Sermon for Sunday, October 26, 2014

I just got back from a three week meditation retreat,

            and Hunt is entrusting me with the sermon this morning!

Who knows what I am likely to say!

It is true that originally when I first started meditating

            that I would come back and be something of a “space cadet,”

                                    to use an old phrase.

And I’m sure the congregation would wonder

            if I would be so heavenly minded

            that I would be no earthly good.

That may be some folks’ idea about meditation.

So let’s see what happens this time,

and you tell me

            if I am too abstract and removed from human experience,

or if what I say “has legs”

            to use another expression.

In the gospel reading for today the Pharisees are putting a question to Jesus.

            They are frequently putting questions to Jesus in the gospels.

In reading the context it becomes clear that they feel threatened by Jesus.

This may seem odd

            because the Pharisees were good, moral, religious people.

These were the ones who could be counted on for a generous pledge.

            They were people you could trust your children with.

            They were looked up to as exemplary,

                                                good examples for the whole community.

Why should they feel threatened by Jesus?

In thoughtful reading of the gospels it becomes clear that Jesus, in their eyes,

            is a bad example for the community.

He has a whole different way of looking at morality, for instance,

                        than the Pharisees,

            and he broke the commandments on several occasions.

Sure, there always seemed to be a good reason to do that,

            but that seemed rather cavalier

                                                to those who had always played by the rules.

So in this case the Pharisees wanted to test this heretic

            in order to have some ground for asserting that their authority

                        derived from their religious observance and the Law

            was not so easily cast aside by this problematic, iconoclastic Jesus.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

You know, anyone taking the time to reflect on the commandments

            could probably come up with the answer Jesus gave.

Deut. 6:4 ¶ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.

            The Shema – the Jewish Creed, the Heart of the Jewish Faith

Deut. 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul,

and with all your might.

This, the great commandment is essentially a positive restating

of the first of the Ten Commandments,

“You shall have no other gods besides me.”

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart/mind/will,

and with all your soul/nephesh/breath/life force/self,

and with all your might/strength, with the full measure of your devotion.

You shall love God with your whole being.

And then Jesus gives them an extra credit addition:

            coupled with this first commandment

                        is the commandment from Leviticus 19:18

(conveniently provided for us in the last verse from our OT reading today)

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people,

             but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

These words, the Summary of the Law, are so familiar to us.

For long-time Episcopalians you will remember that
     those words were spoken at every Eucharist
          right after the opening Collect for Purity.

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:

    Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart…” (etc.)

This is a very important text, important for both Jews and Christians,

and, I might add,

an important text for what is at the heart of mainstream Islam.

So let’s take a few minutes to look seriously

at the two greatest commandments on which hang

ALL the Law

and ALL the teachings of the Prophets.

You shall love God with your whole being.

Ah, yes, you may say, that is a very good intention to have,

to love God with your whole being,

but when I am honest with myself, I have to say

that I love God with a whole lot less than my entire being.

One does not want to appear to be a religious fanatic or zealot after all.

There’s love for God there, but it’s not necessarily fiery hot.

Well, so much for being able to keep the first and greatest commandment!

            So much for keeping any of the commandments then.

Is that the way we tend to think about this commandment?

that it’s an ideal we want to try to aspire to,

loving God with a bit more of ourselves than we did before?

Let me turn this around.

How is it that God loves us?

            Isn’t it with all God’s heart, with all God’s being, with all God’s might?

Is not this what Jesus showed us,

revealed to us about the nature of God,

revealed to us through how he lived and ministered and died

and went through death to a Resurrection Life

that was totally for our benefit?

Can you see how it could be

that this first and greatest commandment

is actually a description of God’s relationship with us,

a relationship of love that is utterly complete

in self-giving, self-revealing, and self-surrender?

May I suggest to you that we are not being asked to do

what God doesn’t do in us.

But hear, O Israel,

the LORD our God, the Lord is One.  The LORD is One.

There is only One.

No, this is not saying that there is only one God, but that there is only ONE.

We indicate this One Being by the noun God,

but we also need to remember

that this is not a separate being from ourselves.

Rather all creation exits within the Heart of God, so to speak.

