October 18, 2026 - Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost: Let Love Be Genuine

October 18, 2026  Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Romans 12:9-13
“Let Love Be Genuine”
Douglas T. King

Sunshine, and rainbows, and cotton candy…soft music, champagne and candlelight…there are so many fluffy words by which we talk about and around love, but do not name the reality of love. This is why I do not allow couples to write their own marriage vows because they often end up not being vows.  Vows are not endless metaphors of surface-level happiness.  Vows are promises that call us to remain steadfast through whatever life may bring.
 
There is no doubt that love is an emotion and a powerful one.  The phrase “falling in love” speaks to this.  Love can be something that surprisingly draws us in and overwhelms us. But love is also a choice and a daily one at that.  You may fall in love with someone because of some magical elixir cocktail of traits, the way their laugh sounds like tinkling wind chimes; their off kilter and kooky sense of humor; the way their eyes shine in the moonlight.  But if you choose to build a life together, with bills to pay, difficult decisions to make, and endless routines to navigate, those things alone will not be enough to carry you day after day after day in love.  For love to last over time and all the twists and turns of life, it requires a commitment that is renewed daily.  When you come home from a twelve-hour workday, to find your partner’s dirty socks yet again not in the hamper but on the floor, there are no butterflies in your stomach or sparkly feelings in your heart.  You make a choice to love that person, dirty socks and all.  It is a decision and a commitment.  And that form of love is a deeper and more genuine love than any ephemeral, magic moment.  It requires a generosity of spirit that is demonstrated daily.
 
This is why at weddings we have vows and not fluffy descriptions of love, “I promise, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful spouse; in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health…  For every moment of plenty that is lifted up we are reminded there will be times of want. There will be joy, and there will be sorrow as well.  Days of health and days of sickness.  There will be days of receiving great blessings and days that require sacrifice.  We make a decision every day, whether to love once more or not.  There is an element of love that is a daily discipline like brushing your teeth or exercising.  Love may be initially kindled as an emotion but it lives and breathes in the tangible ways we demonstrate it every day.  And when we choose to love, we choose to demonstrate a generosity of spirit toward the one we love, dirty socks and all.

Our stewardship theme this year is from our text from the twelfth chapter of Romans, “let love be genuine.”  The Biblical Scholar N. T. Wright refers to this section of Romans as “God’s Call to Worship, Holiness, and Unity.” (Wright, p, 700)  These exhortations by Paul, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.  Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord.  Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers.”  All of these things are offering worship to God.  Paul is telling us worship, love of God, is not an hour a week endeavor but a twenty-four-seven life calling.  In all that we do, we have an opportunity to worship God or not.  Just as in all of our relationships each day we have the choice to love or not to love, in our relationship with God, to worship or not to worship.

Love is not always easy, in romantic love it may be those dirty socks on the floor. In our efforts to worship God, hey did you just hear that long and daunting list of ways we are to live every single day to embody our worship of the divine?  It can be a lot.  It can be too much.  It is too much.  

This Romans text is a set of exhortations that makes those marriage vows seem tame. Thankfully, as we face this challenging task we are blessed in two ways.  The first is God’s grace, ever forgiving as we fall short, fall down, get up and try again.  The second is the church.  We cannot begin to live into such a challenging calling on our own.  We need each other to even make the attempt.  We need each other that we may teach and inspire one another; that we may comfort one another when we fail and celebrate one another when we succeed; that we may grow into the disciples we are called to be.  It is the journey before us as followers of Jesus Christ.
 
And that is all the reason we need to bring our very best to being the church together, worshipping God in how we live our lives.  We are told the church is the body of Christ in the world, the provisional embodiment of God incarnationally present with us.  If we do not pour ourselves into being the church together how can we follow Christ?  

But on top of all of that, there is another urgent reason for us to be passionately committed to Christ’s church.  Perhaps the world has never needed the church more than it does right now. Post pandemic we live in a society that is becoming increasingly fractured and isolated and divisive.  There is less and less involvement in community organizations. People are much less likely to know their neighbors.  Much less likely to volunteer.  Much less likely to put the good of the community above their own personal wants.  Much less likely to love the world and those around them.
 
The world needs the church now more than ever, to embody the worship of God by connecting people; caring for people; lifting up the most vulnerable; reminding people to think beyond their own wants; to be the body of Christ. And because the church is the body of Christ, the embodiment of God’s presence in the world, we are called to love the church.

But let’s be honest, loving the church can be a little like loving a spouse for fifty years. We have some glorious moments together; the choir sings an anthem that makes our hearts jump with joy; our faith is transformed by something we learn in Bible Study or Adult Education; we serve together to support Bridge Bread, Isaiah 58, the Saint Patrick’s casserole ministry; the friendships created here deeply enrich our lives.  And then there are the moments that can feel less than stellar.  I say something in the pulpit which you find completely absurd; you get into a disagreement at a committee meeting; you don’t like the cookies served at coffee hour.  

There are countless reasons that it can feel like the church left their dirty socks on the floor.  The human element of the church is far from perfect.  But love is not always, rainbows and sunshine and emotional bliss.  Love is waking up every day and making a conscious decision to embody love, with a generous spirit.

As we begin this stewardship campaign, we are called to remember that we are to love the church as it represents the body of Christ; that love is a discipline that transcends ephemeral high and low points; that love is a daily decision; that love expresses itself tangibly; and that the world needs the church, the body of Christ, now more than ever.

The practical side of stewardship is always true, the church needs your pledge and my pledge to keep the lights on.  There is no magic fairy to pay the bills.  But that should not overshadow the deeper reality that each of us needs to offer the best we can as an expression of love; as a tangible demonstration of our daily commitment to worshipping God by loving the body of Christ and God’s wider world.  

Rainbows and cotton candy are a superficial form of love.  We are called to real, embodied love that demonstrates itself every day in a generosity of spirit, a generosity of spirit toward Christ’s church and God’s world.  Together we can do just that.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Wright, N. T., The New Interpreter’s Bible: vol. X, Abingdon  Press, Nashville, 2002.