Transcript
Owe no one anything except to love one another. Please be seated.
Do you remember your first love? I hate to use Romeo and Juliet as an example since it didn’t end well for them. And yet first love is often when we first see someone and first feel like someone sees us. And I don’t mean looking in the mirror or noticing the person across the street as they get home from work. I mean seeing someone like with Romeo and Juliet. Because their whole lives, the Montague and Capulet families had been enemies. And these two young people were told to hate each other from the very beginning.
And yet, somehow despite that message, the message that the other was the enemy, Romeo and Juliet found each other. Actually saw each other as people individuals not just part of the same story they’ve been told their whole lives. And then they loved each other. The star-crossed part when the families try to reimpose their own impressions on the two who have already seen each other for real. Seen their souls. Their true identity. Which is first love. The first time we actually feel seen, not simply as a piece of a bigger narrative, but as an actual person with autonomy and identity, and feeling seen and known by someone and also feeling like you really see and know someone.
It doesn’t have to be romantic love. In fact, if you asked Paul as he was writing this letter to the Romans that Anne just read, first love doesn’t have to be romantic love. In fact, first love is probably explicitly not romantic. Because while I framed the beginning of this sermon to look at first love as a love between two people romantically, the first time any of us ever felt love, ever felt seen or known fully and truly would have been way before we were even aware of it. Because that kind of love it originates from God and is passed on to each of us as we are told to love one another.
So, I must ask, what does it look like to love one another? What does it mean to actually see someone, know them as an individual, and love them for who they are? Jesus tells us over and over again to love one another. And Jesus then does just that. He performs miracles to exhibit love. He tells parables to explain love. He even explicitly says, “Love one another.” And Paul picks up on that message, explaining exactly what that means.
Because loving one another doesn’t just mean being nice to them. Instead, loving one another is an action. It is a following the commandments and the other covenant boundaries set by God. It is naming conflict and working towards reconciliation. It is a listening to God and sharing God’s message like Ezekiel is commanded to do, like all the prophets of the Old Testament are commanded to do, like all the apostles in the New Testament are commanded to do, like all of us in the here and now are commanded to do. And yet, when we are told to love one another, what does it actually look like? How do we actually do that?
We love one another by seeing someone for who they truly are, a human being created in the image of God, beloved by God. We love one another by knowing someone, not just who we think they are or how they present themselves, but who they actually are. And we love one another by serving someone with grace and kindness, turning the recognition into something real, not just words, but actual tasks, things we do to support one another, to listen to one another, to celebrate one another.
This could be looking up from our daily routines and noticing who is around us. This could also be noticing who isn’t here, but usually would be. This could be seeing beyond the categories we create to the actual people who fill those spots within those categories and thus knowing those people, not the categories. This could be listening to the answers when you ask, “How are you?” Learning someone’s name, even waiting to decide who the person is, what category they fit in until they define themselves. And once you see them and you know them then this means asking what do you need? And then working towards not just making it available, but eliminating the very system that creates the imbalance of access and the very need in the first place.
Because loving one another isn’t just words. It isn’t some abstract theological assessment of complicated or twisted translations of ancient language. Instead, loving one another is action. It’s seeing knowing and serving. And most importantly, loving one another is recognizing that God is there in the other and the one we are called to love, be it our neighbor or a stranger or an enemy or even ourselves.
When Paul writes that we owe nothing to each other but love, when Jesus tells us to love one another just as he has loved us, when we are told that the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves, that isn’t abstract. That is real, true love. That is the love of seeing, knowing, and serving one another. The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s failing to see, failing to know, failing to serve one another.
It’s easy to walk past people without seeing them. It’s easy to see someone and immediately assume you know them without actually knowing them. It’s easy to learn of a need and think that’s not my problem. But God would argue differently. God wants us to love one another and thus God wants us to see one another and know one another and serve one another just as God sees and knows and serves each and every single one of us.
And if we actually live this way, if we actually do love one another, then we’re not just satisfying another one of Moses’ commandments. And we’re not just checking off another item on the St. John’s to do list. And we’re not just {quote} making God happy, so to speak. Instead, we are honoring the very nature of who we are, made in the image of God, beloved by God, by honoring the same nature in everyone around us. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.” Not because it takes a crowd to call upon God, but because when we love one another, then God is in that love, in the tangible, actionable, known love we show to one another.
Let us now celebrate because we owe nothing but love. What a God-given blessing.
Amen.