Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
-Romans 13:8-10
I think the Apostle Paul is describing a certain kind of debt here, one that is very different from what we would consider our usual debts and obligations. With most debts, we can repay the note and tear it up, satisfy the obligation and be done with it. The debt Paul is talking about is one that has be to paid and renewed daily. We must work continuously to love – to love those around us, those who love us back, those who are not so loveable, and those who clearly don’t love us. We also have to work to love those we don’t know and who don’t know us, even when we find it very difficult to have even a modicum of goodwill toward them.
Love, it turns out, is a debt without a due date. It is the one obligation that renews itself every morning, in every relationship, in every encounter with another human being. And far from being a burden, Paul suggests it is actually a gift — because the one who loves is, without even trying, fulfilling everything the law ever asked of us.
This is a bold claim. Paul lists the commandments — do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet — and then sweeps them all into a single sentence: love your neighbor as yourself. He is not dismissing those commandments. He is revealing what holds them together. Love is not one rule among many. Love is the foundation of all the rules. When we truly love our neighbor, we find that we cannot harm them, cannot cheat them, cannot wish them ill. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. It is, Paul says, the fulfillment of the law.
Do I experience love that way — as the center of my life, the lens through which everything else is understood? Or has it become just one item on a longer checklist, sandwiched between other obligations I am trying to manage? If I am honest, I must admit that I struggle with this often, especially when it comes to finding a place in my heart to love those who seem so hard to love. This is particularly true in the midst of the negativity, division and violence that encompasses our current civic and cultural life.
To counter that, Paul says that the Christian life is, at its core, an act of daily dressing — of choosing, each morning, to wrap ourselves in the character, the compassion, and the way of being in the world that Jesus has modeled for us.
I, and probably most of us, continue to stumble and often fail in this endeavor. However, with the grace of God, I wake up every day, pray for God’s mercy, and try, try again.
Musical Reflection - The Porter's Gate - Let Us Be Known (feat. Diana Gameros)
Gracious God,
You call us to love — not only the easy ones,
but the ones who wound us,
the ones who test our patience,
the ones we'd rather avoid.
Soften what is hard in us.
Where we hold grudges, grant forgiveness.
Where we feel contempt, grant compassion.
Where we want to turn away, give us the courage to stay open.
Teach us that love is not a feeling we wait for,
but a choice we make again and again.
Help us see others as you see them —
flawed, yes, but beloved,
just as we are flawed, and beloved too.
Give us patience for the long work of loving well,
and grace for the times we fall short of it.
In your name we pray. Amen.
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