The Huge Debt of Love

Summary

I have started up ALC’s Confirmation ministry again for this coming year. We are going to be learning about the hallmarks of our faith, using scriptures from the Bible, and coming to understand: the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, the Apostle’s Creed, and how we live our Christian faith in the 21^st century.

Almost five hundred years ago Martin Luther wrote a small book called, “The Small Catechism.”  Luther wrote The Small Catechism as an aid for parents to teach their children the hallmarks of the Christian faith, at home.  In fact, you can find a version of the Small Catechism in your pew hymnal, starting on page 1160. We now teach it in church, in confirmation, although children learn the most at home if parents or grandparents are willing to teach them.

Anyway, Luther’s Small Catechism consists of the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Office of the keys, and the Ten Commandments with instruction on each.  All of these; writing, scripture, prayer and confession help us to better understand our Christian faith.

The first part of the Small Catechism is the Ten Commandments.  These are the ten commands that God gave Moses for the Hebrew people to live by as individuals and a community.  The commandments are probably some of the best known teachings within the Jewish and Christian faiths.  The commandments are also well known to the non-faithful in our culture as well as the world.  It is the Ten Commandments to which non-churched people commonly are referring to when they complain, “Church isn’t for me.  I don’t want to have to follow all of those rules. What fun is that?’ or ‘I am a good person and I don’t need all of those commands to be good either!”

Too many people, non-churched as well as churched get confused about the purpose of the Ten Commandments.  These were ten laws or commands that God gave the people so that they might live healthy and good lives; with God, in community with one another and for themselves.  Too many folks get the idea that being a Christian somehow depends upon how well you are able to keep the commandments.  They see them as a litmus test, or threshold for acceptance by God, rather than as guides for good living for the beloved people of God, saved by Jesus.

In today’s scripture from Romans, Paul confronts this very confusion.  He is trying to help us see, that God gave the commandments for the good of God’s people, rather than creating people simply to keep the commandments.  Listen to how these verses are put in the biblical paraphrase, “The Message.”  “Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along.  The law code – don’t’ sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t’ take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t’ have and any other don’t you can think – finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others.  When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.”

When we look at the commandments as a Christian, where others see law, we see love.  For what God is doing in the commandments is giving us a guide for the creation of healthy people living in healthy community, centered upon God.

How well a person keeps the Ten Commandments has nothing to do with if he or she is a Christian or not.  Christianity is belief in Jesus Christ as the Lord God and Savior of the world.  Christianity is all about our relationship with God; our Creator, our Savior and our ever present companion, the Holy Spirit, not keeping the law.

Christianity is not living life good enough, so that God will then love us.  It is the exact opposite.  Please listen closely, and take these words to heart.  God loves us.  God has always loved us.  God wants to be in active relationship with us.  God wants to help us to live the best, most healthy and most purposeful lives possible, all the while offering forgiveness and new life, for when we fail and hurt others, ourselves and God.

You see, Christianity is belief and thus relationship.  It is not rules.

Think of the parent whose love begins for their child, even before conception, when just the dream of having a child is present.  That parent’s love only increases as the child grows in the womb, and then that love explodes upon the child’s birth.  As the baby grows into childhood, the parent’s love grows with the child.  And of course, part of that love is the desire for the child to live in a way that is best for him or her.  The parent wants the child to know and experience love, to have the best relationships with others and to be healthy in their own self.  That parent wants to protect the child from harm that others might do as well as harm to self.  In short, the parent’s love is so great, that it hurts to see one’s own child be hurt or hurtful to others.

And so, parents give their children great care, teaching and leadership as a part of their love, so that their children might be the best they possibly can be.  A part of that leadership and teaching is the laying down of some rules or guides to live by.  When they’re young it’s such things as, “Don’t hit your brother over the head with the wooden hammer!”  When they’re older it is, “Don’t steal your neighbor’s hard effort by cheating from their test.”  And when they are adults it is, “Help out your neighbor in his trouble, rather than ridiculing him.”

But along with rules, you have a great store of forgiveness ready to give, at those times when your child makes a mistake, fails or even intentionally sins.  As a parent, you cannot but help your child, even when they are at their worst because you love them.

Well, as you know, God is our parent.  God has loved us since before time.  God has only wanted the best for us in our lives.  God has given us directions by which to live, so as to make life an easier road, and God, has a great, great storehouse of forgiveness that is part of the love that he showers upon us each day.

And because God has many children, his commandments not only are for our individual lives, but are also for our lives lived together.  When Luther teaches about the Fifth Commandment, “You shall not murder.”  He writes, “We are to fear and love God, so that we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbors, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs.”

He did not simply teach, do no mortal harm, but expanded the commandment to include what we should do for our neighbors, “help and support hem in all of life’s needs.”

In expanding the commandments into acts of “do” rather than simply, “do not,” Luther includes Jesus’ teaching on the greatest commandments, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

You see, we are family, the family of God.  We live together, that’s a fact.  How we live together, how we treat one another, both in the church as well as in the community and the world is important.  It is important because God loves us all, whether we listen to him or not.  Whether we believe in him or not, God’s love is here for each of us.  So, since God loves everybody, we cannot treat others, or for that matter, ourselves poorly or in such a way that we are hurtful, because we then are saying to God, that God’s love does not matter to us.  And as we can see, God’s love does matter to us, for his love is life.

So, when we can reach out with love to our neighbor, be him family, be her friend, be they strangers in the world, we are loving the children of God, our family, and so we are loving God.  God’s love is simply so great, that it surrounds us all, and wants what is best for each of us in our lives. As believers in Christ, we then need to focus upon love, rather than law, knowing that in the sharing of God’s love, the law is being fulfilled.

Let us live, revel, and be filled with God’s love, for that is life.                       Amen.

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