“As God shapes our lives as individuals and the shared life of the community of faith, that life is characterized by love. But we need to remember that this love does not get lived out in perfect environments but is given birth, meaning and essence when people truly live in relationship with one another which includes conflict.”
March 15, 2026
Rooted in the Good News
The Good News is … “community connection”
Romans 21:1-21
Rev. Dr. Heather W. McColl
Romans 21:1-21
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by who God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we?
So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t. If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them.
Keep a smile on your face. Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.
The Good News is … community connection Romans 21:1-21
Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.
At first when we read this text from Paul’s letter to the Romans, there seems to be a disconnect between what Paul is writing here. One minute he is telling us to remember we are loved, to embrace what God has done for us, and to never forget how the Good News changed us. Then the next minute, he is giving us a list of demands. These two halves of a whole section really don’t seem to go together at all. In fact, it is almost as if they contradict each other. Now, we could easily brush this contradiction off as Paul being Paul and ignore it. After all, we are used to Paul trying to cram in a lot of information in a short amount of space. He does that a lot in his letters. But, I can’t believe I’m saying this, we need to give Paul a little grace. We need to remember that his writings, Paul is pretty methodical. He is usually direct and straightforward. For better or worse, in all his letters, Paul usually tells it like it is, even if it is to say as disciples of Christ, we are getting it wrong, and don’t make him come down there to fix it. Paul does that a lot in his letters. But he also usually has a point to make in his letters.
And when we take a step back and read the text as a whole, we realize that unlike his other letters, where he is addressing a particular situation which is happening within the community of faith, in this particular section of the letter, Paul is giving a synopsis about what it means to live their lives centered in Christ. He is giving them examples of how to live their lives grounded in the knowledge of whose they are…They are God’s Beloved, named and claimed, and loved more than they could ever imagine. Paul knew that this understanding of who God is will and does shape everything for us as people of faith. And because of who God is, we as people of faith, have a different story to share and tell. It is a story based on love and grace rather than fear, power and might. It is a story which changing everything for us as people of faith. From how we view the world to how we engage each other in community, because of who God is, we understand and view the world around us as expansive, inclusive, and connected.
In this text, Paul is reminding the community of faith back then and now that living out our call as the Body Christ always starts from a place of love. And as the Body of Christ, when we start from the place of love, it looks a lot like…blessing our enemies; no cursing under your breath. It looks a lot like laughing with your happy friends when they’re happy; and sharing tears when they’re down. It looks a lot like getting along with each other; and not being stuck up. As the Body of Christ, starting from a place of love looks a lot like making friends with nobodies; and not being the great somebody.”
When we take this text as a whole, we realize that Paul is inviting us to sit with the knowledge of God’s love being our center, to celebrate it, to never forget it AND while we are reveling in that knowledge, also remember that God is God and you are not. I think it is important to point out that Paul felt the need to invite us as people of faith to sit with both of these True Statements. Because more often than not, we ignore that second part. We tend to only focus on that first part and in doing so, we let that knowledge go to our heads. Then that is when the trouble starts. Not because we are bad people. Simply because we are human. We are imperfect, messy, grumpy people who live in a world which tells us to never be satisfied with who we are and what we have, who live in a world that tells us that I need to hate you to make myself feel better. Simply because we live in a world which tells us we live in a zero sum game.
Knowing the world and the culture around us, when we hear how much God loves us, it is easy to craft a narrative that allows us, that invites us, that strongly encourages us to think that all that matters is me and Jesus against the world. But in this section of the letter, Paul is reminding the community of faith back then and reminding us now that is not how God’s Beloved Community works. It is not about I have to get mine before you get yours. Rather it is about loving one another. It is about being in community with another. Rather it is about us as the Body of Christ, as Jesus’ disciples, as ones who are rooted in the Good News, practicing love for one another, holding love for one another, and realizing that when that doesn’t work or we don’t think we can any longer, remembering who our center is and starting from that place and knowledge over and over, and over and over, and over, and over again.
Or let me say it this way…I get it. People get on my nerves daily and I’m in the people business. Sometimes, I just shake my head at the people I encounter. I know that they are shaking their heads at me. I get it.
And I also know that to live lives centered in Christ, as disciples of Christ, it is not easy. What would be easy is for me to withdraw from everyone and live in isolation. But that is not what God intended when God created us. God created us and calls us to be in relationship with one another. God created and calls us to be in community with one another. Yes to boundaries. Yes to needing time to step back for mental, physical, emotional, spiritual health. But those breaks are never meant to be permanent. Life with all its ups and downs, ins and outs, is just too messy to do it on our own.
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers on this because I fully admit there are days when I would rather shut my door and not see or interact with a single person because I just don’t have the patience for it or them. But what I do know is this… as disciples of Christ, as followers of Jesus, we are called to have for one another, show for one another, that this love gets lived out with messy, imperfect, grumpy people. It does not get lived out in perfect environments where we get to pick and choose who is a part of the larger community. Rather this love we are called to share with one another, hold for one another, show for one another is given birth, meaning and essence when people truly live in relationship with one another which includes conflict.” In other words…being in community with one another, loving one another, supporting one another and remembering who our center is as a community of faith. Besides… How else do we show the world that we are not going to let evil get the best of us but rather that we choose to get the best of evil by doing good? May it be so. Amen.
See also: Theology Tuesday for Sunday, March 15, 2026 – The Good News is …community connection Romans 21:1-21.
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