A sermon on Romans 12: 9-21 by Audrey Kateena

May the Light that shows the way illuminate the words that I utter,
May the Love that knows the truth unfold within our hearts
May the Power that gives true life arise within our souls,
May Light, Love, and Power raise all in Christ to God.

As I begin I would like to give thanks to God for the creation of this great Southland of the Holy Spirit and to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, and pay respect to them for their care of it over thousands of years. (Adapted from resources of National Council of Churches in Australia, 2009, downloaded from www.ncca.org.au, 2 June 2009)

I’d like to share with you a letter I’ve just written to our brother in Christ, Paul.

Dear Paul,

I’ve just been reading your letter to our brothers and sisters in Rome quite some time ago.  I’m grateful for the insights you’ve provided into God’s love and have noticed a shift in you letter.  You’re now saying that your brothers and sisters in Christ have to love not only God, but also consequently each other and those outside their community of faith.

So often I’ve heard someone say, ‘but my faith is a private thing’ and yet you are saying our actions should be both an expression of God’s love for us and a consequence of our love of God, born of the realisation that we are called into a relationship with all our fellow human beings, with our neighbours.

At first reading it all seems simple enough, but history demonstrates that humanity is still falling short of the mark.  I checked with a friend, Nathan Nettleton on his reflections on this part of your letter and discovered that he had said, back in 1999, “If you wanted a local illustration of the ugliness that often characterises human behaviour, then you need look no further than our Federal Parliamentarians in the last week.”!!

It makes sense that our love needs to be genuine, fair dinkum and without pretence.  It’s interesting that you think this starts by avoiding corruption like the plague and digging in our heels so that we won’t be budged from the side of good.  An example of this today would be the need to resist those who seek to escalate fear and envy of refugees in the community and thus diminish the love and compassion with which they are received into Australia.

I agree with you that if I’m genuine in my love for someone, it will be evident in my warmth and friendly affection.  However, I do really need God’s help not to become cold, distant or angry when someone is getting under my skin.

In my translation of your letter, you encourage us to “outdo one another in showing honour”.  Others have translated it [in the New American Standard bible] to read “ give preference to one another in honour”.  I’m not sure exactly what you meant, but either of these interpretations are a real challenge for many of us.  It’s not necessarily any easier to try to out do each other in treating everyone with the reverence due to royalty than it is to be willing to let others claim the credit for something we could also justifiably claim the credit for.  I know I’ve been rather peeved when others have received credit I thought was due to me and this didn’t help our relationship.  Certainly it has been said, “there’s no end to the good that you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

I know God keeps loving us, yearning for us to turn towards his out stretched arms, but it is difficult at times not to let my enthusiasm wane, difficult to keep persisting when my efforts, to follow and serve the Lord, appear to have no effect or are rejected.  Some of my more difficult times have been in hospital Chaplaincy when confronted with out right rejection or hostility.  Times like these can make approaching the next patient with genuine love that much more difficult.

I was going to ask if you had any handy hints on maintaining the enthusiasm and then I noted your encouragement to persevere in prayer.  By implication you’re assuming that all our efforts are underpinned by prayer.  After all, how can we discern God’s will for us if we don’t engage in prayer?  I can’t remember who it was that said, “Blessed are those who pray before acting.  They will avoid many blunders!”

I was reminded of your letter to our brothers and sisters in Corinth, who you told that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”   Thanks for the reminder that in the tough times of my life, when it’s felt as if I was being put through the wringer, prayer by and for me has helped me tough it out.  I’ve also witnessed this happening for many others.  No doubt you have encountered so many more in your journey of faith.

There’s certainly nothing like a celebration to lift one’s mood and enthusiasm.  It’s a shame you weren’t able to join the folks at Western Heights in their 890th Birthday Party this afternoon where they celebrated ten 80th birthdays and one 90th birthday.

I know that love of my brothers and sisters requires a generosity in money, possessions and or time to make my contribution to help meet their needs but I’m sure you don’t mean for us to rescue them, to disempower them, do you?  As Melodie Beattie in Codependent No More says, love isn’t “taking care of people who take advantage of us to avoid responsibility   It hurts them and it hurts us.  There is a thin lining between helping and hurting people, between beneficial giving and destructive giving.”

