Alpha and Omega and Living Everyday

Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37
November 22, 2009
Any Sunday on which you get to read from Revelation is a good Sunday! If for no other reason than it’s always a good excuse for some Judgment Day tale.
Like the one about the old school preacher describing the end times.
"Oh, my friends," he said, "imagine the suffering of the sinners as they find themselves cast into the outer darkness, removed from the presence of the Lord and given to eternal flames. My friends, at such a time there will be weeping, wailing and a great gnashing of teeth!"
At this point, one of the elders of the congregation interrupted.
"But Reverend," she said, "what if one of those hopeless sinners has no teeth?"
The preacher crashed his fist on the pulpit, "My friends, the Lord is not put out by details. Rest assured ... teeth will be provided!"
Ah yes, teeth will be provided.
I suppose, however, that I would prefer William Sloan Coffin’s observation: “I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.”
We really do have all that we need: teeth; wings – for this time and the next. While I obviously would depart a great deal from the old-time preacher’s eschatology, I find myself agreeing whole-heartedly on one implication: God is not put out by details; indeed, God is in the details.
God is in the small moments of living day to day.
If we are to say that Christ is King, or, in the oldest, simplest of Christian confessions – Christ is Lord – if we are to proclaim that faith, then we are proclaiming that Christ is lord of all the moments of our day.
For it does us little good to say that we notice God in the beautiful sunset if we do not also perceive God’s presence in the grittiness of an unemployment line. Moreover, it does us little good to note God’s presence if we are not able to derive meaning from the noticing, and if we are not able to live in response.
As Christians we interpret the presence of God through the life of Jesus. In other words, we trust that if we take ourselves into the places that Jesus would go, we know that God will be present there, and we will understand how God’s presence is meaningful and powerful in our lives because we know the stories of how Jesus responded to God in his life.
With this in mind, I set out to spend a week being mindful, being particularly aware of God moments. It’s not always easy to do. We get so busy and distracted by so much every day. Phone calls interrupt prayer time. Someone else’s needs push into the midst of our meditations. Our own concerns – illness, lousy sleep, dull gray skies, job stress, family tension – pull at us.
But the truth is, God is in the midst of all of this. So last Sunday, when I had to drive down to Richmond for a People of Faith for Equality Virginia fundraiser – because I’m a board member – I wasn’t sure if I had enough attention left for God.
Then Mel White, founder of Soulforce, told us a story about an African-American church musician in a southern congregation who, one Sunday morning, got tired of the steady drumbeat of condemnation of gays and lesbians pounded out from the pulpit. So he stood up in the middle of the sermon and said, “there will be no more music today,” and walked down the center aisle and out the door. The choir followed him out, and then – one by one – much of the congregation. The next day, the pastor asked the musician what had happened, what was the problem.
“I’m tired of the hateful talk about gays,” the musician told him.
The pastor replied, “but we don’t have any here.”
I should add, that when Mel told this story he repeated the musician’s response with flair, and noted that the man had sashayed down the aisle.
“But we don’t have any here.”
I felt the presence of God in that moment of storytelling, and I was reminded that the place of Jesus – and therefore my place – was right there with my sisters and brothers working tirelessly for a church as generous and just as God.
When we are working that justice might roll down like a mighty water, Christ is lord.
Monday morning rolled around and I began the week with the Post in hand. There on the front page was the story about the USDA report on hunger in America. Food insecurity – in that wonderfully bland and bureaucratic phrase – is at the highest point since the agriculture department began measuring a generation ago.
Then Monday evening 15 of us filled 501 bags with groceries at AFAC. Penn filled the last one and put it on the shelf. A new CPC record: 501! And once more I felt the presence of God and knew I was in the right place, lending a hand to help feed the least of these, my sisters and brothers. When we are tending his sheep, Christ is lord.
Tuesday rolled around, and I planned to get a lot of writing done, but God got in the way.
This time, in the presence of a middle-aged Columbian immigrant who needs a job. Maria – and she just had to be named Maria – came into my office looking for help. I wish I could tell you that we performed some kind of miracle and solved the crisis that she is in. That did not happen, though it might still.
