| Note: No sermon is quite the same when you read it. You miss the inflections, the expression that you gain in the hearing. The words below are only a close approximation of the sermon, taken from handwritten notes. Nevertheless, the words (as best as can be deciphered!) are shared with you here. The Webmeister |
Fifth Sunday of Easter The tidy philosophical summation of all the massive story of God and human beings that we call the Old Testament and the Jews call the Torah is recited by a priest in the Rite I service this way: "Here what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets." This must have been a common summation of the Torah among Jews of Jesus' day because Jesus says this to a Pharisaic lawyer who seeks to test him in the week before his death as he taught in Jerusalem. But Jesus also uses the same two commandments earlier in his ministry in Galilee. Actually in the story written in Luke's gospel, a student of the Torah has asked Jesus, as a test: "Teacher what should I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus returns a question for a question and asks "What is written in the Torah?" The lawyer gives the same two commandments about loving God and then loving our neighbors. Jesus approves of his answer and says "You have answered rightly—do this and you will have eternal life." But then the man asks the fateful question of Jesus, "Yes Rabbi, but tell me just who is my neighbor?" In response Jesus tells the story of a Samaritan who saves a Jew from death even though a Jewish priest and a Levite have already passed him by for dead. And in telling this one little story Jesus throws all the tidy summation of the Old Testament into chaos. Because of the common understanding of the day, your neighbor was one who was also a member of the covenant "in good standing." I love that odd phrase "a member in good standing". This is a phrase that occurs in every institution I suppose, but we very specifically use it in the Episcopal Church. It is in our laws—our church canons. In order to vote in a church election or to be on a vestry etc., you must be a "member in good standing." In other words, you must be a member of the organization and that is defined: you must attend regularly and you must contribute. But Jesus—well Jesus always seems to undo the old definitions. He always seems to push past the old boundaries, the boundaries we erect to preserve order and decency, the boundaries we erect to preserve our identity. "Who is my neighbor?" the lawyer asked Jesus. Who can receive communion? Who is an Episcopalian? Who is an Anglican? Who is in fellowship with us? Who is a member of our covenant? These are all questions our church is currently struggling with vis a vis gay people being leaders in the church and will struggle with as it meets for the General Convention this summer. For the Jews of Jesus' day, your neighbor was "a member in good standing" of the covenant. Fellow Jews who were not in "good standing" were not neighbors and Gentiles in any standing were not neighbors and the bastard people called Samaritans were definitely not neighbors. What about us? Who do we exclude from the fellowship of God? Who excludes us? Jesus really makes things complicated when he starts listening to and honoring those who are most definitely not of good standing and not in covenant with us. What are we going to do? Crucify him and then get on with our exclusion of those who are not part of the covenant? Wait, didn't we already try that and look, he didn't stay buried. Why are we so stupid as to think we can bury him again? That Jesus, he just keeps causing trouble; he just keeps inviting in riff-raff and they just keep seeking him out. Prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, black people, women, foreigners, gay people, American Episcopalians, African Anglicans. How are we going to make sure we only have neighbors "in good standing"? In good standing. What is "good standing" to God if we look through the window of Jesus? In John's gospel, Jesus before his death gives another commandment that for me always redefines the two great commandments of the Old Testament. Jesus says to his friends, "love one another as I have loved you." And how does Jesus love? Only those in good standing? That's certainly not something I ever told someone in prison, either a literal or figurative prison. "While we were still sinners," St. Paul tells us, "Jesus died for us." Does that mean we are to love with that same love? In today's gospel reading, Jesus says: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." At the last supper he said, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you." Who here then is a member of Christ's body "in good standing". Who are we? Who are we in anger and hatred to spit on Jesus' commandment (a New Testament) by our limiting of who our neighbor is to be? Maybe it isn't anger or hate that drives us. Maybe we just don't like untidiness and chaos. Maybe we just want to know the rules, the boundaries. Maybe we just want decency and order in our lives. But there is no "safe" investment in this life; none of us can escape the tearing and stretching of love. C. S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves, writes these precious words: "Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love - is Hell." If we follow Jesus' last commandment we will indeed be changed. Our hearts will indeed lay wrung and even broken. But the promise of God is that we will be given new and greater hearts. I believe Jesus is telling us that if we only are neighbors with those "members in good standing of the covenant", then the only thing we will be members of is hell. My friends, pray for our church as it seeks to do the love of Jesus. Also pray for the other Christians within the Anglican communion as they seek to do the love of God. And pray for every soul on this earth, every soul whether we deem them decent or in good standing with us" or not. The only way to obey Jesus' last commandment is to take a chance on love. Amen. The Reverend James T. Tucker May 14, 2006 *Past sermons may be found here. |
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