Totally Other

 Romans 12:16-21

Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.  "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS UPON HIS HEAD."  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany                                01/26/25

Totally Other

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Many people think that Christians are supposed to be better than others.  We are supposed to behave better, be more caring, understand more.  The difference is a difference in degree.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Christians are claimed by God when they are just as bad as anyone else.  God does not make us His own because we are better, or to make us better, but to save us.  God's aim in creating the Church was not to improve the world, but to rescue us out of it.  As His children, we are not expected to be better – God expects us to be totally other – totally different than the world.  That "otherness" is illustrated for us in our Epistle lesson, and so I invite you to look at the Epistle for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, with me, and consider how God expects His children to be – in the words of the sermon title, Totally Other.

There is nothing natural about being a Christian.  We do not have the power or ability naturally to become a Christian.  We cannot decide to be one, and we cannot keep ourselves in the faith once we are.  We depend on God.  Now the truth is that we human beings depend on God every day.  We count on Him to keep the air breathable, and we daily expect food and liveable weather.  And God is so good and so dependable that we can actually mislead ourselves into thinking that this is just how it is, that nature is this giant machine working on our behalf, that life just goes on this way and it is all natural.  God is consistent and consistently good and supporting and blessing us.  He is so consistent that most people have forgotten Him and cannot even see a need for Him.

But every day He is here, keeping the chemical reactions going that make life happen.  He is here protecting us from the thousand dangers that surround us.  He is here stopping the arrows of Satan that he shoots at us to destroy us.  He is opening doors of opportunity before us and blessing what we do so that we have success and satisfaction and joy in this world.  We depend on God, whether we acknowledge it, or even understand it, or not.  In matters of faith, however, God has so arranged things that we who believe cannot escape knowing that we depend on Him.  He tells us that we cannot choose faith – the best passage to make that point, in case you were wondering, is 1 Corinthians 2:14:  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.  If we are to believe it depends on Him, Romans 9:16:  So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

God then tells us that His choices do not depend on us, but totally on Him and what He calls "Grace."  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.  He even tells us in that verse that one of His reasons for doing things the way He does is that we know it is Him, and so not one of us boasts about ourselves in this regard.  That doesn't stop people from boasting, of course, it just stops those who believe and possess salvation (as His gift to them through faith) from boasting.  They know better.  They know they depend of God.

Depending on God is not natural, not since Adam and Eve fell into sin.  Their first sin was failure to trust God.  While we all people depend on God, not very many are conscious of it, or are willing to admit it, even to themselves.  Just Christians.  So when God tells us how He expects us to live, it isn't just different by degree – it is totally other.

I mean, if someone hits you, the natural response is to strike back.  That natural tendency surfaces in children – "I'm rubber, you're glue, everything bounces off of me and sticks on you!"  It sounds childish, because it is the way a powerless child tries to hit back verbally.  If I can't think fast enough to be clever, I can dump back on you!  Revenge.  It is the most natural impulse in the world.  So, God tells us never to pay back evil for evil, or take our own revenge, but to leave it in His hands.

Instead of evil for evil, we are to be good.  We are to love one another, and do good even to those who make themselves our enemies.  Isn't that just totally other?  Isn't that radically different from what ever seems to suggest itself to us?  Good is one thing, but this is something else.  With our fellow-believers, we are called on even to forget who we are in our own minds and associate with the lowly – the humble, with those we think are below us.  We are called on to make everyone else our equal in our own minds and thinking – or our better, essentially.  It is so unnatural.

Kind of like Jesus.  He is God.  He rules the world and created everything.  He could destroy us with a word, or choose to will it so and we would all behave like robots and do just anything He said.  But that isn't how He does things.  He gave us our freedom in the Garden of Eden, and when we got it wrong and chose death instead of life, He planned our salvation.  He didn't just wipe the slate clean, although He could have.  Who could correct God?  Who was watching that could upbraid Him?

