EXODUS 22:21-27
PSALM 1
1 THESSALONIANS 2:1-8
MATTHEW 22:34-46
Sermon – 10/27/02
I
don’t think anyone would doubt that every human being is faced with both
challenges and opportunities, and that sooner or later, we have to face
them. So the real questions for us are
two: are we going to face the challenges and opportunities of our lives with faith or without faith, and second, are we going to face the challenges and
opportunities of our lives with the
support and guidance of a community,
or all alone?
While many of us cherish moments of solitude, few would want to face all of life’s challenges and opportunities absolutely alone. As talented and resilient as we may be as individuals, the fact remains that life is a team sport, and tackling it completely solo lengthens the odds of success (however defined) significantly. So we humans generally choose community. A community which offers wise guidance and support through thick and thin is certainly lots better than one which does neither.
While
many people may pride themselves on being independent thinkers, the reality is
that most people start each day with some kind of faith. To do otherwise would mean seizing each
day’s challenges backed only by a sense of cosmic aloneness –
that there is no one and nothing that cares or helps us at all. Most people lack the foolish bravado to take
such a stand, so most have some kind of faith.
Some
people have had faith in what they thought were “forces of history”, but some
such forces (like “inevitable progress towards peace and enlightenment”)
have proved to be mirages, while others (like communism’s “dictatorship of the
proletariat and the withering away of the state”) have been both bogus and
nightmarish.
So
if people are to have faith, faith must be lodged in someone or something
worthy of being believed in, dependable, powerful, caring in some ultimate way
about our true best interests, and capable of meeting our deepest needs –
ideally, forever.
Christians
describe God as the only one in whom we should put our deepest faith. God whom we know through the Bible
(including the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ), through what the
church calls the sacraments (“outward and visible signs of an inward and
spiritual grace”), through personal experience in prayer and meditation, and
through the community of the faithful.
Christian churches exist to empower people
to face life’s challenges and opportunities with faith and with the support and
guidance of a community of faith.
Life
is hard. Anyone who doesn’t understand
that hasn’t been paying much attention.
Life is hard. Without faith or
community, life is almost too much to bear.
But no one has to live like that.
Living life with faith in community is not “accepting easy
answers and taking an easy path”, as some would say; rather, it is having the wisdom
to travel a path which does not lead off a cliff or through trackless
wilderness alone.
Christian
churches believe that people are called to face life’s challenges and opportunities
guided by what Jesus identified from the Hebrew Scriptures as God’s two
greatest commandments: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind”’ and “‘You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.’”
These
are commandments, not suggestions. To
those who decide to be part of a Christian church, they are part of the
package. They are also commandments
without limit: we can strive to obey in all that we think and do for the rest
of our lives and we still will not fulfill all that those commandments offer
us.
But
we can consider “What would it be like if
people sincerely tried?”
So
imagine if you were in the hospital for the umpteenth time, facing the
possibility of a crippling disability.
Imagine your spouse and all your children had died, and the relative
closest to you was in California.
You
have courage. You have spunk. Your have a sense of humor. You have love. But wouldn’t it be great if friends from your church dropped by
to see you in the hospital, briefly, just because “it was the Christian thing
to do”? Wouldn’t it be great if friends
from church called you to encourage you, your priest visited and brought
communion, the altar guild member brought the flowers from the altar, the whole
Prayer Chain was praying for you and your name was in the Prayers of the People
at every service?
“Love
your neighbor as yourself.” Life is a
team sport. Christian love is a team
sport.
Now
imagine you are a very poor person in New Brunswick, depending on at least one
good, hot meal a day from Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen. Imagine there’s a snowstorm coming and you
wonder, will those suburban folks wimp out?
But suppose those suburban folks from St. Barnabas look at each other
and say, “If we don’t show up, how are those folks going to eat tonight?” And so they pile in the van and go to New
Brunswick.
“Love
your neighbor as yourself.” Christian
love is a team sport.
Imagine
you’re a teenager on a spiritual renewal weekend, wondering if this is really
for real, thinking about all the things you could have been doing,
wondering if any of those teens giving talks are going to deal with real
issues. And then you hear a kid about
your age share, in a talk to the whole group, about her struggles with
anorexia, and how bad it was but that now she knows God wants her to
live and now she wants to live and she knows God has saved, and is
saving, her life. And maybe you think,
“She has guts sharing this. Why is she
talking about it?” And then it hits
you: she wants to help save someone else’s life, too. In thanksgiving to God for saving hers.
“Love
your neighbor as yourself.” Christian
love is a team sport.
Imagine
you are a woman who has just been beaten up by your husband so badly that you had
to be hospitalized. And that while you
are in the hospital, he cleans out your joint checking and savings accounts and
skips the country. And while
you’re in the hospital, you get laid off from your job. So now you’re in the shelter for battered
women with your two little boys, in November.
And
while you’re there, someone tells your story, anonymously, to an active member
of a church in another town. And that
member stands up at sharing time and says that this has happened to someone she
knows about, and the shelter is working on getting her an apartment, and would
anyone like to help? And these people
you don’t know in a church you’ve never heard of get busy. And finally, you move in...to a furnished
apartment, complete with Christmas tree and warm clothes for the boys.
And
in January you write a letter which says, “Dear people of St. Barnabas. Last year was the worst year of my life, and
it was the best year of my life. It was
the worst year because of what happened to me.
It was the best year because of you people. You gave me back my faith.”
“Love
your neighbor as yourself.” Christian
love is a team sport.
I
could stand up here for another hour and give you examples of the difference a community
of faith makes, and of the quality of this community of
faith. We’re far from perfect, but we
try. And we’re pretty good. And with seriously joyful commitments of
time, talent and treasure from more people, we can be great.
Jesus
said “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your mind...You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Christian
love is a team sport.
Join
the team.
(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church