified prayer of a whole nation in one room. Four priests gave abundant praise for the return of peace; all joined in chanting out Gloria in Excelsis Deo – a thousand voices and more, sustained by two organs playing in harmony. Hearts lifted high to God, songs of gladness and praise filled sanctuary and sky.

Two days passed. It was Maundy Thursday, the anniversary of the Last Supper. Altars were decorated. Then came Good Friday, and while the day was supposed to be for solemn seriousness, it was hard to keep a lid on joy. The draft had been rescinded, and all over the city, celebrations broke forth with abandon for rich and poor alike. All rejoiced – but a few brokers mourned, those, the daily papers said, “whose business it has been to fatten on the misfortunes of their fellow beings” and who now “found their occupation gone.” An ugly sight they must have presented – this handful of men, grieving amidst the rejoicing of a blessed city.

The curious gladness of Good Friday gave way, the next morning, to devastation on Holy Saturday. The feature article of the Saturday morning paper brought no happy news, but rather a shocking word no one thought they'd see: “Assassination.” The Chief Magistrate of the nation was dead by 7:22 on Saturday morning. Silence settled like a suffocating blanket over the metropolis, punctuated by bulletins and extras promoting contradictory reports, and the sounds of weepers pacing Broadway from Wall Street to Union Square. All the flags announcing the joy of victory fell to half-mast sorrow. Even the poorest of the poor spent what little they had to buy tiny flags with crape to pin up where they lived. Buildings of all sorts – draped in black and white fabric, draining the color from the city. Trinity Church was among them, and their great flag, sailing high over all the city, fell to half-mast, too. In the closing hour of the morning, the sorrowful crammed the church, still as death, punctuated by the words of the pastor and the heavy sobs of the people. The congregation knelt to sing.

The next morning was Easter Sunday – the gladdest, most dazzling day of the Christian year. But the city was drenched in tears. Inside, Trinity Church was decorated with Easter finery, all glowing bright, while the outside of the building still wore its black. The church had never been seen so full – not even at Tuesday's thanksgiving service. Even the Hallelujah Chorus sounded heavy and broken. Men and women sobbed bitterly. The preacher found it all but impossible to keep focus on Jesus and his resurrection; it seemed obscured by the devastating tragedy at hand. He announced that Christ “rose not only to bring light and peace, but to be the judge of the world.” Pray, he urged them, pray for Christ to bring justice to a heartbroken nation. And yet... and yet it was Easter morning. Christ is risen. “With our lamentation,” Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton said to them... “With our lamentation, let us mingle praise, as becomes us on Easter Day.” And so, with heavy but determined hearts, they sang again: Gloria in Excelsis Deo. And then dispersed. How hard it is for one heart to carry both truest joy and truest sorrow.

But on that day, in that hour, at least the city and country were united in mourning together. Or, almost. The day before, when news first broke, a ferry crossing the waters had its grief interrupted by one passenger who was smugly glib over the whole thing, and spoke quite lightly of President Lincoln's death. One passenger who rejoiced in the face of others weeping. In unison, the rest of the passengers hurled him overboard into the cold April waters. That same day, a few men on Wall Street spoke lightly of the tragedy; bystanders beat them senseless, and one, Charles Anderson, nearly so to death before the police intervened. Levity in the face of grief is seldom appreciated. So too the next day, as maids in some homes, and waiters at one of the city's luxury hotels, were fired en masse for openly rejoicing. There's something wrong with those who weep in the face of others rejoicing, and something wrong with those who rejoice in the face of others who weep.

As for Trinity Church, its history had stretched back a number of years before that week. Their first building at the south tip of Manhattan went up in 1698. The third Trinity Church, consecrated in 1846 and the one that saw the joys and sorrows of that tumultuous week in 1865, is the structure that still stands today as an Episcopal parish church. At the time, it was the tallest building in the United States. The congregation has seen its ebbs and its flows in the long stretch since then. In time, the crowds subsided. It has never been perfect. One usher quipped in his diary that, for the side of the church he collected offerings from, the large offering plate was “a kind of practical satire,” since their level of generosity would suggest a teaspoon as “the more suitable utensil.” They've no doubt had their share of controversies, their share of lapses, their share of troubles.

Long before their first building was built looking out over the Hudson River, a collection of scattered churches around some of the fourteen divisions of first-century Rome were hardly perfect, either. Broken by the tragedy of Claudius' order to expel Jews from the city, and then perplexed by their reintroduction to the city and church life, this Christian network had loose ties; the churches weren't communicating, they were going their own way, they were in conflict, and even within a given house or tenement church, there could be plenty of tension and difficulty. The tragedies and celebrations that should have brought cohesion in each church, and that should have brought the whole network together... They just didn't.

When Paul, writing an exhaustive treatise for them from his base in Corinth before he heads toward Jerusalem, looks over at their situation, he isn't thrilled. He sees so many challenges he wishes they'd work through before he comes their way. His vision for the church, like he'd told the Corinthians earlier, can be summed up in one main thing: Love. And love doesn't look like what they're up to in Rome. Love looks so much deeper than how it is there. And maybe love looks deeper than what Paul would see among and within our churches in Lancaster County today. What do you think?

Paul explains to them that “love is without pretense” (Romans 12:9). It's not just about play-acting, a show to put on when somebody's watching and then abandon when they're not. It's real. It's authentic. It's heartfelt. It's genuine and sincere. And it looks like a close-knit family “being devoted to one another in brotherly love” – a big leap from the fractured and self-absorbed lives of the Roman churches Paul's heard about. No, they need to cultivate real relationships in each church. Paul would tell us to be committed to our churches, to actually treat each other like family. When the going gets tough, a close-knit family sticks together. A close-knit family gets together, gathers to share meals and spend time with each other. That's genuine love. And they have to share things in common, “having the same mind toward one another” (Romans 12:16a). They may not agree on all things – what family does? We may not agree on all things, but we can agree on love. We can agree on some common goals, if not always the smartest way to get there.

And in a loving family, the well-to-do members, the successful members, the well-educated and refined members, don't look down on those who ain't – nor do those who ain't aim to scorn those who is. Love is “not minding the high things, but going along with the lowly,” and “not being wise-minded in yourselves” (Romans 12:16b-c). That's what Paul says. No one of these churches should think it can get by on its own. We shouldn't think we can get by on our own, as a church, without the other churches in our district and conference, or the local churches of other biblically faithful denominations. We can't. Paul tells us we can't. Nor, within our local church, can one piece get by without the rest – we heard that lesson two weeks back.

In a loving family, Paul says, love looks like “taking the lead in honoring one another” (Romans 12:10b). We go out of our way to take the initiative in making the others look good, in showing them honor. That was a hard word to hear in Rome back then, when folks said that honoring somebody else was something people hate, since it feels like being deprived of honor yourself. But in a loving family, instead of trying to make yourself look good, you try to make your family members look good. And that, Paul says, is how it should work in each one of these churches – and between them. We should focus on treating each other well, talking up each other's accomplishments and character, taking the lead in that. And we should be advertising all the great news that's coming out of our other district churches and sharing that with the neighborhood. It's why we try to promote events at the other churches nearest to us here: to take the lead in honoring them, just like the Lord tells us to through his apostle right here. It's biblical. Let's keep at it.