There is no way we can be apart from God,

dwelling as we do in the created order,

that is utterly held in the bosom of God.

We are asleep to this most of the time.

That is why for centuries, millennia we have been told

that the classic and ultimate goal of all spiritual practice

is to realize union with God.

It is not to attain union with God,

as something to be achieved,

but to realize the fact of union, the unity of all being,

to experience this at the heart of our being,

far beyond intellectual understanding.

So to read the Shema,

“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 might”

is to read a description of God’s relationship with us

and to read a description of spiritual fulfillment.

There is only One,

there is God loving us,

and we in the heart of God,

and an expression of faith

that we too can awaken to full surrender in love to God.

Love God and love your neighbor.

To love God is to love your neighbor.

There is only One.

I used the word surrender.

We may not particularly shine to that word,

but it is a good word for us to use.

One definition of the word faith,

a definition which I think is very practical, is this:

faith is surrender in trust.

Does that not describe what it is to have faith in something or someone?

            To surrender in trust.

That means letting go of ourselves into trust.

To love God in this full and complete way

is to be a living sacrifice to God and neighbor.

To love in this way is to move beyond self-possession and self-concern.

I said that this text of the two greatest commandments

is very important for both Jews and Christians,

and, also for what is at the heart of Islam.

The two fundamental principles of Islam are

surrender to God and generosity with others.

If we were to live our lives this way,

that is, without self-concern

and in this full generosity of self-giving for others,

what an incredible difference that would be.

The power of love would dismantle all the positioning for seizing power,

            all the slaughter of war,

all the violence done in the name of religious beliefs,

all the greed that leads to huge economic inequality,

all the exploitation of others and of the planet,

all the labeling of another as an enemy.

Because love is the energetic expression of the truth of the Shema:

There is only One,

there is God loving us,

and we in the heart of God.

Now on the practical level, to love your neighbor as yourself

is not saying to love your neighbor in the same way that you love yourself.

Some of us are not very loving with ourselves.

And some of us are too self-indulging with ourselves.

And some of us abdicate when it comes to living up to the love that confronts             what in another is violating love.

Treating others as we treat ourselves is not the same as loving.

To love your neighbor as yourself

is to see your neighbor as though you were looking at yourself,

as though looking at an extension of yourself.

So self-examination time.

How are the primary relationships in your lives?

How are relationships in the work place?

here in this faith community?

Are there relationships that need reconciliation?

Of course there are.

To love more closely as to fulfill these two greatest of commandments

let us surrender in faith and trust to the One who is Love.

Sermon for Sunday, September 14, 2014

From the headlines of the Seattle times:

Islamic State extremists released a video

showing the beheading of British aid worker David Haines,

who was abducted in Syria last year,

and British Prime Minister David Cameron late Saturday

condemned his slaying as "an act of pure evil."

And then we have just heard three scripture readings this morning

            all about forgiveness and not judging.

That’s a real non-sequitur

            given the widespread reaction to these horrendous killings,

                        that calls for action “to degrade and ultimately destroy

                                                                        the terrorist group known as ISIL.”

So now we need to ask ourselves, what is forgiveness? what is it really about?

Some things seem unforgivable,

            like terrorism, murder, rape, genocide,

                                                            willful destruction, and just plain meanness.

These are human violations that take away what cannot be replaced,

            whether that is life itself or the wounding of the human spirit.

But what then are the spiritual dynamics of forgiveness

            that make it such a central part of the Christian message,

                        the Gospel good news,

especially in light of such things.

The scripture lessons that we have today certainly zero in on this,

            and we need to look at them more closely than just a casual reading

if we are to discover deeper wisdom, saving wisdom.

Peter comes to Jesus with a serious question.

“If another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?”

            Now, how did the church get into this passage?

            This is the gospel; the time setting is before the church was formed.

Friends, it doesn’t say that in the Greek.

            It is much more specific.

It reads: “If my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive?”

            Hmmm – Andrew has been given his brother Peter some grief.

                        Quite common among siblings, don’t you know.

But we also must remember that around Jesus we are all brothers and sisters.

            We are all family – every single one of us, and not just here in this place.

                        ALL humankind.

Well, how long does Peter have to put up with being sinned against by another?

