Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

Devoted to One Another

by Dave Wilkinson

Romans 12:10

July 11, 1999

Jackie Robinson was the first black to play major league baseball. While breaking baseball’s color barrier, he faced jeering crowds in every stadium. One day in his home stadium in Brooklyn, he committed an error. His own fans began to ridicule him. He stood at second base humiliated while the fans jeered.

Then Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese walked over and stood next to him. He put his arm around Jackie Robinson and faced the crowd. The fans grew quiet. Robinson later said that that arm around his shoulder saved his career.

When Pee Wee Reese placed his arm around Robinson’s shoulder he gave a very strong message: "If you love me you have to love him too because he is me."

In this part of Romans 12 we are looking at the practical actions of love. In verse 10 Paul turns our attention to our love for the church — our willingness to take our stand next to a brother or sister who is hurting or under attack and say, "If you love me you have to love her too because she is me." Paul tells us that love is demonstrated by the way we are devoted to each other in the church in "brotherly affection."

Now I had a brother when I was growing up. I still do. And I must say that affection for each other was not always the most striking feature of our youthful relationship. The same lack of apparent care has also been evident between brothers and sisters in the church. In 1534, at the height of the Reformation, a Catholic Abbot named Paul Bachmann published a virulent anti-Protestant booklet titled "A Punch in the Mouth for the Lutheran Wide-Gaping Throats." Not to be outdone, the Protestant court chaplain Jerome Rauscher responded with: "One Hundred Select Great Shameless, Fat, Well-Swilled, Stinking, Papistical Lies." I must say that sounds like my brother and me at our ten and twelve year old best.

But the fact is that we are still family. And a family shares a very special bond. When Paul writes: "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love" he brings together two family words. "Be devoted" translates the adjective philostorges. Storge describes our natural affection toward relatives like the love of a parent for a child. The other word is philos, brotherly love which denotes the love of brothers and sisters for each other. Both words originally were applied to blood relationships in the human family. Now Paul applies them to the church to the tender warm affection which should unite the members of the family of God -- for we have, in fact, been made blood relation with each other through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Jay Kessler said in a sermon on the church: "I believe in the church because it is a place where I can find community, healing, and love. We can belong to lots of things , but I see the church of Jesus Christ as an extended family beyond any of that. I remember my boy, when he was small was running full speed through the basement of our church and my good friend, John Horn, reached out and grabbed him by the collar. His little legs are still going and he;’s holding him there. He said to him, "Bruce, slow down!" Bruce looked at him and said, "Put me down! You’re not my dad." And John said, "No, I’m not your dad, but I’m your uncle. I’m your uncle because your daddy is my brother in Christ and I love you as much as if you were my real nephew. I want to help you become the kind of man you ought to be, so you just slow down. OK?" We need that in a church — to care for each other’s sons and daughters.

And we care for each other in this way in spite of the fact that there are people in the church we would not have chosen to have as family — just as there are people at the family reunion you would have never chosen to be your cousins. You and I didn’t get to make up the guest list for the church. God made the guest list. And God seems to delight in throwing opposites together and telling them to make it work.

And Paul says that this is to be done in "brotherly affection." I like what C.S. Lewis says about this word, affection, in his book, The Four Loves. Lewis writes: "Affection is the humblest love — it gives itself no airs. It lives with humble, private things, soft slippers, old clothes, old jokes, the thump of a sleepy dog’s tail on the kitchen floor.

He continues, "The glory of affection is that it can unite those who are not ‘made for each other,’ people who, if not put by fate into the same household or community would have nothing to do with one another. Affection broadens our minds; of all natural loves it teaches us first to notice, then to endure, then to smile at, then to enjoy, and finally to appreciate the people who ‘happen to be there.’ Made for us? Thank God, they are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed."

The church is meant to be an example — a model — of what God wants to do to in al of society. We are "exhibit A" of God’s power to reconcile. I see that happening. There are people here this morning who have had their differences with each other. Some of those are over community issues. Some are personal. But no one is saying, "If they’re gonna be here I’m outta here." The attitude is "We’ll let God work it through. Meanwhile we’ll praise Him together.

That’s not easy. It’s not instinct. At least it’s never been my instinct. I remember when I was in high school there was a guy named Mike at my school that I rather enjoyed disliking. And I remember the difficulty I felt when he began to come to the youth group at my church — the group I had been a part of for years — and I remember my disgust that no one else seemed to recognize what a jerk he was. I think God was teaching me a lesson about what He wants the church to be. The only one who would have lost if I had adopted a "either him or me attitude" would have been me — and the cause of the Gospel in Mike’s life as well as in my own.

Joy Davidman, the wife of C.S. Lewis, wrote a marvelous book on the Ten Commandments called Smoke on the Mountain. In her discussion on the Sabbath, she makes a pointed observation that bears on our text today — and how we model or don’t model the brotherly affection God desires. She writes: "Most of the ordinary people who lose their faith are not overthrown by philosophical argument; they lose faith because they are disillusioned by the church people they meet. One sanctimonious hypocrite makes a hundred unbelievers. One little knot of gossips tearing a neighbor’s reputation apart on the church steps smashes the Sabbath to splinters. If we are to put it together again, we must show the rest of the world that a Christian gets something worthwhile out of his or her worship. It is not much use asking others to turn to God unless we set them the example."

How do we set this example. How do we demonstrate devotion to each other in brotherly affection?

Let me suggest a couple of ways out of my own awareness of our experience here before we focus on the one way Paul highlights in this verse.

A first way we show brotherly affection in by the sincerity of our welcome.

