October 31: The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for Sunday, October 31, 2021 was preached as a response to the texts for Proper 26, Track 2. The sermon was preached using the manuscript below.

Having come into Jerusalem with the disciples
knowing that he is coming to die
and be the ransom for many,
Jesus has been questioned
by the scribes, elders, and teachers of the law.
After trying to trap him three times,
one of them approaches and asks
a standard question
used to suss out
a rabbi’s general philosophy.
“Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus, respecting this elder’s wondering
answers directly with not one,
but two answers.
First, he affirms his own monotheism
and clings to his Jewish roots,
citing what we heard in Leviticus today:
“The first is, ‘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.’”
Jesus then pulls from Deuteronomy 19, saying,
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment
greater than these.”

The scribe,
the person trained in knowing
exactly the offerings
and the intricacies of religious practice
affirms Jesus.
Loving God fully,
loving God as a response to God’s love for us
and loving our neighbors
created by God in God’s image
is much more important
than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Loving God and neighbor,
this scribe says,
is more important
than the work he’s given his life to do.

The theme of our diocesan convention this year,
pulling from the Baptismal Covenant,
was Striving for Justice and Peace.
This phrase from the Baptismal Covenant
is one favored by those
who truly strive for justice and peace among all people.
If nothing else,
it sounds good,
even if there’s not any action behind it.
When Jesus quotes Leviticus 19,
he’s quoting a passage that has teeth
for what loving one’s neighbor looks like.
It’s not just an abstract.
At the conclusion of his address yesterday,
Bishop Rickel gave us three questions to discuss
to move striving for justice and peace
from the abstract to the concrete
from the ethereal to the active,
particularly in light of racial justice and reconciliation.
First, What will we do together as a congregation
to interrogate and confess the sins of the past
and reduce mistrust and suspicion?
Second, What are you going to do personally
in your spiritual life and practice
to reflect on your own sins
and rebuild relationships?
Third, How will we help our congregation
resist the urge to hit the snooze button?
That is, how will we keep awake
and do the work when we’ve committed to it
and affirmed it with our words.

In short, the bishop asked us
how will you show love of God
and love of neighbor?
How will you keep the greatest commandments
not with platitudes
but with actions.
He challenged the delegates to convention
to look at themselves as clerical and lay leaders
with a role in congregational life.
He also invited us to think personally,
in our own life and practice,
about what specific changes we can make.
By making this his address to convention,
this was his address to the diocese.
His questions were not only for me, Robin, and Valerie.
His questions are for all of us gathered here,
the 30ish here and 20ish watching the stream.
What will we do together as a congregation
to interrogate and confess the sins of the past
and reduce mistrust and suspicion?
What are you going to do personally
in your spiritual life and practice
to reflect on your own sins
and rebuild relationships?
How will we help our congregation
resist the urge to hit the snooze button?

In the Gospel According to Luke,
the person who asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is
hits the snooze button.
Jesus answers him
and instead of affirming Jesus as we hear in Mark,
the man asks who his neighbor is.
Then we hear the parable
of the Good Samaritan.
When we ask Jesus
what the greatest commandment is,
he gives us a direct answer.
Jesus’ answer has nothing to do with
how much we should chant in the liturgy
or the words of the baptismal formula.
Those are covenants of how we live our lives together
committing to them ourselves,
but they are not the greatest commandments
which is worth more than all the vestments and incense
found throughout the church.

As a bumper sticker and billboard
from one of the Ohio dioceses puts it,
“Love God. Love your neighbor. Change the world.”
In quoting Leviticus alongside Deuteronomy,
Jesus gives specific ways
that God expected the Hebrew people
to show love of their neighbor.
They were to leave extra food on the edges of the filed
so that the poor could pick it later.
They were expected to pay people on time
and pay them fairly.
We all know the direction
not to steal or defraud people!
There’s a whole strain of Jewish and Christian tradition
that breaks the tablets of the 10 Commandments
into ways of loving God and loving neighbor,
rather than leaving those as abstracts
words we can buy into
but hit the snooze button on the action.
“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.
“You shall love your neighbor the same way you love yourself:
with the same patience, defense of, and making excuses for.”
It’s hard, and yet that’s Jesus’ call to us.
It’s hard, and we can’t do it on our own,
so when we’re smart
we don’t try.
Our starting point is
committing to do these things
with God’s help.

The theme of convention
was Striving for Justice and Peace.
While it is a favorite part of the Baptismal Covenant
for social justice warriors like myself,
it belies the fullness of the covenant,
parts of which the bishop gets to in his questions.
Before we commit to striving for justice and peace,
we commit to repenting and returning to the Lord
whenever we fall into sin —
both with God’s help.
The bishop asked,
“What will we do together as a congregation
to interrogate and confess the sins of the past
and reduce mistrust and suspicion?”
Throughout convention we heard at worships —
which I helped plan! —
how God will delight when we are creators
of justice, joy, compassion and peace,
yet we create none of those.
When we love God
with all our heart, and with all our soul,
and with all our mind, and with all our strength
and love our neighbors as ourselves
God creates those in our lives.

So, What will we do together as a congregation
to interrogate and confess the sins of the past
and reduce mistrust and suspicion?
We’re going to continue our antiracist work
and we’re going to find sustainable ways of doing it,
ways that aren’t reliant on one person having energy
or one person carrying the discussion board.
We’re going to dive in with the concrete task of land acknowledgement,
using resources newly made available by the diocesan Circles of Color.
Gathered at the font and the table,
we’re going to work to rebuild trust
after history that I don’t fully know but may be lingering
and after a pandemic that has left us all
in some kind of lurch or another.

What are you going to do personally
in your spiritual life and practice
to reflect on your own sins and rebuild relationships?
I’m going to invite you to take stock of your lives,
and look for ways that we’re part of systems of oppression,
systems that we didn’t sign up for
but that we’re a part of nonetheless.
I’m going to invite you to come to church
or be present in the body when we’re gathered —
with a priority for live streaming
rather than watching on demand.
I’ll again ask you to pray the daily office and build habits
to grow closer to God and show love for God
as a response to God’s love for us.
We’ll be making resources for praying the Office
a weekly part of What’s Happening
starting next week.
Finally, How will we help our congregation
resist the urge to hit the snooze button?
We’re going to start with reflecting on stewardship,
stewardship of the commons, what we have together.
This reflection, and our ongoing study
will stir up action
and hopefully our prayers —
reorienting ourselves toward God —
will stir up action too,
action that prompts and demonstrates
our love of neighbor.

How are we going to resist the urge to hit the snooze button,
to let love of God and neighbor
be the right words like “striving for Justice and Peace”
without sacrifice and hard work?
We’re going to remember
that we don’t create justice or joy
and that the promises we make
we promise to do with God’s help.

How will we keep from hitting the snooze button?
We’ll keep coming back:
Back to the bath and the table.
Back to confessing our sins
now with a minute of silence to do it each week!
We’ll keep coming back
to reveling in the goodness of God.
We’ll taste and see
we’ll touch and hear the goodness of the Lord.
Then we’ll try, with God’s help,
to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul,
and with all our mind, and with all our strength.
We’ll try,
with God’s help
to love our neighbors
the same way we love ourselves.
Amen.

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