And as we do that, Paul says, family-style love means not being lax about it. When it comes to honoring each other, when it comes to building each other up, when it comes to working to make each other look good, Paul tells us it means “not lagging when it comes to zeal” (Romans 12:11a). Paul's imagining a church, and a church network, that turns its back on slacking off. Instead, love means “boiling over in the Spirit” (Romans 12:11b) – letting the Spirit of God, with all the gifts he brings, flourish in us. Rather than stifling our gifts as we're prone to do, we should keep them from getting rusty by keeping them active. And the only guideline we need to how to use our gifts rightly for each other is to use them in “serving the Lord” (Romans 12:11c). By remembering that we're all the Lord's servants, whether here or at Terre Hill or at Bridgeville or at Mt. Airy or at California or at the church down the street that's denominated under a name besides EC, we can keep our gifts on track in family-style love under the Lord we're all called to serve.

For Paul, a loving church needs to have some things in common, and one of them is a common hope. What are we looking for? What are we expecting? Ultimately, we should be expecting and looking for the day when the Lord Jesus will return to bring this new creation he's started into full bloom. What we're looking for isn't the growth of our church – though that'd be nice, and may well be how God blesses our faithfulness. What we're looking for isn't the moral upkeep of the nation – though that wouldn't be a bad side effect for our collective faithfulness. What we're looking for is the action of God in the return of Jesus. Family-style love in the church means “rejoicing in hope” by reminding each other of what's really in store, a new heaven and new earth with God's presence at the center, all thanks to Jesus (Romans 12:12a). In the meantime, though, things are likely to be rough. We know how rough. Elsewhere in the world, the church is outright persecuted with all manner of violence. In America, some forms of soft persecution are creeping in. More relevant to our lived experience, we get sick, we struggle, we grieve, we die. It's rough as we try to stay anchored in the hope that's in store. So Paul reminds us that family-style love also means “being patient in tribulation” (Romans 12:12b). Jesus is on his way when the appointed hour comes, and until then, we have to endure.

The only way to do that, Paul says, is by being “constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12c). Family-style love in the church means getting together to pray regularly. We do that on Sunday mornings. That's a start. It should take place more often. And it doesn't mean just listing a series of the woes of relatives and neighbors. It means refocusing our prayers the way Paul's prayers were focused: God-centered, Jesus-anchored, Spirit-powered, big-picture praying, with the rest finding its place naturally within that priestly, family-style work. And that adds up in a big way to how Paul pictures a healthy church – a church that embodies family-style love.

From the 1870s to today, I'm sure there are times we've come closer and times we've fallen further. And just so, from the 1690s to today, I'm sure there are times Trinity Church in Manhattan has come closer and times they've fallen farther. But one thing is for sure. For at least that one week, they embodied a key characteristic of love: “to rejoice with those who rejoice; to weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). And oh boy, did they ever. When the war ended, they rejoiced with all their neighbors; when the president was struck down by John Wilkes Booth, they wept with all their neighbors. They actively shared in the lives of those around them.

What about the churches in Rome? Paul would've reminded the Gentile Christians to celebrate with the Jews who returned – their fellow believers and even the ones who didn't believe. And even beyond their churches, he would've reminded them to celebrate the lives of their fellow church members, the lives of the other churches in the network, the lives of the people down the street. Not every celebration could be joined, it's true. Romans had plenty of pagan festivals Christians couldn't in good conscience join, and love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). But a new marriage, a baby being born, success at work? Any Roman Christian could rejoice in that, even if the person so blessed was a despiser of the faith, and surely if it happened to a fellow Jesus-follower.

As hard as anyone tries to 'pursue' the church in putting us down, that's how hard, Paul says, we should 'pursue' chances to show hospitality (Romans 12:13b). To be good hosts. To invite travelers into our homes – vital and important especially in Rome, where travelers passed through all the time. Paul plans to be one himself. But not just for Christians, but in general, Paul tells them not to just passively wait, but to actively go looking for people to put up with room and board – people to host, people to feed, people to welcome. Reading Paul, you'd get the impression he thinks an empty room or empty couch in a Christian home is a contradiction in terms, or at the very least a wasted space and a lost opportunity. Around here, with all the bed-and-breakfasts and the different sort of local economy, we still take Paul's point. We could at least host celebrations for our church family and for our neighbors, couldn't we? We could send cards of congratulations for every good turn we hear, couldn't we? We could join in the festivities in every way compatible with our faith, couldn't we? Couldn't we “rejoice with those who rejoice” (Romans 12:15a)? And in our churches, couldn't we keep our ears open for every scrap of good news, and let it sincerely fill our hearts?

Of course, not all news is good news. Life is rough in a broken world. There will be tragedies in our lives and in our neighbors' lives. Griefs. Sicknesses. Financial hardships. Losses. Disasters. Funerals. Times when those in our church or those on our block have reason for weeping. What does Paul say in that hour? “Weep with those who weep,” he tells us (Romans 12:15b). Don't turn away from anyone's sorrow; enter it, share it, suffer it alongside them. Be a consoling presence where you can, but also just be a co-suffering presence. Even if you've got no words to say, just be there to weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn, lament with those who lament.

Sometimes there will be ways to help, especially in the church. Paul says another mark of family-style love is in “contributing to the needs of the saints” (Romans 12:13a). Distribute what you've got to them, as a way of distributing part of their hardship onto yourself, and sharing in bearing their load. But whether that fits or not, be emotionally open to the joys and, yes, the sorrows of others. That was a weird idea in first-century Rome, a city where Stoic philosophy was doing quite well, a strain of thought that encouraged people to be unmoved and impervious to suffering. Paul says, rather, don't be emotionally closed off; be more open. More empathy, more sympathy, more imagination; be active in sharing what your neighbors are going through, and certainly so for those in your church or church network. Don't turn away from anybody's joys or anybody's sorrows; don't resort to clichés that only insulate you from what's really going on. Jesus doesn't bid us be a church of clichés; he wants us to grapple with dark and bright realities as they are, and to look then to the hope beyond.

Rejoicing with those who rejoice can be hard, if we aren't feeling very light ourselves. It was hard, in 1865, for people at Trinity Church to rejoice with Christians around the world in the resurrection of their Lord. It was hard, because they had their own national sorrows. And yet they had to lift up praise amidst their laments, to rejoice with those who rejoice. And weeping with those who weep can be hard, if we're in a more chipper mood ourselves. And yet the Holy Spirit can expand our capacity, to have hearts big enough to carry our own joy or sorrow as well as the sorrow or joy of those around us.

Rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep – it is hard to do. I won't deny that. And yet failing to weep with those who weep, and failing to rejoice with those who rejoice, can have such painful effects in the lives of weepers and mourners. Think of how tacky people found it in 1865, when the draft was revoked and those who stood to profit were in open grief over the end of lucrative warfare. Think how provoked people were that weekend in 1865, when some few made light of the Lincoln assassination in the face of those grieving a national tragedy. The reprisals were pain lashing out – and though the violence was wrong, the pain was real.

