Last week many of you experienced our instructed liturgy. It's the Sunday we explain the purpose, theology, and meaning behind everything we do in a service. This coming Sunday, St. Paul will also give us something of an instructed liturgy as we consider Romans 13.

In this passage, Paul names many of the Ten Commandments. He assumes his readers know them but goes on to list a smattering of the "don'ts" of the Christian life (adultery, murder, etc.). In one sense, he could have stopped at the recitation of the law. No doubt the Romans needed to clean up their act and behave themselves. But Paul wasn't looking for rote obedience to the law. He was looking for meaningful participation in the life of God. And so he will tell us Sunday that "love is the fulfillment of the law." 

You see, one can do the right stuff and think the right thoughts but still miss the point—the *telos*—of the great liturgy of life. If the law is the blueprint for a good life, it is love, rather than performance, that transforms those blueprints into 3D, flesh-and-blood reality.

You may know that St. John was the last of the Apostles to die. As an old man, unable to walk, John would be carried into the church service in Ephesus. Week after week, he reportedly gave the same sermon: "Little children, love one another." Was there more to say? In one sense, yes. The Christian life is full of complexity and nuance. But in the most fundamental sense, love captures everything. Love is the fulfillment of all the promises, all the commands, all the images of Scripture. It's why we do what we do. Love has the last word. 

Please join us Sunday as we not only learn about the Love of God, but live in it!