But I felt God’s presence – the Christ in her – as we spoke, and then prayed together. She put a very human face on the immense economic crisis we are living through, and reminded me that our call to be the church is a call to be out in the world to bind up the broken.
I thought about Maria’s presence here on Wednesday when a colleague shared a 9-11 story I had never heard. It concerns St. Paul’s chapel in Lower Manhattan. Some of you may have watched the slide show on their pew project that I linked in the e-news this week.
St. Paul’s was the only structure in the interior part of the Trade Center complex that was not destroyed when the Twin Towers collapsed. By all rights it should have imploded from the shock wave that ripped through the area under the pressure of millions of tons of falling debris.
Months after the tragedy, engineers concluded that the chapel was saved because its windows were open that morning and the energy of the collapse was dissipated. The windows were not supposed to be open that morning, but the night before it was a bit warm and stuffy in the chapel and so the homeless men who were sheltered there opened the windows and neglected to close them that morning.
Sometimes we entertain angels unaware. Sometimes they are smelly and homeless. Sometimes they are unemployed and desperate. Sometimes they are sick and dying. When our lives are touched by them, Christ is lord.
Thursday, by a series of coincidences that I could trace back to sticking flowers in the rifles of soldiers at the Armed Forces Day parade in Chattanooga in 1978, I found myself sitting in an off-the-record White House briefing and listening session on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I will be more than happy to talk about that experience with any of you at any point, but for now, suffice it to say that there in the White House complex, in the company of a remarkable array of religious leaders, I could feel the presence of God, and I understood clearly that when we are trying to be the blessed peacemakers, Christ is lord.
Thursday evening, we supported that work by playing host, again, to wayfaring members of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, who crashed on the floor of Wilson Hall on their way to this weekend’s witness at the School of the Americas, or whatever they are calling that place now.
Friday all I really wanted to do was write a fool sermon on Jesus – the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, king of kings and lord of lords and all of that.
But a colleague came in to talk with me about our CALL program. She’d heard about it, and was fascinated that a congregation would trouble themselves to build an institutional capacity to help its members and people in the community listen for the presence of God in their lives, and for the call and claim of God on their vocation.
So I didn’t get anything written, and we talked straight on through lunch so I was starved and due on a conference call, and the sermon was not going to get written, and the e-mail was not going to be finished, and the copier was acting up, and the bulletins were not ready, and the stewardship letter was not going to go out, and I was stressed and not feeling remotely connected to the presence of God.
So I picked up the phone and called Jean Ensminger in the hospital to check on her and see how she was feeling just a couple of days after suffering what she calls a “very mild heart attack.”
I don’t know about you, but the words “very mild” do not seem to belong in the same sentence with the phrase “heart attack.”
But Jean was so cheerful, and sounded so strong and full of life, and talked about looking forward to our next book group lunch and trying to get back with us for worship soon.
When I got off the phone with her, her energy had rubbed off on me. She had ministered well to me – more so than the other way around I’m sure. And it dawned on me that when we allow others to be as Christ to us, truly, Christ is lord.
Alpha and omega then – at every step along the way. Whether we are lending a hand or taking a hand, whether we are feeding or being fed, whether healing or being healed – when we are living it is in Christ Jesus and when we’re dying it is in the lord.
Christ is lord. Hallelujah. Amen.

Birthpangs and Building Blocks

1 Samuel 2:1-10; Mark 13:1-8
November 15, 2009
This sermon begins twice. I didn’t plan it that way, but there you go. The best laid plans ….
Indeed, that is what this is all about it seems to me: the best laid plans. So whether your concerns this morning are deeply personal or broadly social, whether they are global or of heart and home, there is a word from God for you in these texts about laying plans, building blocks and turning things upside down.
When I was in Atlanta earlier this month staying at my sister’s house, I took note of the floor in one of the hallways. It’s a short stretch of tongue-in-groove flooring that I helped her salvage about eight or nine years ago from the rear portion of the house that I helped deconstruct – roof to foundation – in preparation for building an addition. Not one stone was left on another – of course, the house was frame and there were no stones to begin with.
