Proper 25 2014

Proper 25, 2014

Jesus said, "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Well, I think that’s probably enough for today—don’t you? I’ll just go have a seat again, shall I? After all, there’s really not much more that can be said, because this is the essence of Christian faith. The trouble is that it’s easier to remember than it is to live.

In fact, the one line from the Leviticus reading about being holy because God is holy, seems somehow a bit more attainable. We can pray, we can stare at our navels, and be all kinds of holy if we want to—it’s just people what make it difficult. Seriously.

Jesus probably could have had a much easier time of things without the Scribes and Pharisees always muckin’ about.

The Apostles might have even built their own cathedrals, if not for the people persecuting them.

And, I’d imagine if I didn’t have to drive anywhere, vote for anyone in government, or eat certain vegetables; I could even be an amazingly faithful Christian. But, again…people.

Of course, if not for the Scribes and Pharisees, Jesus wouldn’t have had the opportunities he did to teach about the core matters of faith.

If the religious authorities hadn’t persecuted the Apostles, it’s likely that the faith wouldn’t have spread beyond Judea.

And, it’s probably because of things like driving, politics (not so much vegetables, though) that make me have to see what my material really is…

Because for all the trouble that “people” cause for us, it’s other people who challenge us to live our faith like it makes a difference. Other people have the distinct ability to hold a mirror up to our attitudes, our biases, behaviors, insecurities, and most importantly our hearts. People remind us that we are also people (darn).

But, I suppose it’s because interacting with other people does all of this to us that we find ourselves talking about “people” in less than complimentary ways. And this is actually more reflective of our own hearts—because we’re them and they’re us.

Yet, I can’t help but get the impression that this was the whole point of God telling Israel to love their neighbors as themselves in Leviticus—and Jesus repeating the whole thing again when asked which commandment was the greatest. The point is that we can’t know how to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind, if we can’t figure out how to love our neighbors as ourselves…

Now, this isn’t to say that we’ll ever perfect that in this life—but even the act of trying to do it is essential to the work of trying to love God more fully. Besides, we cover all of this stuff in the confession, so (you know) if we sort don’t do it well, it’ll still be cool. We can still try again. (Week, after week, after week, after week…) You get my point.

Anyway, the reason that we need to learn to love others so that we can love God isn’t just about having our compassion stamina tested. But, it’s also because we learn love by people. Which is to say, all of our metaphors for God’s relationship with us are understood in terms of the love of a Mother; a doting Father—even a Lover in some places… And so, it seems to me that even if our experiences with parents weren’t healthy, or loving for some of us; or if the idea of God as a Lover reminds some people of bad relationships—whatever the case may be… I think that God invites us to learn to love and be loved—and even have our experiences of relationship healed through that love, so that we can better begin to understand how God loves us. Then…it seems to me, we begin to learn also to love better—both God and our neighbors.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about this question that the Presiding Bishop asked us at our clergy conference. She asked us when the last time we understood God to be telling us that we were beloved children of God, in whom God took much delight… Like I said then, none of us could do much else than get fidgety, and try to perform impressive theological cartwheels around the question.

But this is to say that it’s hard to answer for any of us, because it’s really the only question for us, isn’t it? We really need to be able to tackle this understanding that we are in fact beloved children of God, and God is pretty delighted in us. Of course, we don’t always know why, because we know ourselves, and we have a hard enough time getting along with ourselves… So, if I don’t always love me...it’s hard to trust that God does. And if that’s the case—we shouldn’t be surprised when we can’t love our neighbors as ourselves…

One of my favorite Christian authors is a guy named Brennan Manning. This guy wrote a ton of books, and has been quoted by a number of different writers and preachers. I don’t know that he ever got wealthy from his work, but I know that there were a lot of people who thought he was dangerous and overly liberal in his theology. But for all of his lectures, books, quotes and all the rest; the only thing he ever wrote about was experiencing the love of God, and what that does to us when it happens.

Ironically, it isn’t all puppies, kittens and rainbows. The reality is that that heart of God is at the same time both a place of immense acceptance and peace; and yet a kind of crucible where we’re shown just what it is that that is being purified out of us… So maybe it isn’t Brennan Manning who is dangerous—but the love of God that is dangerous. Because the experience of God’s love is tremendously humbling and we find we can’t believe how all-consuming God’s love is, and how anemic our own…

But this isn’t to say that our love is futile, either. Because, as it turns out, in God’s economy; we are called to love God with our whole selves; which is the most important thing. But just as important is that we love others and love ourselves, right? We can’t love others as ourselves if we can’t love ourselves… So, in God’s economy, the only thing that we can sufficiently give back to God in the way of reciprocating so great a love, is by giving love to others as well as to God.    

Now, just so we don’t start thinking all of this is just some exercise in self-realization; we need to talk about what it means to love others as ourselves. It’s no secret that it’s more than committing to not pulling your sister’s pigtails on the playground; or doing your best not to flip people off when they cut you off on the interstate (even though these are both good things).

However, what loving others does ask of us is to first consider that our love and our lives have value. And, like anything of value, we ought to really think about the best way to make good use of it.

Quite literally, I’m saying that we need to be good stewards of our love, and find the places in which we can best invest ourselves so that the compassion that compels us to be better lovers of God; lovers of self and lovers of others can flourish and grow.

But, I’m not so sure that we think of it in these terms—our love as an asset. I also don’t think we ever really have the opportunity to discern the best ways in which we can be used in God’s greater economy…and I think this is why we’re sometimes a little flummoxed about using our gifts. This may be the reason we find ourselves trying to do things that really are good things, but find ourselves being burnt-out by them, all the same… I think it’s perhaps because we’re not finding the best places to invest. 

So, here’s where all of this becomes a little more concrete—in a week or so, you’ll be receiving your annual stewardship appeal letter. Enclosed with this letter is a short questionnaire that asks you, first, what you believe the Church, and St. John’s should be about. What do you believe we should be doing? And then, just so the vestry isn’t inundated with suggestions; we’re asking you to consider what little or big part you could play in making the vision you see for this church a reality…

What I think this does for us is not only ask us to consider an important question about who and what the Church ought to be—it also asks us to consider whether or not such a vision is important enough, even imperative enough, for us to do whatever it is that we can to make it realized.

Jesus bids us to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. I’m glad that our neighbors happen to be people, just as we are, so that we can learn from one another how to love better. It’s also my hope that we’ll even learn to trust that we’re loved by God—loved even better than we know how to love God back. Somewhere, then, in this strange, but lovely economy of love; I hope we’ll learn to invest our love and our lives, so that others may also know and experience the full, and healing love of God. Because no matter what else we do as the Church or as individuals, loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves—these two things are the most important commands.