Genuine Love

Our second scripture reading comes from Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 12, 9-13, and then chapter 13, verses 8-10.

Hear now the word of the Lord.

Let love be genuine.

Hate what is evil.

Hold fast to what is good.

Love one another with mutual affection.

Outdo one another in showing honor.

Do not lag in zeal.

Be ardent in spirit.

Serve the Lord.

Rejoice in hope.

Be patient in suffering.

Persevere in prayer.

Contribute to the needs of the saints.

Extend hospitality to strangers.

And then chapter 13.

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.

Friends, this is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

The title of this morning's sermon is Genuine Love.

Genuine Love.

The Apostle Paul wrote Romans as a letter to Christian communities that he had never met.

He is daring to start a conversation with them all the way across the Mediterranean Sea, hoping that they might welcome him if he comes to Rome.

Sometimes, Paul's correspondents found what he had to say compelling.

Beautiful and transformative, and sometimes, they pushed back, argued with him, and challenged him to reevaluate what he taught and believed.

I find it refreshing to consider Romans as Paul's invitation to fellow Christians into dynamic dialogue about what it means to follow Jesus in their time.

In our readings from this morning, Paul exhorts his conversation partners in Rome to practice a love of God.

so that members of the community can speak what's on their heart and know that they will be heard

and respected. Paul writes that genuine love shows generosity to the people you know well

and it shows hospitality to strangers. Genuine love makes space for people to be vulnerable

and share their fears in the confidence that they will be supported and helped. Genuine love

is more than a feeling or an idea, but a way of talking with and treating one another

by which we continue growing into the beloved community.

The beloved community. Maybe you've heard me or Len use that phrase when we've talked about

the campus ministry we serve called Princeton Presbyterians. Every Sunday night during the

academic year, we worship with undergraduate and graduate students,

in Niles Chapel, just down the hall that way, at a service called Breaking Bread.

We sing hymns together and pray for one another, we hear a short sermon, and we celebrate the Lord's

Supper together every Sunday. Thanks to support from the Presbytery of the Coastlands, individual

donors, and the generosity of Nassau Presbyterian Church, we are able to host a fellowship meal

every week after worship. We laugh at each other's stories,

and eat the good food that Jose Cintron and his team have made, and we share about the

things that may have been tough that week. We grow together in understanding how deep

God's love is for us through the love that we share with one another.

The beloved community, the phrase that took shape in America through the work of black

civil rights leaders from the 50s and 60s, is rooted in a vision of life together that

goes all the way back to the New Testament.

I believe that Paul was talking about that beloved community when he wrote his letter

to Christians in Rome around 57 AD. And we believe in Princeton Presbyterians that there's

a cloud of witnesses from our own time who remind us what it looks like to show others

genuine love. We often laugh together because some of the Catholic friends who help make

up Breaking Bread remind us that some of our conversation partners sound a lot like us.

Not like patron saints from their own traditions. What I mean by that is that they're role models

in the faith who inspire us to become our best selves, living out Jesus' good news.

Like Paul, we talk with them and hear from them about how to be the beloved community.

Let me give you a few examples. We talk a lot about Mr. Rogers, who reminds us that

we can talk about uncomfortable and scary things

because, as he says, if it's mentionable, it's manageable.

Another celebrated interlocutor in our community from East Tennessee, not the only East Tennessean,

is the one and only Dolly Parton, whose songs of strength, courage, and tenderness are backed

up by generosity that funds COVID vaccine research and has donated more than 150 million

books to children all over America.

Amen.

But perhaps my favorite conversation partner for Breaking Bread is the civil rights leader

John Lewis.

John Lewis grew up in Alabama under segregation and began organizing sit-ins protesting segregation

as a college student in Nashville.

He was one of the original Freedom Riders, riding buses through the South in defiance

of racist policies that treated black people as second-class citizens.

died when a mob attacked him and his friends at the Montgomery bus station, just as he nearly died

when police officers beat him as one of the leaders of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge

in Selma, Alabama in 1965. They were there demanding the right to vote.

Lewis represented metropolitan Atlanta in Congress from 1986 until his death from pancreatic cancer

in July 2020. John Lewis is someone whose life and work rhyme with the vision of Christian

community that Paul wrote about in his letter to the Romans. He was a lifelong disciple of

non-violent resistance to injustice, and as a disciple of non-violence, he also became a teacher

of those principles, someone who invites the younger generation to take up the work now that

he is gone.

