Sunday, November 10th, 2024: "Living on the Same Planet"

 

Watch the Sermon here

The First United Presbyterian Church

“Living On the Same Planet”

Rev. Amy Morgan

November 10, 2024

Romans 15:1-7, 13

We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. 3 For Christ did not please himself, but, as it is written, “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” 4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. 5 May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, 6 so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

After the last presidential election, in 2020, I began my sermon naming all the unprecedented, frightening tragedies we had endured that year and how they set the stage for the perfect apocalypse. Well, the apocalypse didn’t happen. But, as I told Judy Wrought on Wednesday, I was tempted to just preach the same sermon this week. 

In the last four years, we’ve experienced even more unprecedented, frightening tragedies. We’ve had an insurrection at the U.S. capitol; Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have claimed more than a million lives; Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, creating chaos and uncertainty as states scrambled to pass legislation either restricting or protecting abortion access; a former president was ordered to pay millions in a civil law suit, received a felony conviction, was nearly assassinated, and was re-elected; the sitting president was pressured to withdraw mid-campaign over concerns about his health and mental fitness; there was a full solar eclipse and powerful solar flares; massive and devastating tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, floods, and earthquakes around the world; AND an e. coli outbreak made it dangerous to eat a Big Mac. If we’re not anxious and exhausted, friends, we haven’t been paying attention. This may not be the apocalypse, but it still feels like it.

The results of last week’s election brought some people relief and other people grief and anger. People who were eager for change are getting it, and people who were hoping for stability are losing it. It feels like people on different sides of the political divide are living on different planets, with different visions and values, different understandings of what it means to be an American, to be a Christian, maybe even to be a human.

As unprecedented as this feels, the church in Rome experienced something similar. Christianity began in the first century as a Jewish movement. Jews who followed the Jewish Messiah, keeping the Law, observing Jewish practices, were the ones who began sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with their fellow Jews. Missionary journeys by Paul and other Christians expanded the reach of the gospel to gentiles, incorporating people who didn’t adhere to Jewish practices, who had a different ethnic, social, and philosophical identity. Many gentile Christians continued worshiping the pantheon of pagan gods, simply adding Jesus into the mix. As these two categories of Christians – Jews and gentiles – traveled around the Roman Empire, they shared their faith with friends, family, business contacts, and acquaintances. This is how Christianity found its way to Rome, through a network of people with diverse beliefs and practices who all connected through a shared interest in the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. 

When Paul writes to the Roman Christians, he’s writing to people he has never met. But he understands that he’s addressing groups of people who are living on different planets, who have different views and values, different understandings of what it means to be a Christian. The Jewish Christians are living as an ethnic minority under foreign rule, concerned about maintaining their Jewish identity and religious practices, even as they live into the hope they have in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. The gentile Christians are living in various strata of Roman society, exploring the philosophical merits of this new faith and how it can be incorporated into their current religious and cultural worldview. 

Much of Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians is occupied with addressing this divide between Jewish and gentile Christians, trying to bridge the gap between these distinct groups. And near the end of his letter, his final instructions summarize the arguments he’s been making throughout. His words speak boldly to this first-century Christian community, and they speak boldly to us today.

Paul writes: We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. In Greek, the word translated as “put up with” means to lift up or carry. The word translated as “failings” means something more like infirmity or doubt. And the word translated as “the weak” means those who are not capable, those for whom something is literally impossible. So Paul is saying that the Christian community should be supportive of those for whom it is impossible to have faith without doubt. Those whose faith is strong should not be self-serving, ignoring those who are struggling. For, as Paul writes, Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor.

Right now, some of us have a strong faith that gives us hope for the future. Despite the turbulence and turmoil of our times, we trust in God, we know who we are and what we believe and what we should do. In that strength is a temptation to avoid or even judge those who find it impossible right now to feel anything other than doubt and anxiety. There is a lot of despair, not just in this room, but everywhere in our society. Some of us, and some of our neighbors, have a faith that is infirm. And our job as Christians is to carry each other, to lift up those who have collapsed from these exhausting experiences and help them take one step at a time instead of bounding over them to glory. 

The example of how we do this, how we carry each other, is Jesus Christ, who did not please himself, but, as it is written, “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” This is a quote from Psalm 69, a Psalm of David that begs God for help and deliverance from enemies. In it, David says this to God. David is absorbing the insults against God. 