In any case, we saved enough of the flooring to cover the short hallway, and I recall great satisfaction in laying that eight to ten feet of floor with the only bit of the back part of the house that did not wind up in a dumpster.
Second beginning: I was moved last week by pictures of President Obama walking in the rain through the graves of Arlington on Veterans Day – the weight of two wars of which he was not the architect bearing down upon him. And I could not help wondering if he is capable, in this moment, of imagining a future otherwise than the one that seems implied and inevitable given the building blocks we have collectively gathered and put in place over the past decade.
Pondering all of this, I came across these words from Annie Dillard:
You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere ... you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. ... Knock it out. Duck. Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff that the work needs it, or the world.
Sometimes, Jesus knew, you have to tear things down to make way for something to rise up. You have to clear and break ground in order to plant. Or, in terms that Jesus certainly understood, you cannot get to resurrection without crucifixion – you cannot get to Easter without experiencing Good Friday.
Indeed, we live in a Saturday kind of world – suspended between the gathering dark of Good Friday – the wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines – in the midst of all that longing for the new hope of Easter.
So here we are, the middle of November, 2009. We have real wars, so we don’t need rumors, though we’ve got those, too. There was an earthquake in Indonesia on Monday, one in California on Tuesday and another in Greece on Wednesday. Famine continues to plague Somalia and Sudan.
We live in just such a world; and, truth be told, this is nothing new under the sun. Humankind has always lived in just such a world.
Where, in the midst of all this, do we turn for hope and its signs? Upon what do we rebuild in the midst of ruins? How is something new to be born out of all of this despair?
The disciples look at the mighty edifice of the Temple, and stand in awe of its beauty, power and sheer magnitude. Could they imagine a world without it? Could they imagine it crumbling to the ground such that not a stone would be left on stone? And could they possibly imagine something rising up in its place out of the barren earth?
If you are like me, you find it difficult to imagine a future that does not include the structures and institutions, the relationships and people who make up your present.
But each of our lives is full of the losses of just such foundations, and of the living into futures otherwise.
Faith does not promise protection from the passage of time and turning of the world.
On the other hand, faith invites us to trust foundation stones on which to build and it points us toward most unexpected sources for such stones.
Consider Hannah. To begin with, a woman in a patriarchal society is perhaps the last place one would look for a rock on which to build a future otherwise. Moreover, Hannah is barren – and thus doubly marginalized by her culture. She is destitute and despairing, bereft of hope, no vision for any future at all, much less one in which she might be recognized, honored and respected.
Likewise, the people of Israel are in disarray and despair. The time of the judges has passed. That foundation has crumbled. The hope of the nation? No one offers any.
Where should they look for hope? Where is the powerful leader who will ride in on the white horse to save them? Where is the mighty army that will prevail against their enemies? Where are the wealthy patrons who will secure the future?
Hannah? She is mourning her barren state and praying so loudly for restoration that the religious authorities accuse her of being drunk and making a spectacle of herself.
“What are you doing here, at the temple of all places – at the gates of power – making a fool of yourself asking for something you know is not going to happen?”
Hannah? The way to a future otherwise for the people of Israel is going to come through Hannah?
Who on earth is she?
Cast your imagination forward a few weeks – or centuries. The way to a future otherwise for the people of the world is going to come through … Mary?
Who on earth is she?
Who on earth are they? These women in a culture that completely circumscribes women’s lives to the powerless margins – why on earth would God choose them to bear into the world a future otherwise? Who are they, that they should be looked upon with favor and chosen to turn the world upside down?
Who, indeed.
I do not have nearly enough or good enough imagination to come up with such a plan. Fact is, I was ready to toss out those flooring pieces when my sister said, “we could use these on that hallway.”
If nothing else, faith is an act of imagination – seeing a future at once built upon the shattered stones of the past and present moment while at the same time seeing a future radically different from the present moment.