I remember an elderly patient who built relationships with a number of the Chaplains in the hospital I was working at.  On a number of occasions she was discharged, only to return some weeks later having failed to maintain her medication regime, although there was no apparent reason for her inability to do so.  Eventually I diagnosed a Chaplaincy Dependency.  When in hospital, she had all these loving people, on call, to tend to her spiritual and emotional needs and wants, with little effort on her part.  Until the Chaplains co-ordinated her pastoral care and it was pointed out that her continued non-compliance would mean that she would be transferred to Aged Care, she had no incentive to meet her own needs where she was able to.

As you point out this generosity should also extend to the visitor, the stranger.  I presume that when you speak of hospitality you’re not just talking about providing the odd meal or two.  The circumstances of the time meant that our brothers and sisters travelling to Rome depended on those in Rome for board and lodging, sometimes for months at a time.  Whilst circumstances here are different, there are still Asylum Seekers, Refugees and other homeless needing to feel welcomed and at home.

You are right Paul, it is so important to engage empathically with another if our love for them is to be authentic, real.  Until we truly walk in the shoes of another, sharing their joy and their pain we cannot know their deepest needs, who they are.  Whilst it’s easily said, it not always easy to do, especially when what brings them joy brings us pain or sitting with their pain exacerbates our own.

I’m not sure that you’re aware that I changed my name after my divorce.  Not wanting to “go back” to my maiden name, I chose to take Kateena, one of the names my parents chose for me when I was born, as my family name.  My parents had found the name in a book of aboriginal words and it wasn’t until I’d faced the challenges of changing my name that I was suddenly confronted by fear.  As is so often the case, this fear was fuelled by ignorance or more correctly a little bit of knowledge of Aboriginal culture and its respect for names.  I was afraid that in using Kateena as my family name I might have done something offensive.  It gave me a remarkable insight into the issue of land rights.  I knew how I would feel if something that was so intrinsically linked with my identity was taken away.  As a consequence of this insight, and my authentic love for the descendants of the original inhabitants, I now always acknowledge the traditional landowners when appropriate.

Like you Paul, I’ve been in places of conflict and it’s often been difficult to find any sense of love for one and other.  Tuning in to each other creates a harmonious environment.  Keeping a reign on over inflated egos is in keeping with Jesus’ cautions against sitting at the head table without the invitation of the host.  I’m sure you’d appreciate the way Eugene Peterson put it in the Message: “Don’t be stuck-up.  Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.”  In the words of Edith Stein:

For the Christian there is no such thing as a “stranger.”  There is only the neighbour – the person who happens to be next to us, the person most in need of our help.  Whether he is related to us or not, whether we “like” her or not, doesn’t make any difference.  Christ’s love knows no boundaries, stops at no limits, doesn’t turn away from ugliness and filth.  It was for sinners he came, not for the righteous.

I think for any of us the most difficult time to demonstrate a love that is real is when faced with someone who actions are sinful or immoral, especially when they are unrepentant.  But as Martin Luther King indicated, violence sets in motion a chain reaction that can go on for generations.  One only has to look at the trouble spots through out the world to see evidence of feuds that have last for generation upon generation.  For so many, living peaceably with all requires setting aside attitudes and behaviours learned as a child.

As you indicate, retaliation is the prerogative of God, not us.  At the time of my husband’s affair with my best friend, I found this reassuring and it enabled me to hand over my need for revenge to God, at the same time keeping in mind Jesus’ words on the cross, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”   For the reality is that God wants redemption for everyone.  If we follow in Jesus footsteps with real love we will always “take a deep breath and find a way to respond that anyone else would think of as going above and beyond the call of common decency.”

Whilst it can be the most difficult, yet life changing thing to do, you quite rightly call us to love those who wrong us or others with the same authenticity that we love everyone else.  I note that you don’t call us to ignore their deeds and in fact address the issue of punishment and law and order later in your letter.

So what prevents us from living with a love that is real you might ask us to ask our selves?

Are we, individually and together, focused on the things that we can be doing, that will enable us to embrace and nurture the growth of Christ’s values, withstanding opposition to them?

Are there any other actions you’ve overlooked that we can undertake that will transform our love to one that is real?

Do we struggle through a lack of support?

Is it fear of letting go those chains that bind us to old familiar ways of reacting in relationships?

Or are we, like the Velveteen Rabbit, afraid of the potential consequences?

“What is REAL?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit. …

“Real isn’t how you are made,” replied the Skin Horse.  “It’s a thing that happens to you.  

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.  ”When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse.  “You become.  It takes a long time.  That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand…

…and once you are Real you can’t become unreal again.  It lasts for always.”

(Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit, 1922, adapted download from http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html)

Thanking you again for your letter.

Your sister in Christ,

Audrey.