Reading through the Loveland Facebook pages this week, insults were flying between those who were elated by the election results and those who were devastated. I won’t repeat them here, but suffice it to say, they were ugly and cruel. What if, instead of slinging insults at each other, we absorbed them? Perhaps we would be kinder if we put ourselves in the line of our own fire. Perhaps we would be more willing to support each other when our beliefs don’t align if we felt how our insults land on others. Perhaps we could even take in the insults hurled at God and better empathize with those who find it impossible to trust in God. 

Paul instructs the Roman Christians that their hope can be found in the scriptures, that the stories of God’s past faithfulness and instructions for abundant and faithful living will encourage this community in its life together. After months of listening to pundits and watching polls, of fearmongering and dire predictions, it’s time for us to turn off the news, close our social media, fold up the newspaper, if you’re the antiquated sort, and start listening to scripture. In God’s Word, will we hear of God’s past faithfulness and learn how to live abundantly and faithfully. There, will we find hope. 

And the hope and encouragement of God that is found in those scriptures is what will allow us to, as Paul writes, live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. Notice that Paul does not say that we should all do and believe exactly the same things. We will sing different parts, but we will blend together in harmony, with Christ directing the choir, glorifying God with such unity that it will feel as if we are one voice. We are encouraged to show each other the kind of hospitality Christ has shown, in welcoming sinners and saints, fishermen and tax collectors, widows and women caught in adultery, people suffering from physical and mental illness, children and adults who act like children. 

Friends, there are many things we deeply disagree about. But this is not unprecedented, this is not the end of the world, and it is certainly not new. In the early decades of this nation, leaders could not agree on things as fundamental as who had the right to vote, how the nation’s finances should be structured, and the humanity of enslaved Africans. Over the centuries, our country has experienced four presidential assassinations and almost a dozen more attempts. We have been engaged in 114 military conflicts, including a civil war. We have elected alcoholics and adulterers, criminals and even murderers to office. We’ve had voter fraud and voter suppression, presidential elections where neither candidate received a majority of the popular vote, and campaigns events that turned into violent uprisings. 

Dick Webster reminded me this week that times like these are not unprecedented in the church, either. The story of Acts, and Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, paint a clear picture of the deep divisions and controversies of the early church. The Reformation fractured the church into multiple factions, which violently clashed with one another. The prescient Christian thinker Phyllis Tickle tracked what she called religious “rummage sales,” where one form of the faith gave way to a new expression, happening every 500 years or so throughout history. She said we were overdue for one of these moments, and she prayed that this might be the first time it could occur without bloodshed. 

Maybe this is the moment, friends, where something new emerges. For those who feel like this is the end of the world, maybe this is the beginning. Maybe this pushes us – as Christians, as Americans, as humans, to develop a new expression of our faith, our citizenship, and our humanity. Maybe this isn’t the spark that lights the explosion of revolution. Maybe it’s the match that lights the candle of hope.

Because we are those who, even now, hold out hope that our diverse voices, under the direction of Christ, can find harmony, that there can be unity in our diversity, and that brings glory to God. We can welcome those who hold radically different views and values, different ideas about what it means to be an American, a Christian, and even a human being. Because Christ welcomes all of us. 

Paul concludes this segment of the letter with this blessing: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is still our hope today. This is the hope that brings us together this morning, though we know we may be sitting in the pew next to someone who voted for something we detest or against something we longed for. This is the hope that calls new leaders to step up and step forward today, empowered by the Holy Spirit to guide and care for this congregation. We may or may not like the people elected to lead our city, state, or nation, but we witness to our joy and peace in believing when we elect leaders of the church and answer the call to serve as leaders of the church. 

Four years from now, we can gather here again and make a list of all the unprecedented, frightening tragedies we experienced and feel like the end of the world is coming. But I hope that, instead, we will gather to lift each other up, to absorb insults instead of speaking them, to take solace in scripture, to sing in harmony as we welcome everyone, and, most of all, to abound in hope. If we can make this our aim, perhaps we can live together, not just on the same planet, but in the same nation, the same community. Perhaps we can find some agreement around what it means to be an American, a Christian, even a human. May this be our hope today and in the years ahead. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.