A PRAYER TO START
St. Francis’ prayer, long repeated in our faith history, is a declaration that we believe that what God is always up to is turning evil into good; including you and I into participants of grace. Pray this prayer 3xs before affirming that what is prayed, by that same grace will be lived…
Lord make us an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let us sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O divine master grant that we may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life
(Repeat twice more)
Amen.
GETTING THOUGHTFUL
The apostle Paul will conclude his functional metaphor on being the church with this phrase, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (v. 21) Very few of us would argue with the statement, even if we are bit underwhelmed by the ideology that evil is vanquished through good deeds. After all, do not the tragic events of this past week demand more than goodness, don’t they demand justice, retribution, the obliteration of evil?
“No”, we say, “our history of faith—ours individually and as a people of faith—has taught us to believe that”, as Dorothy Sayers (113) once declared, “we continually find God at work turning evil into good.” This is the story our Scriptures tells from Genesis to Jesus, and it is good story, a story that we desire to believe to be true. Yet the question naturally surfaces as we reflect on what we believe and what we see across news stations and social media feeds: how? How does God overcome evil with good? How is God continuing to turn what is meant for evil into what is his good?
Our church, some of us “Sunday school”, trained answer is “Jesus”. He is always the answer…right? Jesus is how God is turning evil into good; his life a demonstration of the good life confronting injustice, healing brokenness, serving those in need of just about anything; his death, a tragedy but one entered into willingly, on the behalf of those whom he called “friends”; and his resurrection, the defeat, the end of that which all evil culminates, death. That’s it! We have figured it out! The foundational element that changed the world and changed you and I.
But, wait. The gospel story played out on the stage of time thousands of years ago. And, while we certainly cannot build atop anything but this marvelous mystery, our simple answer appears to be more orthodoxy (right belief) than orthopraxy (right behavior), more theory than practice. So we know where to start, but where to do we go after we hear the starting pistol’s discharge and are blasted into life now in eternity?
Well, Paul has given us the answer in the verses that proceed his concluding statement; particularly 12:1-8. Here we discover something spectacular and normal about Gods’ continued work. The spectacular part is that we are in the middle of it! Not the center of course. It is by his mercies (v.1) and his abundant grace (v.3) that we are gifted (v. 6) to participate, yet we are nonetheless organically enmeshed in this overcoming evil with good as our liver is enmeshed inside our body, and just as vital. The normal part is that where we are enmeshed is in the body of Christ (v. 5), a conglomerate of individuals who belong to one another. And thus it is in our ordinary daily living (v.1) in which our vital function plays its part (v. 4-8).
Reflecting on this section of Romans, Eugene Peterson (1761) once remarked,
People have different skills, different strengths, different sensibilities. God has given us one another so that we may have a shared life. None of us can live the abundant life [read, a good life in which evil has been overcome] as hermits. Nor can we live to the glory of God if we carefully pick whom we’re willing to associate with. All who live are God’s creation and parts of the body of Christ. We’re members of one another. We exist in a family, together, not alone.
The apostle Paul argues that evil is overcome by good when you and I, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us…use them…” (v. 6) You have been created and gifted, saved and transformed in order to participate in God’s work of turning evil into good. Over the next several weeks we look the specific exhortations Paul gives us in order to participate well (vs. 9-21), but we must start where he starts. And Paul starts with you, knowing what you have been gifted, and making good use of it.
REFLECTION
The gifts that Paul illustrates in verses 6-8 are not exhaustive but they are vivid. In his short descriptor Paul paints a picture of the body unified in the way it speaks to one another and nurtured in how it serves each other; not mention productive in its speaking and serving those among whom it resides. It is in these “categories” that most of us will discover our unique gifting, whether named here, in other texts of our Scripture or nowhere at all.
Consider momentarily Paul’s illustrations of prophecy, teaching and exhortation. It is in our speaking to one another that we are able to remain in sync with the manner of life the head (which is Jesus) is telling the many parts to operate. Speaking to the Father, to one another and our neighbors. Prophecy then is a gift given like the pouring out of the Spirit (Joel 2:28-29), sought by all according to Paul (1 Corinthians 14:2) and a function we all in some way or another take part. Whatever you might imagine prophecy to be, at its base is a three person conversation between the Father, the one speaking and the one spoken to. Quite simply, prophecy is speaking to one another in relation to the Father for the purpose of helping one another walk fully and faithfully in the life of following Jesus. It is a speaking in particular moments, to particular circumstances meant to build one another up as we follow the way of Jesus. And, can be done over coffee just as easily in a more formal setting.
Teaching is only a little different in that it is a type of speech that opens up our hearts and minds to see with greater clarity the Kingdom which we find ourselves alive and active. Though, like prophecy, it too is a gift given to equip the saints for the work of ministry and maturity in Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13).
The final speaking gift included by Paul in this section is that of exhortation. To exhort is to spur others on, to urge with earnestness obedience, courage, faith. It is the practice of taking up the responsibility given to each of us to speak truth in love to one another, and those who we call neighbors, so that each part might function as it should (Ephesians 4:15,25). Sometimes that truth is a reminder of what God has done in history (our own and Scripture), other times it is helping a sister be accountable to act upon what the Spirit has compelled her to do, and at other times calling a brother back to a life with Jesus he knows but (for various reasons) is not following.
We speak, and thus we move together in-step with Christ. While we are all called to speak, some of us will be more “natural” at it, gifted in it. The same is true for those gifts that fall under the heading of “serving” like contributions, leadership and acts of mercy.
Jesus modeled for us a life of service and sacrifice, of joy in giving our possessions, energies, gifts, and lives for those whom our Father created and loves (see Matthew 20:28, Hebrews 12:2, 13:7). Whether our service come through giving away generously what we have been given; whatever we have been given (money, compassion, time, spiritual gifts, etc.), or giving our lives away to lead others toward something good and right, or doing the long and draining work of caring for those in the most desperate of places; we all serve and some do so in special ways.
As a member of the body you will speak and you will serve, and as you do so I am sure you will find how you do it uniquely, specifically and most fruitfully among this body at this time and place in God’s Story. Go, as Paul suggests so strongly, “Get after it!”, “without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves to each other, or trying to be something we are not.”
Use the questions below to help you prayerfully reflect individually and/or discuss as a DNA group.
While not giving all the specific parts of the body necessary for a life shared that can overcome evil with good, Paul gives us two primary functions: speaking and serving. Which image best describes how God has gifted you?
Describe specific instances in your story that make you think you are prone to one of these two functions.
Where are you using your gifting to build up and/or help others discover who they are as image bears of God, members of his created body?
In what ways are you using your grace gifts to participate in the flourishing of the world, including evil being overcome by good?
REVERBERATIONS
Former Cornell professor and farmer, Liberty Hyde Bailey once spoke these words which are timely for you and I as we consider how to live rightly in relation to our natural conditions, attempting to cultivate a good world. Let these words reflect off the walls of your mind, the chamber of your heart, and the actions of your hands this week.
Most of our difficulty with the earth lies in the effort to do what perhaps ought not to be done…A good part of agriculture is to learn how to adapt one’s work to nature…To live in right relation with his natural conditions is one of the first lessons that a wise farmer or any other wise man learns.