Streams of Mercy
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