Listen to Hannah’s song:
“The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“God raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them God has set the world.”
We all tend to believe that we, ourselves, have set up the pillars of the earth. We built the great edifices that mark our cities’ skylines. We built the great highways that connect them. We built the great institutions that sustain the cities. We built the schools, the banks, the churches.
The problem is, as much as we may have had to do with those construction projects, we also built the systems that enshrine injustice and inequality. We built the institutions that provide continuity for those systems. We built the armies that protect the vested, moneyed and powerful interests and reinscribe them with blood and treasure.
And thus, we are blind to any future otherwise.
Our own imaginations are captive to systems and structures of injustice and inequality and violence. This is true on scales both large and small and we recapitulate such systems and structures with each passing generation.
We do live in a Saturday world. Our own brokenness, played out in the intimate details of our daily living and on the grand stage of history, confines our history to such cycles and constrains our imagination such that we cannot imagine anything beyond the great temples and beautiful building blocks upon which they are constructed.
But Hannah knew otherwise. Mary knew otherwise. God knows otherwise.
Jesus – the stone that the builders rejected because they could not imagine constructing a future otherwise – Jesus embodies that hope and that promise. Jesus is the gift to a yearning world – the building block upon which to begin constructing the future of God’s imagination.
Oh to be sure, all of the news continues. The wars, the earthquakes, the famines. Our own lives are marked by suffering.
But the past does not have to be prologue. This temporary affliction does not have to be a sickness unto death, but can be, instead, birthpangs in the nativity of the kingdom of God.
For you see, where our imaginations fail – where we see nothing but dust and rubble – God not only sees a future otherwise, but provides us with a way into it through the example set in the living of Jesus.
We know the way: it is a way of healing and wholeness, of hospitality without limit, of bread and cup, of repentance and forgiveness, of justice and nonviolence, a way, in the end, of love.
We are called together precisely to be people of that way. May it be so. Amen.

1 Samuel 2:1-10
Hannah prayed and said,
“My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory.
“There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.
“The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.
“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail. The LORD! His adversaries shall be shattered; the Most High will thunder in heaven. The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”
________________________________________
Mark 13:1-8
As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”
Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?”
Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”

One Penny at a Time

November 8, 2009
Psalm 42; Mark 12:38-44
Who are you in this story from Mark?
Put yourself in the scene: another hot, dusty day in the marketplace at the Temple. All kinds of goods changing hands amidst the hum of voices and animals; the wail of beggars, the cries of children, the shouts of vendors, the prayers of the pious.
Think about the characters who people this parable: the scribes with their long prayers; the destitute widows; the crowd paying their dues; the rich with their impressive contributions; the widow with her penny; the disciples listening to the lesson; Jesus teaching.
Who are you? With whom do you identify?
One baseline lesson of New Testament interpretation is this: we are never Jesus, though it is always the great temptation of interpretation to cast ourselves in the leading role – in this case, the good teacher who not only observes the scene with a keen and discerning eye, but describes its most crucial elements: an economic system that enriches the few at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable, and the self-righteousness of those who have been enriched by that same system.
If we can’t be Jesus, then we’d probably like to be the poor widow, giving her pittance, putting in her all and holding nothing back. But honesty, and a cursory look at the check-book ledger or credit card bill, compels me to acknowledge the simple truth that I have not given my all in contributing to the church or other good causes out of my overwhelming abundance much less out of any imagined poverty.
Personally, I recognize quickly the risk in this story of confronting myself in the scribes. I’ve certainly been guilty of saying the long prayers, walking around in the long robes, and enjoying the seating privileges that accrue to the clergy from time to time in certain settings even in this day and age.
But I’d like to hope that I might be a disciple in this story – listening and learning and being challenged in faith by the witness of the least of these.
For surely that is the first step of the disciple: being willing to stop in the midst of the marketplace, listen to an alternative story, and embrace its challenge to the ways things are.