In today's America, it's a lesson we still have to learn. Every day, when I log on to social media, I still hear all about the latest big controversy of American culture: the national anthem protests. Remember that? It's still a very live issue. We're all talking past each other. And it's all because we've failed this verse.

Here's how I look at it. When Americans stand for the national anthem, when they hear hopeful and idealistic words about “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” when they hear the song and see the flag meant to represent those things, it's an act of rejoicing – rejoicing in the many gifts the country has received, the many glad-hearted values the country was meant to embody, however faltering we've been. It's a shared affection, a common commitment and cherishing, a rejoicing in the endurance of glimmers of moral beauty amidst the smoke and turmoil of a troubled world. Why were some vocal factions offended when some football players visibly refused by kneeling? Because in doing so, they refused to “rejoice with those who rejoice.” In its place, they lamented in the face of the rejoicing of their fellow-citizens. No wonder some people now, as in 1865, were provoked!

But then there's the other side. In kneeling, the players meant to embody the posture of a flag at half-mast – not out of hatred for the country, but out of grief over a national tragedy, just like flags flew at half-mast in the wake of the Lincoln assassination. That national tragedy is felt especially keenly by racial minorities in America who receive unfair and unequal treatment at the hands of the criminal justice system and in American society at large. Numerous incidents over the past several years, as well as day-to-day life, for some Americans links to the lengthy legacy of oppression in the slavery Lincoln abolished and the patchy history of recovery that came afterward. America doesn't always live up to the ideals she professes, and some in our country mourn the fear and suffering they endure. In the face of their real sorrow and real pain, many of us have, in turn, refused to “weep with those who weep.” In its place, we minimize their suffering; we rejoice in their faces as they mourn and weep and lament. How well did that go over in 1865? No wonder some now are provoked into protest! 

But imagine what could happen if we more consistently wept with those who wept, mourned with those who mourned, and really took upon ourselves their sorrow and pain in the face of discrimination. Imagine what could happen if they and we still found ways to rejoice with those who rejoice in whatever blessings or virtues the country yet has. Wouldn't that make a move toward a healthier country, if we all learned better how to both “rejoice with those who rejoice” and “weep with those who weep”? What would our national culture look like, I wonder, if even 10%, 20%, of the people made a concerted effort to do so in the face of any given hot-button dispute?

The church can make that happen – we can make that happen. Not just when it comes to the anthem protests, and not just when it comes to any other big national controversy, but right here, in our neighborhood, in the life we live alongside our neighbors day by day. We can make it happen because the Holy Spirit gives us hearts big enough for our own joys and their own sorrows, or our own sorrows and their own joys. We can make it happen because we have made a family, made for family-style love. And by pursuing Paul's prescription for family-style lovin' in the church, we'll be better positioned to share each other's joys and sorrows as well as those of our neighbors. Like Trinity Church in 1865, we can welcome the joys and sorrows of our neighbors and each other into this place, gathering them up, throwing the bonds of family wide open.

It starts with us. It starts with you, this family-style love. You, all of you, each of you, can be present to the joy and the sorrow of the house next door. Each of you can rejoice with your neighbors, your relatives, your kids and grandkids, your co-workers or schoolmates, your church family. Take the initiative, send messages of light and blessing, host the party or just join in. And each of you can weep and mourn with the same people when they hurt and grieve and struggle and suffer. Take the initiative, be there for them in silence or send words of compassion and fellow-suffering. Allow the joy, allow the tears, to enter your heart. It's the kind of possibility that our family-style love as a church is meant to make possible. And imagine, just imagine, what could be if you were known in your workplace, your school, your church, your neighborhood, as someone present and emotionally available to the life-situations of each one, and who can point, in joy or in sorrow, to the one hope: Jesus Christ. Let that be our love. Let that be our witness: of rejoicing and weeping, as Jesus did, and in his name. Amen.

Vengeance: A How-To-(Not) Guide: Sermon on Romans 12:17-21

'Twas a fair if misty afternoon at sea. From a half-sunk rowboat, a captain surveyed the damage to his vessel – the hull breached, the doom of all still aboard seemed sealed. The ship had been rammed by a whale that now floated, waiting, nearby him – just in front of the captain. But it – that whale, a massive albino unmistakable in age and feature – well, that was what he'd set sail for. The captain, in his late fifties, had been a whaler four decades, since leaving the cusp of youth. But that whale had ruined his last voyage – ruined him his last voyage – a fact the captain recalled every time he walked, whalebone peg from his bitten-off stump clunking against wood in alternation with his sole good leg. In the wake of the tragedy, people said the captain's “torn body and gashed soul” had “bled into one another.” Oh, that “murderous monster” of a whale. To the captain, it seemed something more – something like the prison wall of the universe, confining him, representing the face of the malicious void beyond, which he had to breach, had to strike that taunting cosmic malice.

Ever since they'd embarked on this voyage, he'd had one thought in mind: to find that same whale and bring it to its death. Nothing could dissuade the captain; he'd chase the whale all over the earth, even round and round the flames of hell itself, before giving it up. To him, that whale was the most loathsome thing, invested with all the weight of evil since the days of Adam. The sight of it chased all thought of himself, all thought of his wife and boy back home in Nantucket, from his mind. That whale seemed somehow... vengeful. Vengeful in striking the hull of the whaling ship that pursued him so far. But the whale's vengeance was met by the captain's. That was his single driving passion: vengeance. 'Twas a “wild vindictiveness” that drove him. “Vengeance on a dumb brute,” a critic said – no, the captain thought, vengeance on malice itself. But right in that particular: he had sailed for one “all-engrossing” object, to gain “an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge.”

And so, as the Pequod in the distance took on torrents of death-dealing water through its breached hull, her captain cared for little but the whale before him – at long last. The whale seemed to wait for their encounter, too. Standing, and letting go for a moment of the gunwale to which he'd clung for safety, the captain shouted, “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!” And a last harpoon flew from the captain's hand. It struck, but the line behind ran foul, and no sooner had he cleared it than the rope managed to catch him by the neck and shoot him from the boat. It dragged him down as the whale dove, tangled him beneath the deep – and so vengeance was the end of Captain Ahab.

Herman Melville's classic 1850s novel Moby Dick is about many a thing, but on the surface, at least, it portrays the quest of one man for vengeance against the whale that not only stole his leg but comes to embody all his rage. And no one can deny the white whale hurt Ahab. Think about it: to watch so many of his last crew slaughtered and torn apart in the ocean foam, and to have his own leg bitten off, and to have it replaced with a prosthetic made from whale bone, but every step he took reminded him only of what he'd lost. I can't imagine the torment Ahab went through, even physically, let alone psychologically. Not a one of us here, I think, has had quite that done to us. 

