There is a striking thing about Paul's words in today's reading from Romans (12:9-21), and that is that at first glance they seem surprisingly simple: "Let love be genuine."
Only four words in English. No difficult theology. No complicated doctrine to unravel. It sounds like advice that could be stitched onto a cushion or written inside a greeting card.
The trouble is that once we begin to think about it, it becomes one of the most demanding things Paul ever says.
Most of us think we are reasonably loving people. We love our families, care about friends, and help others when we can. But Paul refuses to leave the matter there.
He keeps expanding the circle:
"Bless those who persecute you."
"Live in harmony with one another."
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil."
"If your enemies are hungry, feed them."
Suddenly we discover that Paul is not talking about the people we find easy to love. He is talking about the people who test us - those who irritate us, disappoint us, or have treated us badly.
I once heard someone say that Christianity would be quite easy if it were not for other people, and for all of us, we might be able to think of times when that is true. Often our deepest frustrations arise not from events but from relationships. We replay conversations, relive disagreements, and nurse wounds caused by someone else's words or actions.
It is into that real world that Paul says, "Let love be genuine." Not polite, selective, or convenient but genuine. The kind of love that costs something and remains when warm feelings have disappeared.
When we hear those words, we often think of neighbours and the command to ‘love our neighbour’. But the New Testament understanding of neighbour is of course broader, more uncomfortable and more challenging than that. A neighbour is simply the person God has placed in front of us. Sometimes delightful. Sometimes difficult. Sometimes almost impossible. Yet the command remains the same - love them.
That does not mean approving of everything they do. Paul himself says we are to hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good… Christian love is not soft or sentimental or blind to wrongdoing.
But it does means continuing to recognise every person as someone made in the image of God.
And that sounds reasonable enough until we actually have to do it - the gossip, the relative who knows exactly which buttons to press, the colleague who takes credit for someone else's work, the neighbour who ignores boundaries. Genuine love is not tested among people who are easy to love. It is tested among those who are not.
Perhaps that is why Jesus and Paul are saying much the same thing. In the Gospel reading (Matthew 16:21-28), Jesus speaks openly for the first time about where his journey is leading. Jerusalem lies ahead. Rejection lies ahead. The cross lies ahead.
And Peter doesn’t want to hear it. Yet Jesus understands that the way of God is not always the way of comfort. The way of love is not always easy. Sometimes faithfulness requires sacrifice.
After all, where did love take Jesus? To tax collectors and sinners whom respectable society avoided. To lepers nobody wanted to touch. To conflict with religious authorities. And ultimately to a Roman cross.
When Paul tells Christians to love genuinely, he is not inventing a new ethical rule. He is describing the life he has already seen in Jesus. Love is what Jesus does. Therefore, love is what his followers are called to do.
Of course, if we stop there, the whole thing can become rather depressing. We all know our failures, grudges held too long, kindness withheld, forgiveness delayed. Most of us know exactly what it feels like to leave a conversation wishing we had behaved differently, spoken more kindly or responded with greater patience.
That is why Jeremiah (15:15-21) is so important. He is weary, frustrated and wounded. He complains openly to God, yet God does not abandon him. God strengthens him and reminds him that he is not alone.
The Christian life is not sustained by determination alone. The secret is not trying harder and harder to love. The secret is drawing closer and closer to God - who is love. We love because he first loved us. We forgive because we have been forgiven.
The closer we come to Jesus, the more his character begins, slowly and imperfectly, to shape our own character. Sometimes that growth happens through prayer, worship and Scripture. Sometimes it happens through the very people we find difficult. The person who stretches our patience may teach us patience. The person who wounds us may become the occasion through which we learn forgiveness.
Most of us can probably look back and recognise people who have shaped us in that way. We may not have welcomed the lesson at the time. In fact, we might have prayed for God to remove the person rather than teach us through them. Yet looking back, we can often see that God was at work, gently forming something in us that could not have grown any other way.
As Jesus says in today's Gospel, those who seek to save their life will lose it, but those who lose their life for his sake will find it.
That does not mean becoming a doormat or pretending that hurt does not matter. It means trusting that God's way of love is stronger than resentment, stronger than bitterness, and ultimately stronger than fear. Every small act of kindness, every refusal to return hurt for hurt, every decision to forgive, every effort to see another person through God's eyes, is a step further into the life Jesus offers.
So perhaps the question for us this week is something like: Who is God asking me to love? Not in theory, but who is the actual person through whom God is inviting me to practise genuine love?
Perhaps it is someone in your family. Perhaps a neighbour. Perhaps someone at work. Perhaps someone you have quietly avoided for a long time. You do not need to solve the whole relationship overnight. You do not need to feel warm affection. Maybe the first step is simply a prayer. Maybe it is a conversation. Maybe it is a decision to let go of a grievance you have carried for too long.
Because the challenge of the Christian faith is not merely to admire Jesus from a distance, but to follow where he leads and to love as he loves, even when that love is costly.
And the wonderful promise is that as we do so, we discover that we ourselves are being changed. We are growing, becoming more fully alive, and drawing nearer to God whose love has held us from the very beginning.
So think again of Paul's invitation and challenge: "Let love be genuine." Not perfect love. Not effortless love. Genuine love.
And hear the voice of Jesus saying: "Come and follow me."
This week, somewhere in the ordinary moments of life, you will meet someone who needs patience, kindness, understanding or forgiveness. It may be a brief encounter. It may be a familiar face. It may even be the last person you would choose.
When that moment comes, remember that Jesus goes before you. God who calls you to love is the same God who first loves you, strengthens you, and walks beside you. We do not undertake this task alone.
So let us leave this morning willing to take one small step further along the way of Jesus. One act of grace. One word of encouragement. One gesture of reconciliation. We may never know what God will do with such small offerings, but in God's hands small things often become the beginning of something wonderful.
For in serving we grow, in loving we grow, and in giving ourselves away for the sake of others, we discover more and more of the life of God.
For where genuine love is practised, Jesus is at work, and lives, including our own, are being transformed. Amen.
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