The readings
on which this sermon is based can be found at: http://web.me.com/frsparky/iWeb/r063.htm
s063g11 Sunday 30 23/10/2011
You shall love the Lord your God .. with all your mind.
Matthew 22.27
Chapters 21and 22 of Matthew describes Jesus entry into Jerusalem,
the cleansing of the Temple, the cursing of the fig tree, the devout
and the orthodox questioning Jesus’ authority, then three parables:
the two sons, the wicked tenants and the wedding
banquet. Then the devout and the orthodox question
Jesus, about paying taxes, about the resurrection, the greatest
commandment and Jesus’ rejoinder about who they think the messiah
is. Chapter 23 has Jesus roundly denouncing the devout
and the orthodox.
In the midst of this robust debating, Jesus talks about love, love
of God and love of neighbour, and the context strikes me how
significant this is.
What Jesus is looking for from those who call themselves religious
is love and acceptance of others, and what does he get, but
theological games and attempted one-upmanship (one up person ship?
:-)) And I have to wonder, have things actually changed at
all?
People seemed to get upset with Jesus. There were: the
chief priests and elders (21.23), the chief priests and the
Pharisees (21.45), the Pharisees and the Herodians (22.15), the
Sadducees (22.23), and again the Pharisees (22.34). None
of these would have any problem with the commandment – to love God
‘with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind’. They were the devout and the orthodox and their
ostentatious display of loving God was obvious to
everyone. But they all hated Jesus, enough to have him
killed. So the ‘god’ they worshipped was rather different from
the Parent of Jesus. And they had Jesus killed because
their love of ‘god’ demanded it.
So we who love God need to be careful that we are actually
worshipping the Parent of Jesus and not the ‘god’ that would have
Jesus killed.
And I note that, by and large, the people who were upset by Jesus
were not ordained people, those who were the professionally
religious. Certainly the chief priests were, but the
others were the religious movers and shakers, ordinary people in the
pews who reveled in being ‘gate-keepers’. And what
congregation does not have its ‘gate-keepers’?
In the many parishes I have been in, the most important thing has
always been the survival of the parish. The job of the
priest or minister has been to encourage others to join the
worshipping community; and had Jesus undertaken this task and
attracted suitable people, then he surely would not have earned the
displeasure of the gate-keepers in his day, the people listed
above. They would probably have made him
high-priest! But the people listed above were
scandalized by the folk with whom Jesus associated. They
did not want to be associated with THOSE people. The
last thing they wanted was for people like them to be accepted on
equal terms to themselves.
Recently I was at a mid-week eucharist and the passage from Romans
chapter two was read. And the words of St Paul in verse
two struck me: ‘You say, ‘We know that God’s judgement on those who
do such things is in accordance with truth.‘ And I
realized that these words are directed precisely at those who
separate themselves off from others on scriptural
grounds. I have to repeat that since that fatal bite of
the apple, we can no longer be sure that our ‘knowledge’ is correct,
however such knowledge is superficially consistent with scripture or
tradition.
Every week I thoroughly enjoy reading the lead article on Anglicans
Online, an independent portal for all things Anglican and
Episcopalian. Last week they started the lovely article
with the words: ‘The fractiousness of the Anglican Communion as we
know it is a product of easy electronic communication.’
www.anglicansonline.com And the word ‘fractiousness’ hit
me as well as the conjunction of the words ‘Communion’ and
‘communication’. How can communication lead to a
breakdown of communion? Communication surely should lead
to increased communion.
I certainly don’t question their perception of fractiousness or the
perception that communication has exacerbated that fractiousness.
And it leads me to ponder if electronic communication has lead us to
realise that the myth of a monochrome church is precisely that, a
myth. If the most important thing is the survival of the
Anglican Communion the question becomes do we as the Anglican Church
accept that in the kingdom, others are accepted on equal terms to
us. So the survival of the Anglican Communion is
actually fairly immaterial in kingdom terms.
We have all inherited a theology of religious colonialism (if not
imperialism) and while I can rejoice in the way I express my
Anglicanism, I don’t expect others to express their Anglicanism (or
their Christianity) in precisely the same terms as me.
Indeed, if others are accepted on precisely the same terms as
myself, the name we call God or the manner of worship we use seems
immaterial.
As a hospital chaplain, I know that communication with others, when
it is done as equals, increases communion. It is only
when ‘communication’ with others is done in an unequal way that
communion is diminished. For ‘communication’ done in an
unequal way is essentially one sided, whereas real communion is
essentially mutual and between equals. And for me this
calls into question the propensity of the church to eternally wallow
in the sinfulness of her members. So the fact that the
Almighty lifts people to their feet when confronted with God has
it’s importance. God relates to us as equals.
The text I chose was: You shall love the Lord your God .. with all
your mind, and I note that the commandment is not: You shall love
the Lord your God with your bible or with your
tradition. So often adherence to the bible and tradition
means that we are not to think about our faith. But
neither do we have a propositional faith; we are to love God with
our heart and soul as well. Such love cannot be forced,
for force is inimical to love. Adherence to
propositions, whether scriptural or traditional, is inimical to
love.
And why on earth would gay and lesbian persons who have
traditionally been alienated by the church and women who
traditionally have been marginalised by the church, love this ‘god’
who inspires such abuse?
Recently I went to a worship service of low-church Anglicans, and
there were certainly no gay or lesbian persons present, nor women in
a teaching role. The (female) bishop who presided
listened to the sermon rather than preaching. Interestingly
the preacher commended the Puritan ideal of personal
holiness. The sermon was about the primary question for
all, which is ‘do we love Jesus?‘ in the context of John 21 and it
was clear from other comments that ‘feeding my sheep’ was about
making gay persons straight and keeping women in subservient
roles. These folk are very sincere, but I could not help
but think it was all so terribly narcissistic. The
preacher spent a good deal of time analysing Peter’s emotional and
spiritual state following his triple denial, but I am not sure that
he is aware of his own emotional and spiritual state, or especially
that he would like it pointed out to him. And it makes
me think that so often religion can feed people’s insecurities
rather than relieve them of them.
We are called to love God with all our mind, and surely this means
that we are called to examine what our religion does to ourselves as
well as others. If our religion is good news for us but
marginalising, alienating and condemning of others - is this
reasonable? Is this any different from
Nazism? If our religion feeds our own insecurities
rather than lifting us to our feet (as God consistently does) is
this good news? Are we going to be of any earthly use to
anyone else if we continue in this way?
God invites us into life in all its fulness, using our mind, all our
senses, and all our emotions, to appreciate the beauty of this world
and the beauty in one another. We appreciate how
generations before us have been invited and responded to
this. Their response may well be different to
ours. Similarly future generations will continue to be
invited into life in all its fulness and they will see riches denied
to us. None of us need to feel constrained in the
slightest, for there is so much to appreciate, from the microscopic
to the telescopic, from aeons past to aeons in the future, in
personal relationships and corporate action. None of us
need feel constrained for which we can be truly thankful to God,
however he, or she, is named and worshipped.
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