But I won't deny, couldn't deny, that we get hurt in this world – not by whales in the sea, but by men and women quite like ourselves. Some of us have been wounded, hurt physically, attacked. Some of us have been traumatized by tragedy of human craftsmanship. Some of us have been bankrupted by the machinations of others, robbed blind, left destitute. Some of us have been tossed to the curb, abandoned. Some of us have been accused falsely of wrongs we didn't commit, had our names dragged through the mud. Some of us have been excluded and exorcised from former places of business, former places of leisure, former places of worship. In a world of crime and offense, a world of blood and sweat and tears, it doesn't take a whale to hurt us; we get wounded, traumatized, cursed, excluded, denounced, betrayed, and all the rest, just in human society. Maybe it's a small thing, sometimes – a petty word or glance, a sharp remark, a simple slight, that sets your blood a-boilin'. Or maybe it's a larger thing – something that shakes us, something that redirects the path of your life.  Whether it be an unkind word or a terrorist attack, evil is at large in our world, and we get hurt.

The Bible never ignores that. And the Bible doesn't tell us to ignore that. “Just shake it off” isn't the biblical way to see things. Neither is the old Stoic idea of being imperturbable – undisturbed by all the misfortunes that come your way. No, the Bible tells us to “hate exceedingly what is evil,” while we “cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). The Bible is too honest to pretend the world is fair or life is fair. Injustice is out there. It is real. It matters. We should take it seriously. Even when it gets personal.

Faced with the different ways we get hurt, slighted, excluded, and betrayed, we hate it – we hate injustice done to us. And that's not wrong – we're to hate what is evil, and hate it a lot. That can easily drive us to vengeance. That's a heavy word – 'Vengeance' – but more commonly these days, we just call it 'Payback.' And it isn't only about the big things. A business does wrong by me, and what's my first thought? Leave a bad review – but my mind might not be on other potential customers, but on hurting the business. Payback. I get cut off in traffic, and what's my first thought? Drive in a way that inconveniences them, whether it be by tailgating or getting around and slowing them down. Payback. Someone gives me the cold shoulder, and what's my first thought? Giving it right back to them, engaging in some passive-aggressive games, giving them a 'taste of their own medicine.' Payback. Someone criticizes me, and what's my first thought? Lay into them, put them in their place, teach them a lesson. Payback. Vengeance. Our world seems to run on vengeance. On payback. How else can we show we hate what's evil than to punish it, training those around us not to hurt us any more? We do it all the time. With our neighbors. With our relatives. With our co-workers. With each other. We want to behave in a way that will hold up a mirror to the way they've treated us. Payback. And just like Ahab, things may not feel right until we've done it; it can stew and boil inside us, because injustice is plain to see.

And yet... And yet, not so long after Paul tells us to hate what's evil, he says something else. He says, “Repay no one evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). How can that be? How can we not fight back? How can we take things lying down. If the business does wrong by us, aren't we to one-star it? If the colleague picks a feud with us, aren't we to outfeud him? If the driver cuts us off, aren't we to inconvenience her? If the family member cheats and mistreats us, aren't we to respond in kind? If the system cheats us, aren't we to work against it? If the whale bites off our leg, aren't we to hunt it? How else, when we're on the spot, can we show we take evil seriously? Something seems wrong here, we want to tell Paul.

But then Paul makes it worse; he says something harder: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves” (Romans 12:19). And we wonder, “Really, Paul? Really? Never avenge yourselves? Never get payback? Never teach them a lesson? How, then, shall they learn?” And Paul says back, “You heard me.” When the business does wrong by you, don't make it your aim to hurt them back. When the driver cuts you off, don't make it your aim to inconvenience them – Paul says, not even to curse them under your breath (cf. Romans 12:14). When your neighbor complains about you, Paul says, don't level the playing field by destroying their reputation. When your family member treats you coldly and distantly, don't give them the cold shoulder in return. When your critics surface with words of hurt, don't lash back with hurtful words of your own. Not even for the big cases. Not even against the whales of the world, the murderous monsters that roam the seven seas – and the seven continents, too. Paul doesn't say, “Sometimes avenge yourselves, when the case is serious enough.” Or, “Sometimes avenge yourselves, when it should be a quick thing to teach them to fix it.” Just, “Never avenge yourselves.” That's the word Ahab couldn't hear.

It's hard for us to hear, too. It makes no sense. How can we hate evil without showing evildoers in our lives that we take their evil seriously? But Paul sees something all too true. Paul sees that our vengeance, our own efforts to get payback, to put people back in their place, to teach them a lesson, can so easily get out of hand – that they run too high a risk of dragging us and our worlds down with them. It's too easy, in seeking to punish evil, to become an evildoer. Criticizing our critics, our words can run away with us. Inconveniencing the driver who inconveniences me, I can put myself in harm's way (or them!). Giving the cold shoulder to a cold kinsman, I can ruin a relationship's chances for revival. Tearing down the reputations of those who falsely accuse me, I can land in hot water myself. Our vengeance spins out of control: remember the Hatfields and the McCoys. Think of the escalating atrocities in almost any war. Sometimes the whale wins the day again, and you end up tangled in your own schemes, fathoms beneath air and sun.

It's hard for us to hear not to avenge ourselves. That seems so much like being a pushover, a doormat – like letting people, letting life, just walk all over us, by showing that we don't take injustice seriously. But Paul isn't done with his sentence when it tells us to never avenge ourselves. He says there's something else to do instead: “Give place to the wrath” (Romans 12:19b). And what he means is, “Step back and make room for the wrath of God to take care of it.”

That phrase – “the wrath of God” – we don't much like that. It's not the way we picture God in America these days, is it? God is all about love, about mercy, about kindness and grace. But the Bible paints a richer picture and uses some heavier colors. The psalmist prays, “O LORD, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O Judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve” (Psalm 94:1-2). Hear that title: “God of Vengeance.” When injustice rears its ugly head, that's how the psalmist sees God. When people get crushed, when the vulnerable get killed, when towers fall, when darkness thinks God isn't watching, the psalmist turns to a vengeful God, a wrathful God. The psalmist maybe remembers the song God taught to Moses, the one Paul quotes in today's passage. In the face of those persecuting Israel in the desert, God says, “Vengeance is mine, and recompense … for the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone … I will take vengeance on my adversaries and will repay those who hate me. … Rejoice with him, O heavens, and bow down to him, all gods, for he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries” (Deuteronomy 32:35-36, 41, 43).

In the face of the world's evil, Isaiah pictures God wrapping himself in “garments of vengeance for clothing” (Isaiah 59:17), and foresees the proclamation of “the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2). Jeremiah, a persecuted prophet, prayed for God to “take vengeance for me on my persecutors” (Jeremiah 15:15) and ultimately preached about God's vengeance against both Egypt and Babylon (Jeremiah 46:10; 51:11). Ezekiel heard God announce his vengeance on the Edomites and on the Philistines (Ezekiel 25:14-17). Micah heard God promise, “In anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey” (Micah 5:15). And the prophet Nahum even opened his book with the bold announcement, “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies” (Nahum 1:2).

