Gospel Loopholes
Romans 13: 8-14
Back when I practiced law, I would have the occasional client come in with a problem wanting me to see if there was a way around the law, and it didn’t matter if it was a civil case or a criminal case. They were looking for a way around the law, a loophole that they could use to avoid an obligation, not doing something they’d rather not do if they could find a way around it. And, of course, they didn’t want to pay for this advice. On a few occasions they would grudgingly agree to pay for my well-researched work, but it wasn’t very often. Most of the time the law is very settled, having already been challenged in courts of law on more than one occasion. Most of the time my searches for ways to have my clients excepted from the obligations of the law were in criminal cases, showing that the law didn’t apply to them. Usually, after being convicted of some sort of violation of the law, I would get appointed to handle their appeal where they would hope I could find some sort of loophole, a technicality that would get the case overturned. Most of the time the issues had already been litigated, which meant trying to find something new that would distinguish your case from all of the other previously appealed cases that had already ruled on the fact in controversy. When arguing the case before an appellate court you could always count on at least one judge inquiring as to why they should agree with you and treat your client differently from others who also found themselves in a similar situation previously. The killer to many of these frivolous appeals was the legislative intent behind the law. Many was the time I, as a prosecutor, would argue the legislative intent of the law in defeating these frivolous attempts at circumventing the law. What the legislature intended the law to address, remedy, prevent, or punish.
And that’s what the Apostle Paul is writing about in our scripture reading for this morning, our continuing obligation to the law of love. Obeying and not breaking the law makes you a righteous person but showing love to and for others makes you the person God wants you to be. There are no loopholes in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The apostle begins by saying: Don’t be in debt to anyone, except for the obligation to love each other. Whoever loves another person has fulfilled the Law. That statement automatically begs the question as to why is love for others called a debt? It’s because we are permanently in debt to Christ for the lavish love he has poured out on us. And because of this the only way we can even begin to repay this debt is by fulfilling our obligation to love others in return. As Christ’s love will always be infinitely greater than ours, we will always have this obligation to love our neighbors with no exceptions or exclusions. Paul understood his audience which, at the time, consisted of mostly Jewish converts with an increasing number of Gentiles being drawn to this new and unconventional movement. He has former Jews like himself who grew up under the Jewish legalistic system of worshipping God and now he has these new believers who are drawn to the message of forgiveness and unmerited love with no strings attached. He references several of the commandments like not committing adultery, not murdering, not stealing, not desiring what others have, as an example, and that all of these commandments and others are summed up in one word: You must love your neighbor as yourself. Love, he explains, doesn’t do anything wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is what fulfills the Law. What you have here are two competing dynamics. You have the former Jewish believers whose whole existence was spent doing everything they could to obey not only the ten commandments but also all of the other six hundred plus laws put upon them by the Pharisees and religious leaders. Try as they may, there wasn’t much time or energy left to show an appreciable amount of love for their neighbors. The thinking was that if they just kept the laws, showed up every week at synagogue, they would be considered righteous, and then God would be satisfied. But then you had these newer Gentile converts who were ecstatic over their new life and were looking for the best way to show their gratitude and become one of the favored flock of God.
Knowing who he is addressing, he reminds them that as they are doing this, they know what time it is and there is no time to waste. He tells them that the hour has come and that salvation is nearer than when they first came to faith. He tells them that because the day is near to get rid of all of those things that kept them in the darkness and to put on the weapons of light. Putting on the weapons of light is Paul’s way of saying to get up and out of the pews and become active participants in the fight for good. Don’t act like everyone else who live for the moment, partying and getting drunk, sleeping around and engaging in obscene behavior, not fighting among themselves and being obsessive. Instead, he says, dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t plan to indulge your selfish desires. It’s not about you. It’s about others.
That became clear to me last week when I engaged in one of those online “discussions” regarding illegal immigration which has become one of the hot topics of this political season. I started out prefacing my words with that fact that I acknowledged illegal immigration is a problem, however, I also stated that the issue needed to be handled with compassion and mercy as these people, illegal or not, were our neighbors in the truest sense of the word. I then pointed out what God said about immigrants in Leviticus 19: 33 where it was written: When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Well, that set some of them off with rabid attacks against me, the messenger. They blew right by that part where God said not to mistreat them. It doesn’t mean that they cannot be brought before the authorities regarding their status. They can, but it must be done with compassion, mercy, and justice, the same compassion, mercy, and justice we legal residents would expect. I didn’t get ugly and bite back. I saw it as an opportunity to inject the Gospel and how God views the Law into the dialogue. I then reminded them what Jesus said about love of neighbor which drew more negative responses as they looked for ways to distinguish what love of neighbor, those kinds of neighbors, really meant and why it didn’t apply in this situation because there was a loophole. Undeterred, I quoted what the Apostle Paul had to say about why we love our neighbors only to be met with more rebuke as my call for compassion towards others sadly faded into the distance. I didn’t give them my opinion. I only pointed out what God said, what Paul said, and what Jesus said. The Gospel without any loopholes.
You see, the call to love a neighbor as yourself requires you to get out of your comfort zone when it would be so much easier to say you are a righteous Christian who doesn’t break the law and follows all of the commandments and that’s all God really requires. Let somebody else do it. This is the Apostle’s clearest explanation of the Christian’s relationship to the Law. God’s people, you and me, fulfill the Law when we love others even as we properly love ourselves. What is meant about self-love in this case is that, even if you have low self-esteem, you wouldn’t willingly let yourself go hungry. You would do all you can to dress yourself reasonably well. You’d make sure there was a roof over your head if you could, and you would try not to let yourself be cheated, injured, abused, or taken advantage of. This is the kind of love we need to have for our neighbors. When we look around do we see that others are fed, clothed, and housed as well as they can be? Are we truly concerned about issues of social justice? Loving others as ourselves means to be actively working to see that their needs are met with compassion, mercy, and justice and not looking for ways to ignore their plight as not our problem.
How easy it is to excuse our indifference to others merely because we have no legal obligation to help them and even justify harming them if our actions are technically legal. As Christians we must obey the law of love, which supersedes both religious and civil laws. With the Gospel of Jesus Christ there are no loopholes in the law of love and whenever love demands it, we are to go beyond legal requirements and imitate the God of love thereby fulfilling the spirit of the law.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God, we pray that others will know we are Christians by our love and not our weekly attendance in church. Our failure to love others as we would expect to be loved by others is an affront to you and the sacrifice made by your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ on our behalf. We didn’t earn it and we certainly do not deserve it. We are forever in your debt, a debt we cannot possibly repay. All we can do in return is to live a Christ-like life that is pleasing and fulfilling to you. Move us by your Spirit to actively look for ways to show the love of Christ to others in every way we can as a people and as a faith community. Let us spend our time looking for ways to meet the needs of others rather than wasting time trying to figure out why we shouldn’t, that it’s not our problem, that somebody else should do it. If it’s a problem for you, it’s a problem for us and there are no loopholes. This we do, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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9/06/26
Gospel loopholes
As Christ’s love will always be infinitely greater than our, we will always have this obligation to love our neighbors with no exceptions or exclusions.
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