Owe Nothing But Love—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 15A (Romans 13:8-14)

Romans 13:8-14 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁸ Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

¹¹ Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹² the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; ¹³ let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. ¹⁴ Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

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                Romans 13 is a well-traveled passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. That’s because it opens with Paul’s instructions concerning how the followers of Jesus should behave when it comes to the government. Down through the years, that passage has been used and continues to be used by those in power to support their claims to power. After all, God is sovereign, and God has placed in charge the chosen leaders. Though I find it interesting that the same people who make that claim for their chosen leaders don’t believe the same about their opponents. Contextually, Paul is dealing with an autocratic government that frowns upon upstart religions that fail to “salute the flag,” so to speak. In other words, Paul is telling the folks in Rome to keep their heads down, obey the law, and hopefully nothing bad befalls them. Remember that Jesus, the one they followed, was executed by the Roman authorities as a subversive!

                With this introductory statement about the preceding verses (Romans 13:1-7), we come to the reading for this week (in 2026 this happens to be Labor Day Weekend). After instructing the folks in Rome to obey the government, Paul gives the people further instructions that are intended to define how they should live as a community. That word is: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Whether Paul has the Mosaic Law or Roman Law in mind, love is the order of the day. This reflects Jesus’ instructions, which offer two laws. The first has to do with loving God with one’s entire being, and the second has to do with loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. If we do this, Jesus told his followers and others who listened to his teachings, they fulfill the law of God (Mark 12:30-31). Just so we know what Paul has in mind here, he lists several of the commandments that he would like the readers to remember: Don’t commit adultery, murder, steal, or covet, or any of the other commandments. If you do this, then you fulfill the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. As Paul points out, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).

                Sometimes we work with the premise that Paul wants to get rid of the law, but as we see here, he has a higher law in mind. The assumption is that if we love God and love our neighbors, then we fulfill the Mosaic Law. If you look at the various renditions of the “Ten Commandments,” the first table speaks to our love of God, while the second table speaks to how we love our neighbors. If we want to dive deeper, most of the 616 laws found in the Old Testament simply expand on the commands to love God and neighbor. I think that this is something many forget when they demand that schools put posters of the Ten Commandments in schools. If love is not at the center of these efforts, then, as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13, without love our religious practices have little meaning. Stepping back to Paul’s earlier instructions about obedience to the powers that be, that submission needs to be seen in the light of the call to love our neighbors. After all, Paul tells us to owe no one anything but love, and apparently that includes the Roman imperial government, though even Paul understood there were limits to that obedience.

                The second part of the reading serves as the epistle reading for the First Sunday of Advent, Year C. The reason for that choice is Paul’s declaration that it was time for them to wake up from their sleep. There is a movement in the United States, and elsewhere, that is “anti-woke.” Anything that involves diversity, equity, and inclusion is deemed woke. The current regime in Washington and elsewhere is anti-woke. But not Paul. He wants us to be woke; to wake up so we can experience our salvation. He tells the Romans that the time of their salvation is closer than ever before. So, he tells them to wake up and take stock of their situation.

This is definitely an apocalyptic message. The day of the Lord is at hand. Therefore, he tells the Romans to lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Apocalyptic language is often dualistic, contrasting dark and light. The powers of darkness are evil, and the powers of light are good. Now, unfortunately, this dualism can take on color-coded dimensions, such that light-skinned people are good and darker-skinned people are bad. So, as we read passages like this, we need to be awake to the ways in which they can be used inappropriately. With this caveat in mind, we can hear Paul’s message that even though darkness is present (think of the context), God’s light will shine in the darkness and illuminate their situation so they can choose the good.  Because this is an apocalyptic message, it carries a sense of expectation that the old age is passing away while the new is breaking into their reality. This is something that Paul takes up in 2 Corinthians 5, where he tells the people that the old age has passed away, giving way to the new creation in Christ, who reconciles us to God (2 Cor. 5:16-19).

The passing of the old and the coming into existence of the new creation involves putting on the armor of light, which means living honorably as in the daylight rather than living in the darkness of the night marked by reveling, drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarreling, and jealousy. These latter activities are markers of the old age that is passing away. Believers in Jesus don’t live that way. Instead, they are to live honorably. That is, they are to put on Jesus, that is, clothing themselves with Christ, while making no provision for the flesh by gratifying its desires.  

As Paul shares his message with the church in Rome, he offers them a wake-up call. Leonora Tubbs Tisdale invites us to consider how this wake-up call speaks to our own situation.

The first is that what is often needed for Christians today is a wake-up call regarding the social evils of our day and our ethical injunction as Christians to respond to them. Often people are not so much intentionally evil as they are complacent and slumbering. Paul’s call to us to move out of the darkness of our sleep-like state and to move into the light of Christ’s work in the world is a needed one. Secondly, this text (given its locus in the book of Romans) reminds us that we do not do good works to earn our salvation. Rather, we do them out of gratitude to God and as a way of living into our baptismal callings in Christ. [Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, p. 4].

As we consider this reading, which, as noted, is on the lectionary list for Labor Day Weekend in 2026, perhaps this is a time to wake up to new realities and move from the ways of darkness to living in the light of day.

It is important to remember that Paul is writing this letter to a congregation in a city he has not visited. The letter serves as an introduction so that the church in Rome will know what he stands for. If we go to Romans 16, it is clear that he knows some of the members of this community. So, he wasn’t completely unknown to the community. Nevertheless, he wanted the community to know what he stood for. Even as the opening verses of the chapter focus on behavior in light of the current political situation. If you don’t want to get into trouble with the government, do what is good. That is, while putting on Christ, behave appropriately to that status. As you do this, remember also to owe no one anything but love! Yes, love God and neighbor. If you do this, you will reflect your status as one who has clothed yourself with Christ.

Image attribution: Love for One's Neighbor, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://act.library.vanderbilt.edu/artworks/57584 [retrieved August 30, 2026]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/11851229114/ - Fr. Lawrence Lew.