CELEBRATING:
SERMONS
"A World Feasting"
Oct 6th, 2002
"Love
God, and do as you will."
That well-worn quote from St. Augustine of Hippo seems
to make our discipleship so easy.
The assumption is: if you love God
- really love God, then your actions will clearly reflect
that your love for God drives everything you do.
But this can be risky rhetoric
We know that some of Al Quaida's fanatics claim that
they love and obey God and that is what drove them to
attack American interests on 9/11. They lie.
And we know lots of Christians who
have clothed themselves in the language of God and arrogated
to themselves the power of life and death over others
who think differently. They lie.
In our daily lives, we know that
loving God goes a long way, but much more is needed
to make life safe and orderly.
I might love God totally, but if
I had been driving on the left-hand side of the road
through the Fraser Canyon yesterday, we and several
others would probably have wound up mangled in the river
below. Insist on driving on the left hand side here
in Canada, and chances are you will kill others and
yourself. Hardly the way of love.
We need rules that govern the way
we get along with each other. You can say you love everybody,
but then if you treat people like serfs or if you don't
really respect them, then your protestations about love
sound hollow.
So today's two scripture readings
stand in contradiction to each other - or better they
are a paradox. On the one side, as children of God through
Christ, we abide in love, are committed to loving. In
the wedding service we say: love becomes the principal
sign of God's presence.
We are committed to that. Totally.
There is no more worthy aim to pursue.
If we could really be people who reveal our love of
God, by our love of others, then we would be a long
way on the road to heaven on earth.
But on the other side, we also know
that reality demands there be commandments. Drive right
in Canada. Observe stop signs and red lights. Don't
foul the nest you live in. Don't waste water - someone
else may go without. And so on. We need rules that regulate
life and make it possible to love.
I always find the story of the 10
Commandments ironic.
As a Jewish educator friend put it: No sooner are the
Hebrew people freed from slavery in Egypt, when they
want a clear set of rules to govern their lives. What
were they thinking!?
They were thinking that: Life without
rules is hell, can be dangerous, and just doesn't work.
Without rules we would always be fighting each other
for things, we would always be stepping on each other's
toes. We wouldn't know that would be permitted and what
not. We would live in anxiety and fear.
So the Hebrew people gathered at
the foot of Mt. Sinai to await the Ten Commandments
that Moses would bring to them from his encounter with
God.
The Commandments were recognized as coming from God
not because God wrote them literally.
Rather, the people discovered that by observing these
foundational rules, fullness of life could be experienced,
and they knew that full life is always a gift of God.
Imagine life without God's social
laws that state: do not murder another person; do not
break your commitment to your life-partner by committing
adultery; do not steal from others; don't lie or even
tell half-truths about other; and don't covet anything
that is your neighbour's.
We talked about all these commandments
earlier this year.
They are crucial to social order and they are as valid
now as then when Israel was in the wilderness.
The other commandments are no less important: no other
gods; don't worship idols of your own making; don't
abuse God's name; keep Sabbath time; and honour your
parents.
The commandments help us stay human,
living respectfully in God's creation.
They keep us from worshiping things of our own creation.
Only God - the transcendent one, the holy one - is worthy
of our worship.
If we really love God and abide
in God's love, wouldn't all these commandments be a
cinch to maintain?
Well, maybe but remember how easy it is for us to rationalize.
Can you hear yourself:
they'll hardly notice I took this from them.
Or, the neighbour has made me angry, so I am justified
in stretching the truth about her - I need to get even.
Or, who will know about this one-night stand?
We can convince ourselves about almost anything, can't
we!
We even rationalize our penchant
for killing: we need to take a pre-emptive strike against
Iraq - we may not have hard proof about weapons of mass
destruction or the intent to use them, but we fear they
might.
So we feel justified in raining cluster bombs and anti-personnel
bombs on Saddam, even if it kills hundreds and thousands
of civilians, collateral damage - that macabre euphemism.
Already in Iraq we have killed hundreds of thousands
of children and old people by the economic embargo and
now we will step it up with bombs and invasion, all
in the name of … we're not quite sure in whose
name, but we rationalize because we are afraid.
"There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts out fear." There is no cloaking
murder in righteousness. There is no way to dress up
killing in the garb of justice. There is only murder.
A breach of God's command. A negation of love.
You can say you love God, but when
you hate your neighbour. It makes you a liar.
Over the centuries, faithful Christians
have wrestled with this lived tension between absolute
love and
rules that make love possible,
but complicated by the awful reality that we are addicted
to breaking rules and degrading love.
At the end of the day, even if we
can say: "I kept all the rules," "I have
done all the 'Thou shalt nots.'" - even then we
know there is more to do. Love is after all, a matter
of the heart and if our heart doesn't love then keeping
the rules won't cut it.
If we are not too self-righteous,
if we have some humility and some awe in God's presence,
we would be inclined to confess. "Oh God have mercy
upon me, a sinner."
Surely everyone of us is in need of God's forgiveness
because we do not abide in God's love and because we
breach the basic laws that make love possible.
"Oh God, forgive me, because
you and I both know that underneath the confident and
invulnerable exterior, there is always the child afraid
of getting caught, afraid of being seen in my failure
to love, afraid of appearing less than perfect.
How can I with all my fears and insecurities observe
your life-giving rules?
God's perfect love drives out our
fear, says the scripture.
I pray that it may be so. I pray that both Saddam and
George - both are God's children - may discover Jesus'
great commandment: those who love God can't get around
loving their brothers and sisters - even when they are
enemies.
I pray that we in this congregation, may learn more
deeply about how to do that. How to reduce the tension
between our commitment to love and our ready inclination
to break the rules that make love possible.
It is not easy - but the struggle
is laid upon us.
We want to make real our longing and God's yearning
to abide in God's love.
But we also know that along that way, there's got to
be a whole lot of forgiving and trying again. The forgiving
is God's and the trying is ours.
Today we feast together with Christians
around the world.
As we break bread and share the cup, we pray fervently
and persistently that
the world and we may learn a lot more about abiding
in love.
When our hearts abide in love, then we abide in God
and the rules that help us to keep loving will be a
whole lot easier.
May it be so - so we can really
celebrate together! Thanks be to God. AMEN
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Shaughnessy Heights United Church
congregation is a Christian faith community — people
at various stages in the faith journey.
1550
West 33rd Avenue,
Vancouver, BC V6M 1A7
Canada SEE
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Tel:
604-261-6377
Email: admin@shuc.ca
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