When George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officers in May 2020, Black Lives Matter

demonstrators emerged as the largest protest movement in history. At the same time, John

Lewis was dying of cancer. His final essay for the New York Times was called, Together,

You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation, and it was published on the day of his funeral.

I'd like to read some excerpts from that essay now. Lewis wrote,

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my

life, you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story

when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people, motivated

simply by human compassion, laid down the burdens of division.

Around the country and the world, you set aside race, class, age, language, and nationality to

demand respect for human dignity. That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington,

though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel for myself

that after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd, Lewis goes on. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland,

and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time.

I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me.

In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of

potential brutality were the only things that could make us feel like we were in a prison.

Committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in.

And then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about

the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate

injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by doing it. He said it is not enough

to stand up, speak up, and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say

something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state, it is an act, and each generation

must do its part to help build what we call the beloved community, a nation and world society

at peace with itself.

Ordinary people,

with extraordinary vision, can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble,

necessary trouble. Ordinary people with extraordinary vision, that's what we're called to.

We can participate in the redemptive work that God asks of us by practicing genuine love. Genuine

love calls us to imagine dignity for ourselves, our neighborhoods, and schools with backpacks,

even for our enemies. Genuine love confronts harmful behaviors and invites us to think through

a different way forward together. Genuine love draws upon our creative energies to make our

community a safe place in a manner that acknowledges the breadth of humanity that

comes through our doors. Genuine love in our time means saying no to violence,

and a yes to peace in a troubled season in America. Genuine love is a path that we walk together,

listening to one another, helping each other, working toward a better future. As the Apostle

Paul puts it in this morning's reading, love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love

is the fulfilling of the law. Here at Nassau Presbyterian Church, we have been participating

continuing conversation of what it looks like to practice genuine love in today's world.

As Pastor Lauren McPheeters shared during worship last Sunday, leaders of this congregation have

been in conversation about how to make Nassau a safer community. Over the past year, there have

been some unsettling incidents, unpredictable outbursts during worship that have raised

questions about how we respond in a manner that's true to our deepest values and calls on us to be

our best selves. Pastor Dave Davis convened a security task force that has proposed new

security measures that the session, the elders of this church, have adopted.

It has not been an easy conversation. It has revealed the deepest fears some members and

leaders have about the world.

A possibility of someone doing violence in this community. The decision to hire a security firm

that provides an armed guard at worship services has raised fears and questions from other members

and leaders here. I am grateful for the effort and care that church leaders have already invested

in this important question of making this place as safe and open as possible.

As someone who has been in the church for a long time, I am grateful for the support and care that

the church has given me. I am grateful for the support and care that the church has given me.

A few years ago, I was at a place where I was a member of the American Association of Psychologists

who has loved ones who have been traumatized by gun violence. This conversation has motivated me

to learn more about the relationship of armed guards to the safety of institutions like schools,

churches, and hospitals. I've been reading studies by the Journal of the American Medical Association,

the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Association of School Psychologists, and resources

from the PCI's and the Nassau University's Department of Psychology. I've also looked at any and all of the

Missouri-based medical agencies, and also the National Association of School Psychologists, and resources from the PCI's and the Nassau University's Department of Psychology.

USA's Presbyterian Mission Agency. I'll include these links in the manuscript of this sermon

when it's posted in the sermon journal page of Nassau's website later this week.

My intention in doing this research is to express my resolve that I will remain in genuine, loving,

truthful conversation with you. Because this new security plan is such a significant change in our

life together, Dave and Lauren have asked the elders of this church to be open to hearing people

share their questions and concerns. I am grateful for that openness to dialogue and for their promise

that this will remain an ongoing conversation among the members of session. I love you so dearly

and I am proud of your witness in this community and the ways you love one another. I hope that

you will continue to be a part of this community and that you will continue to be a part of this

I hope that you will continue to be a part of this community and that you will continue to be a part of this

community and that you will continue to be a part of this community. As you do so, I ask each of you to

consider the people who have helped you grow in your love for God and neighbor. What would they

say? How will you honor them with your words and actions? In this moment, my prayer is that we will

be ordinary people with extraordinary vision as we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with

ourselves.

be ordinary people with extraordinary vision as we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. Amen.