Ezekiel 33:(1-6)7-11
Psalm 119:33-48 or 119:33-40
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 18:15-20
When I was a little girl I couldn't understand why the colored clothes I wore always turned to black and white in the photos my father took with his old Kodak. I wondered if there was something wrong with me or with the man that my father said "developed" the film.
My dad didn't seem to notice that the sky was gray and the grass was a darker gray and my red dress was black. Even my face was black and white. But then when I looked at his really old photographs, his whole family was black and white too.
So I just accepted the idea that other people didn't see things the same way as I did. Well, eventually photography evolved and pictures began looking more like what we thought we saw.
Now, trying to capture the great truths of the Bible can be a little like trying to capture colors with an old black and white. The folks who wrote the Bible started thousands of years ago with only the spoken language to record the pictures of the past.
They had only words to show their photos. And some words may have been misspoken or misspelled from one scribe to another thru the ages.
Customs and cultures changed and some words used in the days of Moses, or Paul or Matthew as they recorded the teachings of Jesus, don't always seem to mean the same today as they did then.
Fortunately, translators of the Bible have done a pretty good job of bringing the past forward in present day language.
I tried once, as a young adult, to read the Bible from beginning to end. but gave up in frustration just a few chapters into Genesis. Now, with renewed fascination, I can search for the truths and history written there, and find reassuring continuity in things I never saw before.
In today's lessons, Paul writes to the Romans, carefully laying out what it means to live as God intended. The words seem to jump right off the page in living color. and it's hard to understand how any of us could get it wrong.
"Let love be genuine"; Paul wrote, "hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor."
It sounds almost like a recipe, doesn't it? and if we follow the directions that Paul has laid out, we can't help but get it right.
Yet, we often do get it wrong! Sometimes we get the words out of order and, because of it, nothing goes right.
"Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord." "Rejoice", Paul says - "rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer".
There is so much freedom written in these words, if only we would seize it. If we followed them as they are written we wouldn't need to spend so much time on the "shalt nots".
But there are as many reasons as there are people - for not seizing the freedom that jumps right out at us. There are little frivolous reasons and there are big complicated reasons. There are logical reasons and there are "just don't have the time" reasons.
As Americans, we have a long history of defending our right to pursue happiness, to travel at will, to speak our minds without fear of imprisonment.
We wouldn't trade our freedom to worship, a most precious freedom that many in the world don't know. We're even free to question the meaning of scripture and tradition without fear of banishment.
"Freedom" has broad implications for all of us though we seldom give it much thought until it is threatened. Then, like squabbling siblings, we drop our scrappiness at the door and come together in community, honoring our common values.
We become vigilant and we scurry around like little antibodies attacking a vicious infection. We strengthen our relationships with family and friends, our neighbors, and even with God - for a while.
Then after the threat subsides or we get used to living with the threat, we return to our daily lives, back to living the way we live when nobody is looking.
And it's the way we live when nobody is looking that erodes the greatest freedom of all, to be in relationship with God. It's so easy to let things come between God and ourselves and the freedom to be who we are meant to be.
Bright colors of freedom fade into blinding black and white shadows as we nurse our anger and petty grudges, or false thinking that we can decide for God who is welcome in God's house.
Unhealthy addictions and behavior erode our spontaneity, leaving us forgetful of the delicious taste of freedom to be who we are meant to be, as one with each other and one with God.
If our joyful colors have faded or maybe not yet appeared, there's something we can still do. You'll find it in Jesus' words, written in the Gospel of Matthew,
"Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven."
Let us mirror, on earth, the photographs in brilliant color, that God already has displayed of us in Heaven.
Amen.