In his talks about Lake Wobegone, Garrison Keillor draws a sad comparison between the experiences of a newcomer to the Lake Wobegone Lutheran Church and a newcomer at the local bar, the Sidetrack Tap. The fact is that people at the Tap will know your name after the first visit — assuming you have chosen to take a appropriate part in the story telling — and will welcome you like family at the second visit. Meanwhile, at the Church it is a two year stint before anyone remembers your name — and then the church people wonder why some people prefer the bar to the church.

A while back in our new member class one of the people commented that the first thing they noticed about our church is that it is filled with "happy noise." They said, "I was new then and wasn’t a part of the chatter of people glad to see each other. But I knew that I could be." I like that. Living churches with a future tend to be noisy. If you want serenity, the place to look is a church that’s dying.

What was your welcome to Moorpark Presbyterian like? If it was good, repeat it. If it was lacking, outdo it.

A second, primary way we show our brotherly affection is by taking part in ongoing, supportive relationships.

When the congregation filled out a survey for the Mission Study we did last year, one problem in the life of our church that was identified by a few respondents was "cliques" -- the presence of groups of people who band together.

It is true that we have such groups here. But I don’t believe that they are cliques. A clique, by definition, has power -- power to shape what goes on in the life of our church in a way that is outside our system of representative government. There is no group here with that kind of extra-legal power -- so there are no true cliques. I have been in situations where there really are cliques and know how painful they can be. I’m glad we don’t have them.

But there are interest groups. There are groups of people who do things together. And my advice to those who worry about these groups is "help build your own." Join a small group. Form a small group. Karen Bryan will be delighted to help. Invite some people over. Extend yourself. If you don’t you will discover that while ours is a friendly church — marked by a high degree of happy noise before worship — you, yourself won’t have many friends.

In that light, let me say a word to the "interest groups." Be open! There is a huge difference between the dictionary definition of a clique — a small group with extra legal authority — and the emotional definition of a clique — "a group that ignores me and won’t let me in." Be aware. Be open. Find some place besides the patio during coffee hour to conduct your business. Meet new people. Its not enough to be informed. Newcomers to the church don’t really care how much you know until they know how much you care.

There was a time when I used to think that every group of friends was a clique - and needed to be broken up. When I went back to serve as Assistant Pastor at the church I had grown up in — the church where my parents are still members — there were a large number of couples groups that had met together for many years. I, in my most stubborn, wrong headed way, made it my goal to break them up — to make them sub-divide so that new people could join instead of focusing on forming new groups for the newer people.

I am so glad that I failed. God was doing something very special in the groups I was trying to fragment. One of the most important things we can have in the church is supportive friendships that continue year after year after year. When my parent’s faced a great need for support and help after their car accident, it was the members of their long time group who were there bringing meals, providing rides, fixing pipes. We had the assistant superintendent of schools out back pruning my dad’s almond trees -- because they had developed their brotherly affection in Christ over the course of the years. Just a couple of weeks agho I was privileged to take part in my parent’s sixtieth wedding anniversary. It was especially exciting to see them seated at dinner with do many friends from many long ytears.

Jay Kessler writes: "Janie headed up the Golden Agers at our church for fifteen years, I’ve been watching her group and I’ve seen there is an informal ratio of about seven ladies to every one old man. I know, statistically, I’m going to go toes up before Janie. Who will bring her to church? Who will invite her over for Thanksgiving Dinner? Who will fix her sump pump? Who will help her get her shopping done for Christmas. The church of Jesus Christ does that sort of thing."

Kessler continues: "When a person’s life becomes unglued and the effects of the culture absolutely destroy a person, where can he go to find forgiveness and understanding? To a group of men who will come around him in a nonjudgmental fashion and simply say, ‘There but for the grace of God go I, Jay, come along. We love you. We’ll help you."

Some years ago a large church in Dallas, Texas, divided. The split was so bad that one faction began a lawsuit to dispossess the other and claim the property. The newspapers picked up the story, and the locals followed what was happening with a great deal of interest. The judge finally stated it was not a matter for the civil courts until the church courts had made a ruling. After much discussion, the church court awarded the property to one of the two factions, and the losers withdrew and formed another church in the area. How different things would have been had those in that church heeded Paul's call to mutual commitment: "Be devoted with warm family affection to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves."

That’s the third way we show our devotion to each other in brotherly affection. We show each other honor. This is the facet that Paul focuses on in the second part of this verse -- "be devoted to one another in brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor."

Paul says that true love regards others as more deserving than yourself. "Honor one another above yourselves." I like Phillips' translation here. He says, "Be willing to let other people have the credit." That is a practical application of this.

Charles Swindoll writes: "Years ago I ran across a sign that has helped me many times. I have often been on the verge of pointing out that the credit belonged to me, but I have been stopped by the remembrance of this little motto: "There is no limit to the good that a man can do if he doesn't care who gets the credit." If you really don't care who gets the credit, you can just enjoy yourself and do all kinds of good deeds. Just be glad that it is done, and don't worry about who gets the credit. Our flesh doesn't like that. It is very eager to be acknowledged and promoted. But the Word tells us that real love will not act that way. Paul says, "Don't wait around for people to recognize your contributions and praise you. Instead, be alert to what they are contributing and honor them."

Do that if they are doing a good job. And if they have made an error and are taking the heat, learn a lesson from Pee Wee Reese. Walk over, put your arm around their shoulder and stand next to them. Put out the message -- "If you love me you have to love him too because he is me."

That’s what affectionate brothers and sisters do.