It's not just the Old Testament, either. In Revelation, the martyred saints pray for the Lord to “judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 6:10), and it shows God doing what the prophets foresaw by “avenging” on Babylon the Great “the blood of his servants” (Revelation 19:2). John the Baptist threatened the Pharisees about “the wrath to come” (Luke 3:7). Paul warned that an unrepentant person was “storing up wrath for [himself] on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5), and that for those who “obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8), and that “the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6). Revelation describes Jesus as treading “the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:15), and just so, Paul pictures the coming day when “the Lord Jesus [will be] revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who don't know God and on those who don't obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). In the New Testament just like in the Old, God is a God of vengeance.

We can be uncomfortable with that. We don't feel at ease today with that, maybe – at least, not until we're hurt, not until we see evil up close, and then we remember its value. There's a Croatian theologian who teaches at Yale – I met him once – who grew up in socialist Yugoslavia, which was ripped apart in the Yugoslav Wars. And there's one passage from one of his books that I'll never forget. He said:

I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. … My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. … Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.

Miroslav Volf is right. God is a God of Vengeance because God is a God of Love. God is a God of Vengeance because injustice against his people, injustice against you, is not something he will tolerate. He loves you, he loves us, far too much to let our harm go unavenged. That's why Paul chooses this verse to remind us who we are: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but give place to the wrath, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'” (Romans 12:19). Paul reminds us that we're God's beloved ones. God can afford to be a God of vengeance because no whale, no leviathan of the deep, can drag him down; but the reason God is a God of vengeance is because he loves you too much to watch those who hurt you get off scot-free.

And Paul explains to us that this truth, this reminder of God's wrath and God's vengeance, is exactly what frees us to abandon the hunt. No matter how badly someone has hurt you, you don't have to carry that burden. You don't have to carry it, because God loves you so much that he guarantees he'll deal with it – in his own way. No matter what someone has done or said to you, putting them in their place is not your place; it's God's place. And when we try to take vengeance into our own hands, we are getting in God's way. Vengeance is his – therefore, not ours. Payback is his exclusive domain; we need to stay out of it, stand clear of it, yield that turf to him and give him elbow room to work when and how he chooses – which, as it turns out, frequently involves the cross of Jesus Christ.

So what's Paul said so far? Injustice in the world is real. Injustice in our lives is real. People hurt us in many ways, they do us wrong. And we should hate evil – hate it with a burning passion. But that doesn't mean we're to deal in payback. Payback is God's business, not ours. So Paul tells us to never avenge ourselves, never try to dish out a taste of their own medicine, never try to get even, never try to get payback. If there's something criminal done to you, of course you're free to refer that to the proper authorities – Paul outright tells us that the ruling authority in the land is supposed to be “God's servant, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). But that's between God and his avenging servant, and our position is to never avenge ourselves but to instead leave a vacancy for God's action, trusting that his love for us will set all things right.

So where does that leave us? In the face of all the hurt, all the evil we're supposed to hate, do we then just let it slide – do we keep our distance? Paul tells us to aim to “live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). But Paul is hoping for something better than mere avoidance, if possible. Paul asks us to respond proactively to the hurt, the evil, the injustice. “Bless those who persecute you,” he says; “bless, and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14). Instead of cursing, instead of criticizing, instead of tearing down, we should work for the benefit of those who have harmed us. The driver who cuts you off – respond by driving in a way that blesses her. The coworker who won't stop getting in your way and in your face – respond in a way that blesses him. The family member who stirs up trouble – respond with blessing. The leader who betrayed you, the business that cheated you, the group that excluded you – respond in a way that blesses him and them.

When we're hurt, it's easy for our minds to get drawn into stewing over it, making our blood boil like Ahab's. It's easy to daydream about all the things we'd like to say and do to get back at those who did that to us. Paul suggests a better use for our brainpower. “Repay no one evil for evil” – don't even think about it – “but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all” (Romans 12:17). When he says 'give thought,' he means to do active planning. Instead of meditating on payback, meditate on mercy. Not in a way that makes you look like a pushover or a doormat, but a way that shows an even greater control over the situation – Paul's calling here for an active response, not just a passive one. We aren't to be paralyzed in the face of conflict, not fearful when confronted with injustice and hurt, but to have already laid plans for how to respond in a vengeance-free, mercy-soaked way.

Hunting around in Proverbs, Paul has an example to suggest: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20; cf. Proverbs 25:21). It's an idea that Elisha implemented all the way back in 2 Kings 6: the Syrian army comes to threaten Israel, so by the prophet Elisha's prayer, God strikes the enemy soldiers blind, and Elisha leads them into Samaria to the Israelite king. Seeing his enemies blind and helpless, the king of Israel asks the prophet if he may strike them down and win the day. But Elisha gives him other advice: to “set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master” (2 Kings 6:22). It was a concrete act of mercy – more than the blind Syrian soldiers could have expected, to have their enemy whom they persecuted come to their aid in their moment of weakness.

In that story, the result, we're told, was that “the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel” (2 Kings 6:23). And so Paul and Proverbs tell us to feed hungry enemies and water thirsty enemies, “for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head” (Romans 12:20; cf. Proverbs 25:22). The idea is to heap up the burning shame of remorse through these acts of practical blessing – to hopefully shame the one hurting you into realizing that they're lashing out at a friendly face. The hope is to shame the evildoer into repenting.

Does it always work out like that? No. Paul's a realist. It's why he tells us, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). Paul knows it doesn't always depend on you. Sometimes the other party just can't bear the thought of peace. So sometimes, it isn't possible to have peace with everybody. Even after you heap burning coals on their heads through active blessing, sometimes they won't repent, won't turn, won't give up the evil they've done or plan yet to do. In that case, Paul says, just make sure you stand clear, and trust the God of vengeance to handle it. Just because the evildoer doesn't change his or her tune, doesn't mean you have a reason to change yours – because God has freed you from the burden of avenging yourself, and has told you to stay out of his way.

When we take it upon ourselves to dish out payback, even if it's petty, even if it's passive-aggressive, even if it's a small thing, we're encroaching on God's turf. What's more, we're tempted to “repay … evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). But who's left standing in a contest between evil and evil?  You guessed it: Evil. Evil can't beat evil – it can only multiply evil, multiply hurt, multiply hate. And when our hearts and minds stew over the things we refuse to release into God's care, the evil done to us keeps its hold on us. It drags us down. It tempts us to vengeance. It clings to our thoughts and our emotions. It restricts our freedom to relate to people unburdened. When we don't turn vengeance over to the God who holds the copyright on vengeance, it will eat away at us, distort us, mangle and deform us. Remember Captain Ahab – his obsession with the whale consumed his life, blocked out every other thought or pursuit, and brought about his destruction and that of his whole ship. “Do not be overcome by evil” (Romans 12:21). Don't let that evil attach to your heart and overcome you. Hate doing evil more than suffering evil.