Honestly, the way things are is, well, not so hot. I would say, “pick up the Post,” but that’s too old-school. So get your news from whatever source, with whatever spin it comes packaged in, and none of it is good. We wage wars without end in sight. More than one in ten of us is out of work. More than 50 million of us have no health care insurance and our elected leaders have failed to fix that after a century of talking about it. If your name is Goldman or Sachs you can get a bailout – you can even get a swine flu vaccine while the rest of us wait for doses to be available to the hoi polloi. It’s true – Goldman Sachs and Citigroup got vaccines for their employees last week.
The way things are stinks.
But the first step of the disciple is to stop in the midst of misery and listen to an alternative story: the story of good news, of healing and wholeness and hope. This is the story that Jesus tells.
The first step of the disciple, then, is really no step at all.
Stop. Be still. Set aside the overwhelming and oppressive bad news – the nonstop narrative of despair and desperation that dominates our days.
Not in some Pollyanna, cumbayah moment of willed ignorance or apathy, but in a willing openness to the gospel story and its compelling vision of a future otherwise. Not in some quiescent way of inaction, but as part of a living community that shows forth an authentic way of living together – even and especially in our difference and disagreement – that brings forth life instead of death. Be still. Just as Jesus was still, listening in prayer for the voice of the Holy One, the divine presence that filled his very being with kingdom values and visions.
Those values and visions are inherently political – but in an expansive way that is not reducible to party or policy. In other words, as we consider the challenges of this moment, whether we come from left or right we must confess that the gospel does not proscribe any particular version of health care reform or one particular system of health care. Neither does it lay out an energy policy for the 21st century. The gospel does not describe or proscribe a particular criminal justice system or authorize one police or defense strategy or tactic over others. The gospel does not call forth a particular economic system or a foreign policy.
Anyone who tries to convince us otherwise is either a poor reader of the gospel or a snake-oil salesman.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a rule book. The gospel does not demand a certain, perfectly orthodox and correct set of beliefs; rather the gospel of Jesus Christ invites us into a way of living together.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a dress code. But it is not a dress rehearsal either.
The gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to live – right here and right now in our time, this time – and to take notice of the world around us. We are called to notice that the way things are does stink, and that gospel values are being violated. We are also called to proclaim that this is not the end of the story.
Jesus stops in the midst of the marketplace – the center of the city, the heart of the polis, the place of political power – and says, “this is not right; the tables should be turned, there is another way for the kingdom is among you.”
And, in another passage, engaging in an act of public political theater, he does just that – turns the tables over and suggests that any economic system that enriches the few at the expense of the many is antithetical to gospel values that lift up each life as beloved and worthy of the honor he bestows upon the widow offering her final coins.
Gospel values inform economic decisions and systems.
Jesus teaches his disciples that the great economy of the kingdom of God values every life – from the lilies of the field and the birds of the air to the widow with her mite to give and even the rich young man who is unwilling to give it all away to follow Jesus, who loves him still.
Gospel values do inform not only economic decisions and policies, but also environmental ones as well.
And when the powers that be crack down on Jesus’ kingdom movement and come armed to arrest him, his followers want to respond in kind, but Jesus, even as he practices reparative healing and justice in restoring the injured imperial guard, says to his disciples, “enough of that; put away your swords.” The way of Jesus is a way of nonviolence. Violence violates gospel values; systemic violence does so systematically as the news from last week underscored tragically.
When the powers and principalities hang Jesus on a cross to die with common criminals, he does not speak a word of condemnation to the condemned men but rather words of comfort including these: “today you will be with me in paradise.” The gospel calls forth uncommon mercy and radical forgiveness.
But the story does not end on the cross or in the tomb, with death and defeat, but continues in resurrected hope and new life.
These are gospel values that give life to the vision of a future otherwise, and that inform the way we live in the present moment even as we work and pray for the coming of the kingdom. The least of these are valued and have gifts to offer. The economy based on kingdom values will account for that in its every expression.
The community grounded in gospel values will practice healing and no one will be excluded from that healing – not even those, like the imperial guard, who might seem to be enemies.
The community grounded in gospel values will practice nonviolence – it will live nonviolently in every aspect of its life from the deeply personal and intimate relationships to the broad social and economic networks at the highest and largest levels – even at risk to security – personal or national security.
