Yesterday was Reformation Sunday, when we remember that day in the year 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. It was a list of ways he felt the church was in error, a list of what he perceived needed to be changed in the Roman Church. This faithful act of one man led to the Protestant Reformation.
Through the centuries, faithful men and women have called for the church to re-think doctrine and the authority of scripture, and to be open to the new things God is doing in their time and place. The Presbyterian Church states that it is “reformed and ever reforming, according to God’s Word and Spirit” – ever seeking deeper understandings of God and the mission to which God is calling. While Reformation Sunday is often used as a time to share doctrine, debate truth and learn church history, this year’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew, leads in a new direction. In Matthew 22:34-40, we find the Pharisees hard at work to entrap Jesus with their questions. This time, they ask, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus replies, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment, and a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The message sounds loud and clear! We know what we are supposed to do, but there’s a big difference between knowing what we are supposed to do and doing it. For the most part, most of us stumble and fumble at loving God and loving our neighbor. The truth is that we’ll probably never ever all be on the same page about matters of life and faith, and perhaps the closest we’ll ever get is in seeking to live into the truth of the commandments Jesus gives in today’s gospel passage.
It’s all about loving God and loving what God loves. “For God so loved the world …” God loves the world, not just you and me, not just Christians, not even just human beings, but the whole of creation. God loves the world and wills that it be a better world.
We are to be about becoming the kind of people who can love God, and love what God loves. To do this, we need to be transformed, and in the process, becoming more and more deeply centered in God and in Jesus Christ. Our relationship with God deepens through prayer and worship, and as we gather together, we are part of a community of transformation. What we experience in Christian Community shapes our sense of ourselves and our identity, and our relationships with one another. Perhaps the only common ground we can find in these day of division into for or against just about everything; these days of mistrust, suspicion and doubt; these days of spreading disinformation and outright lying; perhaps the only common ground we can find lies in these two commandments – loving Lord with all our heart, soul and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. By demonstrating and sharing that love we can bridge differences of opinion, so that we can come to respect and value each other, without having to agree on every issue before us.
Our loving God is ever at work, forming and reforming us, as individuals and as a community of faith, so that all might come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and share in the abundant life he came to give us.
Giving thanks that God is always working in all things for good, and for those streams of mercy, never ceasing.
Elizabeth
In these final weeks before our national election, I’ve come across a helpful article by Tammy Warren in Presbyterians Today: “Golden Rule 2020: A Call for Dignity and Respect in Politics.” We’ve heard it all our lives: “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matt 17:12) The “Golden Rule” is a call for just living that can be found in all cultures and religions. A website – goldenrule/2020.org –quotes Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness, as saying: “It is our hope that Golden Rule 2020 will enable people of faith around the world to apply tolerance, love and acceptance in our political engagements.“
All of this gives me hope! I’m saddened each day to watch the political news, because of specific events taking place and how people on different sides of issues talk past each other, using angry, inflammatory rhetoric and spreading mis-information. We will never be able to solve our common problems if people of different political views are filled with anger and contempt for each other. “The message of Golden Rule 2020 gives us a way out. If we follow the Golden Rule and treat our political opponents with more dignity and respect, then we can begin to de-escalate the hostility and look for ways to work together. Reviving civility will “take a village” …We have so much to offer when we stand for that which is greater than ourselves: the love of God within.” (Theo Brown, Presbyterians Today, Sept -Oct)
The leaders who created Golden Rule 2020; A Call for Dignity and Respect in Politics make this statement: ”We believe that churches have an important role to play in helping to heal America ... “We hope and pray that local congregations will be active in efforts to increase understanding and bridge divisions in our country.” (Theo Brown, Presbyterians Today, Sept-Oct)
The group offers this special prayer in these days preceding our national election.
A Golden Rule Prayer
We come together today to pray for our country
and also for ourselves. We are thankful for the blessing
of living in the United States, but increasingly fearful for our future,
because of the enmity and bitterness we see between our fellow citizens.
Help us to be more mindful of your teachings and to act in love to help heal
the deep divisions in our country. We pray that you will keep us mindful
of your great command to “treat others as we want to be treated” and that you
will help us find ways to apply that principle in our daily lives.
We believe that your way of love and kindness can transform our country
and ask your assistance as we seek to show that love to others-
especially those who hold views very different than our own. Amen.
Giving thanks for those who value and work to strengthen community, and respect differences of opinion; those who build bridges and seek understanding… and for those streams of mercy leading us through these difficult days into all that is to come, as God works in all things for good.
Elizabeth
Ken Rummer, a retired pastor, poses the question: Which verses of scripture best fit our situation? Which Bible story parallels the present moment? Just what word of God should we be “living out?” Here are some of the possibilities Rummer considers:
“Are we wandering in the wilderness with Moses as he deals with people who are finding it hard and wanting to go back to Egypt (Numbers 14)? Or are we waiting for the edict of Cyrus that will let us exiles go back home and worship as we used to (Ezra 1)?
Are we being called with the prophet Jeremiah to symbolic action? And which should it be? Smash a new pottery jar to show that worse is yet to come (Jeremiah 19)? Or buy a field just overrun by the enemy as a sign that normal times will come again (Jeremiah 32)?
Do we sing with Avery and Marsh, “The church is not a building,…the church is a people”?
Or can we sing the Lord’s song at all in this strange land (Psalm 137)?
Are we being challenged to amend our ways and our doings (Jeremiah 26)? Could this plague be underlining a let-my-people-go message addressed to hardened hearts, both ours and Pharaoh’s (Exodus 9)?
With the preacher of Ecclesiastes, is it time to mourn (Ecclesiastes 3)? During the farm crisis of the 1980s, people hammered crosses into court house lawns to mark farms lost to bankruptcy. Do the deaths of these days cry out for a visible memorial?
Jeremiah wrote to the exiles in Babylon that their return would not be soon. Is this the word we need to be living out: to plant vineyards and build houses and form families and settle in to this strange COVID world because we’re going to be here awhile (Jeremiah 29)?
Is it time to turn to science? To reprise the Dr. Salk polio story of the ‘40s and ‘50s by donating our dimes toward a vaccine against the virus?
Do we lift up Martin Luther’s advice to pastors in German cities ravaged by the plague: carry out your calling, take care of your neighbors, and utilize all available measures of protection and prevention. (c. AD 1500)
Should loving our neighbor be the mandate for our moment? Jesus lifted up this Leviticus contribution to the divine teaching as the second greatest commandment in the Torah (Leviticus 19, Matthew 22). Is it time to remember that Jesus healed the sick and to believe that Jesus can do it again (Luke 4)? Is it time to channel the ministry of the apostles as recorded in the longer ending of Mark, praying for the sick and seeing them recover (Mark 16)?
Or, when all is said and done, do we cling to Romans 8, believing that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, not even a deadly virus (Romans 8)?”
I’m grateful for ideas of new ways to deal with the ongoing struggles of our day, and pray we all will continue thinking of scripture passages that speak to the times through which we’re passing- ever giving thanks for those streams of mercy, never ceasing.
Elizabeth