But don't ignore evil. We can't ignore evil. All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for it to go ignored and unopposed. We can't afford to let evil run rampant. We have to name it for what it is. We have to stand in its way. We have to work for justice in this world – justice in how we treat others, and calling on God's appointed servants to administer his justice well – but that doesn't mean avenging ourselves, taking justice into our own hands, as it were. To hate evil, to stand in opposition to evil, to show that we take seriously the hurt that's been done to us – there's another way. There remains an option for victory.

And that option is the path of active blessing that Paul's been talking about. When you feed your hungry hater, when you give a drink to your wounder when he or she is thirsty, when you take care to show kindness to the one who hurt you, in deliberate and planned proportion to the hurt so that there's no mistaking that it constitutes a conscious response – well, Paul calls that “overcoming evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Take evil seriously by beating it with serious good. That's the only way forward. In Captain Ahab's case, it would've meant leaving Moby Dick to a long and happy life. In the case of the Hatfields and McCoys, it would've meant the sorts of joint family reunions the families really now do these days. In your case... what might it mean? What would it look like to claim the real victory – not by getting payback, but by leaving that in God's hands and aiming to overcome evil with good?

Maybe someone has come to mind during this message. Some person in your life who's done you wrong. That particular family member, or co-worker, or neighbor, or former leader, or schoolmate, or former spouse – or current spouse, for that matter. Someone who's hurt you, done evil to you, treated you unjustly, in a way that at some time or another, you've been tempted to treat them in a way that might teach them a lesson or put them in their place or otherwise pay them back. Well, pay them back this way: We've got a church cookout coming up. Reach out and invite them. Yes, that's my challenge for you this week. Go to them and seek ways to bless them somehow. Don't let the estrangement, don't let the hurt, don't let the wrong have the last word. If the two of you disagree on who did what, don't let that drag you back down into the dispute. Let God make it clear to them, and to you, what you and they have to repent of. Just bless them, bless them in the face of their injustice, and give space for God to handle the rest.  May our God teach us how rightly to overcome evil with good, in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The Many and the One: Sermon on Romans 12:3-8

It would have been a pleasant afternoon. Tired, Agrippa Menenius Lanatus walked out of the city gates along with nine of his most distinguished colleagues. He was in the last years of his life, and his energy was waning. But the republic was in crisis. It was so young, the republic; not even twenty years had passed since Rome had tossed its last king to the curb. Only a couple years ago did Rome repel the last effort of King Tarquin and his son to invade and reclaim a throne that was no more. Barely out of the woods. But the republic was in danger of dissolving in its infancy, devoured by the maw of class warfare.

Over the past few years, debt had gotten out of hand – at least, the lower class, the commonfolk, the plebeians, seemed to think so. Frequently pressed by violence or thrown in debtors' prison, they called out for debt relief. Many in the senate hadn't thought it prudent to give in. What kind of government would pander to the whims of the rabble? The patricians, the upper class of noble breeding, had a responsibility to lead as they saw fit. It had always been that way here, and it was that way everywhere they knew. Those were the points Appius Claudius kept hammering home whenever the senate met, anyway – Appius Claudius, that Sabine-tribe merchant who'd defected to Rome with all his riches and bought himself into the patriciate.

With the senate in gridlock, class warfare threatened to break out in riots in the streets. Twice, in the face of peril from invading Italian tribes, the senate had offered a truce – a get-out-of-jail-free card, but a temporary one – to those who'd fight for Rome. It was the only way to get the plebeians to do their civic duty, it seemed. And twice, after each time, they seemed to expect things would be different afterwards. Twice disappointed were the plebeians. After their military oaths were extended by decree, the plebeians in three legions staged a walkout – took their weapons, took the sacred standards, and withdrew to a hill outside the city. Many of the plebeians in Rome burst out the gates to join them. To the senate's relief, they didn't threaten to join with the city's enemies in plunder – after all, many still had elderly parents, spouses, or children within the walls. But neither would they defend Rome or return to tilling the fields or anything else, and they were considering leaving altogether.

With the bulk of the plebeians having deserted the city, and hostile tribes lurking in the countryside, ever hungry for an opportunity to take back whatever Rome had won from them before, the senate had little choice but to meet. Some, like that hard-line aristocrat Appius Claudius Sabinus, urged no compromise: let the plebeians go, let them starve, or let them come crawling back begging. Others, like Agrippa Menenius Lanatus and Manius Valerius Maximus, had lived long enough to remember what civil wars really looked like. They condemned the senate for looking on plebeian misfortune as if it didn't impoverish the whole city, and urged them to restore the plebeians' rights and offer mercy. The senate, at last, agreed, and sent ten senior senators to make a deal.

That's why Menenius was walking. Deep in thought. But they hadn't even gone the whole three miles before a contingent of seceders met them on the road. News had already reached their camp. Negotiations began. But just like the last time, things took a bad turn. Two of the envoys, Manius Valerius and Titus Larcius, spoke too harshly – were too quick to scold the plebeians, too quick to defend the senate. In turn, the spokesmen of the seceders, Sicinius Bellutus and Lucius Junius, issued far-reaching rebukes and laid down an angry ultimatum.

So Menenius, desperate to pacify this situation before it spun irretrievably out of control, called for silence so he could speak. And speak he did, at length. He said he would neither excuse the senate nor accuse the plebeians; rather, he praised the plebeians and appealed to their neighborly instincts as good, law-abiding citizens. He saw the problems the plebeians faced, and promised concrete actions: debt-relief now, and cooperation to issue a law to fairly govern debt payment in the future. He offered them a vision of a city, a commonwealth, where social classes like patrician and plebeian don't compete, don't disparage each other, don't look to their own interests, but amiably work together for the genuine common good, embracing each other in friendship and cooperation.

To that end, he said, he'd give them a parable. He spoke of a person whose body parts each had a mind of their own. The hands had opinions, the feet had opinions, the mouth had opinions, and so on. And over time, in this body, some of the parts began to resent the stomach. After all, they reasoned, the stomach just sat there, passive receiver of the food that the feet had to approach, the hands had to grasp, the shoulders had to carry, the mouth had to chew. Why should the working parts feed this lazy freeloader whose urges kept bossing the rest of the parts around? And so those parts, Menenius said, went on strike. But what, he asked, happens to the body when they do? The whole body starves, because without nourishing the stomach, nothing is nourished.

Just so, Menenius explained, “A commonwealth resembles, in some measure, a human body. For each of them is composite and consists of many parts; and no one of their parts either has the same function or performs the same service as the others” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquities of Rome 6.86.1). What's true of the human body, he explained, is true of the body that is the republic. The rest can't do without the stomach, nor can the stomach get by without the rest. The parts, with all their diverse functions, need each other for the body to stay one healthy thing. And with that parable, Menenius won the favor of the plebeians and, with further negotiation of practical safeguards for plebeian rights, he quelled the social strife and saved the Roman Republic.

True story, from over 2500 years ago. The famous speech of Agrippa Menenius Lanatus paved the road toward social reconciliation, turning back the first secession of the plebs and putting an end – at least for his generation – to the class warfare that threatened to shred the republic in pieces. Twenty-first-century America could no doubt learn some key lessons. But what every Roman of later generation would know about the story – part of the patriotic lore they were fed from childhood – is that famous parable Menenius came up with: Rome as a body of many members with different functions meant to support each other, all necessary to the common good.

