People. Genuine and Mutual

You know people who will tell you all about themselves, their lives, and what they have done. All wonderful impressive achievements, but false. Most of them do so believing they need to tell those tall tales to be accepted by others. Sometimes they do gain acceptance into the group they desire. Only they do not realize that their stories were not believed and they were invited into the group to be the laughing stock of the “real” members of the group. While we usually think of this type of behavior in teenagers, people in all walks of life try this. While I am not an expert at diagnosing this it seems to me that the desire to fit in comes from a lack of self-esteem, a desire to be part of something bigger than yourself, loneliness, and sometimes a lust for power. It is not hard to see how people can have these feelings. We are constantly bombarded by advertisements from billboards to television, to the internet. The internet has not, as some predicted, made life better. It just made life more complicated by encouraging the “same old same old” peer pressure machine counting friends and clicks as your worthiness.

Paul was not thinking about all this when he called the Romans to lives of genuine love and mutual support but those words speak deeply to our time and lives. Paul was talking about sticking together since Christians were a small minority in the world who were occasionally persecuted. They had to be supportive of each other in their daily struggles – both as Christians as well as the hard life most of them endured. Their need was not to fit in with the popular people – they already did by the hard work of Jesus upon the cross. They had no power or strength of their own. They had God’s love and each other and Paul was guiding them into the relationship God desired for them.

He did not promise them an easy life or popularity, or power. He was calling them to a life so different from the world that they did not fully understand the joy and power of life filled with God’s love. A love so powerful that allows you to love your enemies; even feeding them when they are hungry and forgiving them their wrong. With your love they may even see the evil of their ways and repent. This life is so different than the way our world sees it. Instead of love they choose hate. Instead of care they choose abuse. Instead of gathering around this font and table they choose to sit alone and brood.

Paul was not promising an easy, popular, rich life. Nor did Jesus. If you wish to follow him you are called to pick up you cross first. You know this. Life can be a struggle and there are always difficulties that confront you. Some that you have no control over. Others that is your own grievous fault. No you have not received a guarantee of an easy life. You have been promised a life with Jesus. That life with the comfort and support of a holy and certain hope filled with love and the peace of God that passes all understanding. There is no reason to tell tall tales about yourself or try to be something other than you are. You have been made in the image of God, washed in the waters of baptism, and filled with the Holy Spirit. That makes you a member of God’s family and there is not any group better. So what are you waiting for? Pick up your cross and follow Jesus.