But God didn't just pretend we didn't sin, or simply excuse our sins.  He kept His own counsel and followed His own sense of right and justice and worked out our salvation.  He planned to be both just and punish sin, and yet preserve us, who earned death and destruction by our sins, from the death and destruction we have earned.  To do that, He had to take our sins on Himself and suffer and die in our place so that the penalty was paid out for our sin, and yet we are preserved alive.  He associated with the lowly – US!  He became one of us, human in every respect, except sin.  He kept His own Law and earned what none of us has or could, everlasting life.  Then He exchanged what He had earned for what we have earned, and died on the cross in our place.

Then He rose from the grave.  The resurrection declared the completeness of our forgiveness and the sufficiency of the payment for our sins.  The resurrection demonstrated what is in store for us in Jesus Christ, and showed us clearly that God has the power to accomplish all that He has promised to do.  Then Jesus sent out His Apostles to declare this all to us and to hold out the free gift of resurrection, life and salvation.  It is a gift that is grasped and received by faith.  He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.  Our salvation is totally other – nothing one would calculate or expect – and human reason chafes against the free gift and the grace of God even today.  It just isn't the way we would have done it.

So God lays before us His own conduct as our example and invites us to be like Him, totally other.  This isn't a new thought.  It is the way it has been from the beginning.  You shall be holy, for I, the Lord Your God, am holy.  The only difference here is that St. Paul is describing what holy looks like.  It looks like humility – considering everyone else – at least every other Christian – to be our equal and worthy of our time and attention.  Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly.  God did it for us, we can do it for each other.  It is often important that we do.

Then, we are to be like Jesus in forgiveness and compassion, showing love and goodness to those who never have any for us.  Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  But even more than simply not paying back evil for evil, God wants us to be positively good toward those who are not good towards us – just as God was good toward us while we were yet enemies and hated Him.  "BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS UPON HIS HEAD."  

We don't do good to others just to cause them trouble, of course, but God says that our goodness in the face of their wickedness will work an even greater judgment on them, if they are not shamed by our holiness and brought to repent.  We never have to worry about them "getting away with" anything.  We don't need to seek revenge, but God will repay – Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord.  There is no such thing as getting away with it.  Either you repent, and it is forgiven because Jesus has been punished in your place already, or you do not repent, and God exacts eternal retribution.  Which one finally happens is not our concern.  God alone is Judge.  WE have been rescued, forgiven, and set apart for eternal life, and that is our joy, and our motivation to be God's holy people in this way.

The rest of our Epistle lesson is simply good advice, divine instruction – the basic principles of living as God's child.  Do not be wise in your own estimation.  Never think you know better than God.  Simply follow His Word, and be faithful.  It works.    Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  We cannot be holy if we are not doing right.  Of course, God doesn't want us to accept their twisted ideas of what is right, as in abortion or euthanasia or homosexuality, but when something is generally and clearly seen as right, we should honor it.  That is why we would oppose those who kill abortion providers and bomb abortion clinics.  It is simply not right, even in the face of so great an evil as abortion.  Killing babies is wrong, but so is killing adults.  God will settle accounts, in the end.  We do not need to.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Peace with everyone is unrealistic.  Some people will hate you for being good, some will hate you for being faithful, many will hate you for being a Christian.  But that hatred is their problem.  As far as it depends on you, be at peace.  Don't look for trouble, and don't create it without a good cause.  Be at peace, peace with God because of forgiveness.  Peace with world events because God is with you.  Peace with sickness because God is with you.  Be at peace

Be humble.  God took on humility for you.  Be willing to go that extra mile.  God did.  He still does, in order to save us.

All of these rules are detailed instances of one overriding principle,   Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  And that principle is not just pie in the sky, or unrealistic – it is how God has dealt with us.  He forgives and He blesses.  He has rescued us from sin and death and given us the example that He invites us to emulate.  Don't just do what comes naturally, and don't just be different from the world around you by degree, but be totally other.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)