Like I said, every Roman knew that story. I'd go so far as to say Paul, living over five centuries after Menenius, knew they knew that story. I think Paul was no dunce at his Roman history. He was an educated man, raised a Roman citizen from birth in a provincial capital and leading intellectual center of the Roman world. So, writing to Romans who were raised on this story and who lived under the rule of Appius Claudius' many-times-great-grandson Nero, it's no wonder that what Menenius said about an earthly commonwealth, Paul will say about what he sees as a heavenly commonwealth on earth: the church. It isn't Rome that's the most important body; it's the church, which the Romans have split into little partitioned clubs. Sounding like Menenius, Paul tells them, “As in one body we have many parts, and the parts don't all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually parts one of another” (Romans 12:4-5).

What Menenius said of the Roman Republic, Paul sees as even truer of the church. We're “one body in Christ.” Not many bodies. Not that each house church, each apartment church, is its own separate body – no, the whole Christian network in Rome, and beyond Rome, is “one body” – not because they all grew up together from their infancy, not because they all have a common language or a common culture, but “one body in Christ.” If that's true, then what goes for bodies must go for the church. “In one body, we have many parts.” That's just the way bodies work, don't they? The body of Christ is no ameoba, no protozoan, no single-celled organism. No, bodies are complex, bodies are composites. Our bodies have eyes, ears, noses, mouths, arms, legs, hands, feet, hearts, lungs, stomachs, kidneys, livers, pancreases, and so, so much more – more than Menenius or Paul even saw in their time. Even today, with all our advanced technology, we're still discovering new features of human anatomy. One body has many parts.

And those parts, Paul says, “don't all have the same function.” Menenius saw that in Rome: the patricians had some functions, and the plebeians had some functions, and not all the same one, at that. There were lots of jobs to be done, lots of roles to be filled: cultivating fields, serving in the armed forces, carrying on trade overseas, working at assorted crafts, and more. Menenius saw the Roman commonwealth as “composed of many classes of people not at all resembling one another, every one of which contributes some particular service to the common good, just as its members do to the body” (Antiquities of Rome 6.86.4). And Paul sees the same thing happening in the church. The parts don't have the same function; they have lots of different functions. Each part brings something unique and special to the table. And importantly, all those functions – like Menenius said – offer “some particular service to the common good.” They're what makes the body united. Without all those functions continuously going on, a body dies; and death means ceasing to be one unified thing, but disintegrating – coming apart.

One body. Many parts in that body. Many functions of those parts. One body living by the many functions of the many parts that are in the one body. The many and the one. The life of the church. And that, Paul is telling us, is how a 'renewed mind' thinks. We talked last week about Paul's call for you to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). And a mind made new doesn't think of itself in isolation. A mind made new thinks big-picture – thinks of the church as the body of Christ, and takes that image seriously. And that's why, we saw last week, rational worship – the worship that comes from a mind made new, thinking rightly – involves presenting our bodies as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). A sacrifice is something we surrender control over, something we give up completely. It's an extreme step, sacrifice is. But we give our bodies to God as a living sacrifice – one that doesn't die, but in fact gains more life through being sacrificed, given over, given up. But how will God use our bodies when they're sacrificed to him? Well, if our bodies are sacrificed to the God who is the Head of Christ who is the Head of his Body, the Church, don't be surprised if God uses your body for the health of Christ's Body. To be a living sacrifice means giving your whole self to God for that. And anything less is not the kind of worship appropriate for people who can think clearly. Because this is the heart of God's will for you: to be a body part in Christ (cf. Romans 12:2).

See, that's how God wants us to see ourselves. Paul's talking to Romans, but he's talking to us, too. We are one body – right here, this very congregation – but not us alone, but the whole worldwide church. We may not all think alike. We may note all see the world alike. We may not all vote alike. We may not all work in the same profession. We may not all talk with the same accent. We may not all be from the same area originally. We may not all have the same life experiences. We may not all have the same personality or temperament. We may not have very similar bank account balances. We may not go on the same sorts of vacations. The places we live in may not have too much in common. But whether in the whole worldwide church or in this local place, “we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually parts of one another” (Romans 12:5).

To that end, Paul explains that “one body” has “many parts, and the parts don't all have the same function” (Romans 12:4). I may not serve the same function that you do, or you over there, or you right here. And vice versa. And that's good, because if we all served the same function, we'd be a real mess of a body! Paul explains that these different functions operate by “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us” (Romans 12:6). These are God-given things, things that emerge as the Spirit puts them into us or brings them out of us. It's a work of God's grace in Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and ruling today. Paul offers here examples of seven gifts, seven functions, and how to use them well (Romans 12:6-8). It's not an exhaustive list. Everywhere in his letters he lists different 'gifts,' the list looks different each and every time. Maybe even Paul couldn't get his brain around just how many different sorts of gifts, different sorts of functions, different sorts of parts, there were in Christ's body. Just like we're discovering new parts and features and functions in human anatomy in 2018, maybe the same's true in the anatomy of the body of Christ.

One of the ones Paul says we might see is “prophecy” – some measure of new insight from God, the kind Paul had when everything about God's mysterious plan for Israel and the nations suddenly clicked for him, or the kind Agabus had in seeing a famine on the horizon or terrible danger in Paul's future. Sometimes that sort of thing may well happen in the church. Praise God! All Paul tells us here for how to use it rightly is to keep it in proportion to faith – to make sure every new insight fits with sound doctrine, and to be humble enough to stop running with your new insight when you reach the limits of what you really heard (Romans 12:6). So maybe that's your gift. If it is, use it “in the proportion of faith” – but use it, honor it, as one function carried out for the benefit of the whole body.

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to be the one doing some teaching. Maybe you're good at diving into the Bible, and knowing all the history and the words and the ideas, and you can explain what's going on, you can put it in a way that makes sense to others and is clear and is accurate. Maybe you're good at passing on and handing down what got passed on and handed down to you. Maybe instructing is just what God has made you good at. Paul says, Use that gift! That's a function you fill, and it's a function this body needs. How can you best use that gift to benefit the body? Use it “in teaching,” living out what you teach (Romans 12:7).

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to be “the one presiding.” Maybe you're good at being a leader. You've got the organizational skills to keep things humming. You can see what needs to be done, and you can run a meeting, and you can direct things in a way that puts the skills of others to good use. Does that sound like you? Well, if it does, Paul's guideline for how to use it is this: “In diligence” (Romans 12:8). Namely, with the sort of aggressive efficiency and thorough care that will indeed keep things humming along smoothly, without letting all the details slip through the cracks. Because efficient, thorough administration and leadership are a function this body needs, one it can't do without or look down on. If that's you, use that gift.