            Seven times?

How about 70 X 7, Jesus replies.            490 times

Then Jesus tells Peter a story

            that gets to the main issue in this matter of forgiveness.

Let’s see what that is.

First off, Jesus begins with that familiar phrase,

                                                                        “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”

            Keep that in mind, and we will come back to that.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a king

            who wants to take account of his slaves.

And he discovers that one of these slaves has run up a huge debt with him.

How big of a debt?            10,000 talents.           

Do you know how much that is?            Let’s do the math.

            1 talent is worth what the average worker can earn in 15 years.

            That means that for this slave to work off the debt,

                        it would take him 150,000 years.

So to recoup his loss the king decides to sell not only this slave,

            but his wife and his children and all of their belongings.

That won’t cover the debt, but that is the total means of revenue in this situation.

The slave pleads on his knees promising to do the impossible

            and pay back the debt in full.

The king is moved with compassion and instead cancels the whole debt.

            The whole debt.

This man who has been spared is worth 10,000 talents to the king,

                        far more than the total value of his lifetime work productivity.

            Wow!

Now we know what happens next.

            This slave goes out and finds a fellow slave who belongs to said king,

            and demands payment of what that slave owes him.

How much?             100 denarii…

How much is that?           

            1 denarii is the value of 1 day’s wage for the average worker.

Let’s do the math. 

            This person owes our slave about 4 months’ pay,

                        a significant amount,

                        and not unlike the amount of credit card debt some of us have.

This time there is not the same compassion and valuing of his coworker

            that had been shown to him.

First he grabbed him by the neck,

                        his hands around his windpipe cutting off vital air,

            and then throws him into debtors prison.

That’s how much he values his coworker;

            he only sees him as 100 denarii.

That is all he is worth to him.

            He rejects his brother slave until he pays the value placed on his life.

“When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed,             and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.”

What was it that had distressed them so much that they told their lord?

It wasn’t about the debt, but about how this slave had treated his fellow worker.

The king goes ballistic

            and “handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”

Remember how this parable started?

            The Kingdom of Heaven is like a king

                                                who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

And Jesus concludes, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you,             if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

Do this sound like a threat to you?

Then think of it in terms of a consequence.

But the point is this:

            The wickedness of the unjust slave

                        was in separating himself from the community

                        and missing entirely the importance of the brother, the sister.

If you do not forgive, if you do not take away the debt owed you,

            you will be put in a state of suffering, like being tortured.

And then when you are feeling so bad

                                    that you feel as though you are being torn apart,

            then God will show you that there is no separation with God,

                        no possible separation from others,

            and God will show compassion.            That is how mercy works.

The brother or sister cannot be made an object,

            cannot be quantified with a price, a monetary value.

And the forgiveness, the taking away of the debt, must be from the heart,

            Jesus says.

God who knows the thoughts of our hearts, as the Collect for Purity states,

            is always looking at the heart and its struggles.

                        Is the heart clean and open?            Or is it choked and cramped?           

For always we can count on this:

            We are worth more to God than the value of our debt.

Knowing that, then what is the value to us of the one who sins against us?

We are responsible on our side for the condition of being sinned against.

We can let that offense increase our separation

            or we can remove what separates us from another.

It’s all about the value we place on the other.

            God sets that value at 150,000 years worth of labor at the least

                        for each person, each human being,

such is the economics of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Genesis 50:15-21  Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers said,

"What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us

            and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?"

So they approached Joseph, saying,

            "… please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father." …But Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid! …

Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good,

in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.

So have no fear.…”

That is real reconciliation – the evil intent of the brothers

            ultimately was turned to good for their sakes.

Remember these words from the Sermon on the Mount:

5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 

44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 

45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Hard words to hear?           

            Well, this is at the heart of the undiluted Gospel good news.

            These are words of our radical Savior

                        who wants to save terrorists as well as good church folk.

            This is how it is done.

So my advice to you in light of all this is the following:

Give up now, give up your whole life to God,

                        who knows the secret thoughts of the heart.

You can’t do that if you don’t forgive.

The forgiving frees you, and it also frees the one forgiven.

            It opens the way for them to be brought back into communion,

                                                                                                into community.