The community grounded in gospel values will practice forgiveness and mercy – again, on deeply personal levels and systemically as well.
The community grounded in gospel values will be a resurrection community, open at every turn to renewal and new life.
Resurrection is essential for such a community for it arises from a culture addicted to death.
Jesus understood this. Even as he leaves the temple square having suggested all of this in his teaching, one of his disciples points to the great temple and says, “look at these great buildings and beautiful building blocks and stones.”
And Jesus says, “this entire edifice – the whole kit-n-caboodle, the system itself – will tumble and fall until not a stone is left on stone.”
And then, Jesus says, we will build the resurrection community.
So here we stand, called to look squarely and honestly at a culture of death and announce its end. Here we stand, called to proclaim gospel values of love and justice. Here we stand, called to build a new community rooted and grounded in the love and justice of Jesus Christ.
To begin with, then, we are called to offer up our two small coins – what we have to live on, for this – this community of Christ – is what we have to live for. We are building the beloved community – one penny at a time. Amen.

For the Love of God

November 1, 2009
Mark 12:28-34; Deuteronomy 6:4-9
“For the love of God …”
How do you hear that phrase? What, or whom, do you think of when you hear it?
When I think of the phrase, “for the love of God,” I imagine it being said with an eye roll, as an epithet expressing dismay or disgust with something or someone that is not working right.
For some reason, at the beginning of last week, that phrase kept rolling around my thoughts as I considered these passages.
Jesus is teaching. His followers, in the previous chapters of Mark, have been all over the map trying to figure out their teacher’s message. It is almost as if Jesus rolls his eyes himself, looks heavenward in some mix of amusement and disgust at the ineptness of his followers, and says, “for the love of God ….”
Almost as if to give him a chance to give this feeling voice, Jesus is asked about the commandments and nods his approval to the suggestion that it is all about the love of God.
“Love God; love your neighbor.” It’s all that simple, really.
The foundational wisdom of Jesus’ Jewish heritage, captured in the words of the shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one. … You shall love God with all your heart and mind. Teach your children this.”
For the love of God. For this you shall live.
One wonders how that impetus came to be turned on its head such that the phrase, “for the love of God,” was turned into an expression of disgust.
Perhaps it is because living that way – living for the love of God, living out of that foundational love – is so hard.
After all, I think I heard somewhere, “how does the love of God abide in you if you have this world’s goods and riches but do not help someone in need?”
It is so easy to say that we love the Lord. It is so easy to say that God loves us. It is so hard to live moment to moment, day by day, as if we believe what we say.
We tend to build walls to keep out those who are not like us, or who seem to threaten us. But the church cannot be a gated community. All of us want to come to the table and feast. All of us want to draw close round the manger and feel the love of God. All of us want to celebrate the new life that Easter represents. But we cannot get to such places if we live fenced lived. For when we wall out the other, we wall out God.
Oh, to be sure, we all have our moments when we feel God’s love and feel and act as if it is real and powerful in our lives. But to be just as sure, we all live just as often if not more so as if we were all alone and on our own in the universe.
But Jesus was on to something when he reminded his followers that the whole of the law and the prophets – that is to say, the totality of theology and the meaning of faith – could be summed up in the great twin commandment: love God and love neighbor.
The two are intimately connected and intertwined. It is impossible to do one without the other, for if God is at the center of life and we human beings – all interconnected form a great circle of life around the divine center, then we draw closer to one another we inevitably draw closer to God. And, when we draw closer to God, we inevitably draw closer to one another as well.
Picture that circle with God in the center. Imagine drawing closer.
The question is, how do we draw closer to God? How, indeed, do you draw closer to God?
The second question is like the first: how do we draw closer to one another. How, indeed, do you draw closer to one another?
Picture again that circle with God at the center.
As I imagine that, we are gathered at a great banquet. There is a table, set for all. We are invited. Come, let us break bread together, and may our hearts be broken open as well such that God’s love may enter again.