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is practical service. The word Paul uses is pretty flexible. A lot of times, it could refer to what a waiter does. Sometimes, it referred to the work of those who assisted in religious ceremonies in the Greek and Roman world. It could be used for ambassadors, but has connotations of running errands. Maybe that's you. Maybe you're good at waiting tables. Maybe you're good at running errands. The practical stuff, the humble stuff, the stuff that isn't flashy but happens sometimes behind the scenes, making sure that everyone has what they need in order to carry out their function – is that you? Has God given you that? If so, use that gift! That's a function you fill, and it's a function this body needs. It's the work of a servant, and it may not be glamorous, but Paul bids you to embrace it as real service, and use it in serving (Romans 12:7).

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is comforting, exhorting, encouraging. Maybe you're the sort of person people can turn to when they've got a problem and need advice or a hug or just somebody to be present with them. Maybe you're the rare sort who does know what to say when bad things happen, and how to say it. Maybe you're sensitive, you're gentle, you're devoted. Maybe you've got the character of a parent or a nurse, and building up the hurting is where you thrive and what you do. That's one of the gifts Paul mentions, a gift that God distributes into the body of Christ. Is that something you can do, and do well? Maybe you're where God tucked that gift away. It's a function this body needs, and if it's a function you're gifted to fill, use that gift! Be that sensitive and warm and tender presence, have the actions and words to encourage and cheer and heal, and use it like a clotting factor for the whole body of Christ, to heal and repair what's been broken.

Or maybe, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to be “the one who shares.” Back in those days, the church used to eat together – a lot. Not just an annual picnic or a quarterly potluck. Not just an occasional cook-out or hot dog roast or ice cream social. It went beyond that. It went beyond a monthly batch of pastries, or a weekly time of coffee and donuts. They ate a full meal together every week, and maybe even ate together every day. And some in the Roman churches, Paul said, had received the gift of being able to put food on that table, often out of their own pocket, to provide these church dinners for the church as a whole, and thus feed the people of God. Or maybe there were other ways they could provide for the church, not as individual people one by one, but as a whole, taken together. These days, we don't eat together that often. Maybe we should do that more. But just think, just consider, that in Rome, food scarcity was a real issue: a lot of the poor were at risk of going hungry. Think how impactful it was, in the church, to know that you had a supper with fellow believers to look forward to, to rely on to quiet your whimpering or roaring stomach and get you through the day. I don't think too many of us are in that situation, at least not so far as I know. Maybe that's because we've self-selected to exclude the poorest in our broader community. But in any case, there will be times when the church as a whole needs to be fed, needs to be provided for, needs to be tended to. And Paul says some will have the gift of being that kind of giver, and putting that food on the table. Is that you? If so, use that gift! That's a function you fill, and it's a function this body needs. Paul only says to do it in simplicity – no ulterior motive, no hankering for credit, no ostentation or needless fancy, but a commitment to living the simple life so that you reckon more of what you have as shareable.

Or maybe, finally, Paul says, maybe the gift you got is to do acts of mercy. Maybe you're driven, by the grace God has given you and the way he's wired you, to be the one who, by wallet or by hands, aims to meet the real human needs of individual people inside or outside the church. Maybe you're gifted to care for the sick. Maybe you're gifted to ensure that the dead receive a proper burial. Maybe you're gifted to give handouts to those with their hands out, or to tend to the needy in a hands-on way. Is that you? Are you gifted for acts of mercy, acts of individual provision inside or outside the church? That, too, is a function this body needs, so if that function is one you can fill, go on and use that gift (Romans 12:8)!

Paul doesn't rank these in order of how important he thinks they are, or how noble he thinks they are. Can't say Paul really cares much about that sort of thing. These gifts are all necessary. None are expendable. There's not a one of them that the church can say, “Well, we don't really need that kind of thing.” These are among many functions that need to operate in the one body of Christ, and in its local church manifestation right here. Do we have all of these operational, or are some systems offline? If they're offline, we're in trouble. If some are being shut out, we're in trouble. We can't last long if they are.

As a body, we cannot last long if we fall into class warfare or partisanship or other forms of divisive bickering and exclusionary praxis. Menenius saw that. Paul saw that. We have to see it. It does no good for somebody with one function to proclaim it the best way to be a Christian, and treat the others as expendable. It does even less good to pretend the Christian life is something a person lives on his or her own, in isolation. Because it just ain't so. An ear, cut off in a box by itself, is not exactly a paragon of life. If you watch enough crime dramas, it's usually the start of a very disturbing case. The same is true for a Christian cut off in a box by him- or herself – it's a sign that something very disturbing has happened, and just like isolation from the body is no good for the ear, isolation from the local church is no good for the believer. Nor is it good for the church, which needs the diverse functions of the many parts in order to keep healthy and in motion. We cannot afford to shut out or exclude or look down on each other's functions – that's why Paul writes, “Everyone among you must not think of himself above what he ought to think, but to think in sober-thinking ways” (Romans 12:3).

And the most reasonable, the wisest, the most sober-thinking way to think, is the way a renewed mind thinks by instinct. It's to view the church as the body in which you, each of you, are one part. You cannot live separate from the church. Church is not primarily an event. Church is not primarily a building. Church is not primarily a program. Church is a society, a commonwealth, a body. These functions aren't just used on Sunday mornings. Does your heart beat once a week? Does your stomach digest once a week? No! Body parts are in use all the time – 24/7/365. “Living sacrifice” is a full-time thing; “one body in Christ” is a full-time thing. Americans aren't used to thinking like this. We're used to expressive individualism, to hobbies, to compartmentalized lives. No wonder we're in such trouble. But Christians must get used to thinking like this, being like this, acting like this. If Menenius, a pre-Christian Roman senator living before Ezra or Nehemiah were even around, could see it, surely we can. Train yourself, train yourselves, train each other, to view yourselves, not as individuals who sometimes come together and attend the same events as your church friends, but as parts who are meant to continuously function as a single body of Christ, whose aim is to heal and save the world.

So ask yourself, each of you, “What is my function? What different, distinctive gift do I have as a result of the grace that God gave specifically to me? Which part am I?” And then devote yourself actively to doing that. It doesn't mean you never have to do anything else. Teachers have to comfort others. Leaders have to do acts of mercy. Bankrollers of the church may need to wait on some tables from time to time. But with whatever grace God has given you, get it operational. Employ your gift actively to function within the body, for the body.

And then as you look around you, not just in this church but in other churches, the people you see there are not your competitors. The church around the corner is not your competition. The big church in town is not your competition – even if, sadly, sometimes churches can try to run roughshod over each other. But no, we are not competition. We are the same “one body in Christ.” That means the people in those other churches, and the people in this church right here – even the ones you don't care for, even the one you've had grudges with in the past, even the ones you're disappointed in or dissatisfied by – they are your body parts, and you are theirs. We are, Paul tells us, “individually parts, one of another” (Romans 12:5). We are diverse, not all alike. But we belong, as living sacrifices, to a God who chooses to give us to each other as parts of the body of Christ. So do not look down on those who fill other functions, who exercise different gifts, who are wired in different ways, who bring different things to the table, as it were. Be, live as, act as, one body with them. Use your gift for the health of the whole, whatever it is, and don't hold it back. Thanks be to God, in the name of Christ. Amen.