Sermon for November 2 (Proper 26 B)
Lectionary Readings
Deuteronomy 6: 1-9
Hebrews 7: 23-28
Mark 12: 28-34
This is an interesting day in the life of the Church, particularly in our own Anglican Communion, and especially close to home in our very own Episcopal Church USA.
For today, tucked as it is between our observance of All Saints and All Souls days, is the day Canon Gene Robinson is being ordained Bishop - an act that some view as very healing and others view as extremely hurtful. On this day which the Lord has made, a mortal wound may be delivered to our Church. Or a period of destructive dishonesty may be one step closer to ending. Or we may be able to observe, as King George of England did on July 4, 1776, that nothing of any great importance happened on this day.
We will really only know today's importance some time in the future. For the present all we can know is that some people are experiencing it with great joy and others with great sorrow.
But it strikes me as a most intriguing coincidence that today the lectionary puts before us the Summary of the Law - the ancient creed of the Synogogue. The Anglican Church of Canada describes Hear O Israel, this morning's Gospel reading, as the compliment to the Apostles Creed. The Apostles Creed is the faith of the church as teaching, Hear O Israel is the faith of the church as action.
"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." And "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these."
The coincidence, in my mind, is that on this day when we are being reminded that the absolute primary action of our faith is love, we are also being reminded that the love relationship Gene Robinson has with another man is, to some, unacceptable within the body of Christ. It would appear for these people that Gene Robinson has two options: He is either not to love with his all his heart, his soul, his mind, and his strength. Or he is not to love himself and others as he loves God and as God loves him...
If Here O Israel is the creed of our faith as action, then it is certainly worth spending a bit of time figuring out what this word LOVE really means...
We live in a world heavily infused by popular culture - even here in the Monastery... so I spent some time meditating on what our pop culture has to say about love.
Pop culture seems to have much to say - particularly in popular music. All we need is love. Love is a many splendored thing. Love means never having to say you're sorry. Our love is here to stay. Can't help loving that man of mine. Love me tender, love me true. If you're asking do I love you this much, well baby I do. If loving you is bad, I don't want to be good. Love the one you're with. You don't know what its like to love somebody the way I love you. Some times love don't feel like it should. Love stinks. You always hurt the one you love... The world has had enough of silly love songs.
On closer inspection, pop music doesn't have that much to say about love... it just uses the word a lot.
We can go through the maze of self-help and pop psychology as well, but all the insights into tough love and co-dependence and other relationship issues don't shed much light on Godly love - though they do offer help to worried parents and angry teens.
When pop culture and pop psychology fail us, the next obvious place to look is the bible... which does not let us down - it has a tremendous amount to say about love.
Love, if love be perfect, casts out fear. No one has greater love than this; to lay down one's life for a friend. Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. If we love one another, God abides in us. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; love is not irritable or resentful; love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
The poetry with which the bible speaks of love is just too powerful for pop songs. And the phrase "unconditional positive regard" is left miles behind "love bears all things, endures all things."
The Church, the mystical body of Christ, is a body made of love - not of our love for God or our love for each other - but of Godly Love, God's love for us. We don't get to say who God does or does not love. All God's creatures have a place.
It's madness of a sort. It's a mess. It's cluttered, noisy, beyond our comprehension. It's Christ's mystical body, into which we are invited; not our mystical body into which we invite Christ.
Those of us who are not in 12 step programs are, I am often reminded, deprived of a great source of learning and wisdom. And one of those pieces of wisdom that a member of our community shared with me recently was that he had to learn not to try to protect his AA group from alcoholics. It's a piece of wisdom that is startling in its simple clarity. When we love something, we seek to protect it - to keep it whole, to keep it pure. And sometimes that is exactly the wrong instinct.
Sometimes our instinct is to try to protect the Church, the mystical body of Christ, from those who might defile it - from sinners. But that is not love - love bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all. It is fear - fear that our beloved Church will be damaged. Perfect love has no place for fear. And frankly, we are all sinners, all unworthy. We all defile the mystical body of Christ.
We can be eternally thankful that God's love is without condition. We can all be thankful that we don't have to be worthy of God's love before we are worthy of a place in God's church. Loving God, loving God's mystical body, means bearing, believing, hoping, enduring. Not judging, not fearing, not protecting, not saving.
When we love God with our whole hearts and souls and minds and strength, and when we love ourselves and our neighbors, than God's Kingdom is not far off.
Let us pray: God of love, fill our hearts with love so that our fears may be cast out and we may love ourselves and each other as you love us.
Br. Scott, n/OHC
© 2003 Holy Cross Monastery
