Saturday, November 3, 2018

More than words - live into it

Scripture:
  • Ruth 1:1-18 and Psalm 146  • 
  • Deuteronomy 6:1-9 and Psalm 119:1-8  • 
  • Hebrews 9:11-14  • 
  • Mark 12:28-34


  • This week I will not be in Sunday School class. I have been asked to give the homily at St. James Episcopal Church in Louis, VA while Alex is at his diocesan convention.

    I would like to share my message with you this week. 

                    I am honored and humbled to be asked to deliver a homily here with you, in what has been our church away from home, and which we also consider our second home church. When I prepare for Sunday school, or to deliver a homily at St. Mark’s, my first inclination is to examine the words in the texts. In my work, words are very important. It is essential to use clear, meaningful, and persuasive words. But words mean nothing if they are not “lived into.”
                A couple of weeks ago, I got to bask in grandfatherly glory as I was able to hold our fourth grandchild, Margaret Ann Riffee, surrounded by my Virginia family. Debi and I had raised two ornery boys, who turned out pretty well, but I had no experience dealing with young girls. Of course, Emma has me wrapped around her little finger. I watched Emma interact with her little sister, and thought about sisters. I like to ask questions. Part of my life’s work, I guess. As we were all gathered in Alex and Yinghao’s family room, I thought about sisters, and I asked, “What were the name of the sisters in “Fiddler on the Roof?[i]
                After a pause, Alex, in perfect Hebrew, gave us the name of the first sister, Chava. Later, Yinghao gave us the names of the two other teen sisters, Tseitel, or as Alex says in the voice of his favorite Hebrew professor, “Zeitel.” Do you know the name of the other sister? (Hovel.) You don’t want to take on Alex and Yinghao in Jeopardy, or trivia. I manage to get in a couple of answers, but they usually get most of them, if not all of them. Debi’s better than I am, too.
                So, I asked Alex, “What does “Chava” mean in Hebrew. Alex immediately replied, “it is a name meaning `love’.” Chava means love. And that leads to today’s Old Testament reading, the great Shema, “Hear, O Israel. The Lord your God is one God. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.” Devout Jews recite this in their morning and evening prayers. The Hebrew word for “love” used in this passage from Deuteronomy is “ahava,” the root of which is “hav,” which means “to give.” Giving effect to the Shema, is to act to give one’s heart, soul and might to God.  
                During my last visit with my family, it was touching to see Emma give affection to her baby sister. Knowing this is a big step for a two year old to go from being the center of her parents’ attention, to sharing that love and attention with a totally dependent newborn, Debi, gave Emma her own life size baby doll. What a prescient, loving gift. And what a wonderful and profound thing to see, Emma caring for her baby doll. Ahava is an act of giving love.
                There is another Hebrew word for love. And this type of love is shown in the alternative Old Testament reading for today in the lectionary. It involves the story of an older Hebrew woman whose husband died, whose sons married foreigners, and whose sons died. In ancient Israel, a woman could die without property and sustenance if she had no husband or sons, who could own property and provide for her. Even though her daughters in law were devoted to her, she told them to go back to their homeland, saying, “May the LORD show you loving kindness, as you have shown loving kindness [chesed] to your dead husbands and to me.’”   One left weeping and sad. The other told her “Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die-- there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!" One left, and one stayed, even when things seemed hopeless, and gleaned the leftovers in the fields of Israel to look after her. She later married a man to help her mother in law.  This was more than just loving kindness.  Do you know this story? Who is this about? (Ruth). It is also about you and me.
                Ruth demonstrated chesed, a loyal love that goes beyond the requirement of familial duty. A love which goes beyond a command, a duty.  Beyond a covenant, contract, or agreement. It is not dependent upon feelings or mood; it is something that we do to provide for what another person needs.  It is motivated by compassion and “ahava.” Ruth is the great grandmother of King David, from whom Jews and Christians believe comes the Messiah.
                And now let’s look at today’s gospel. When a scribe asks Jesus what the great Commandment is, Jesus starts with the Shema, adds the word “mind,”  “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' and says there is another, quoting from Leviticus, “'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." The translation of the Greek word for “love,” which Jesus uses is a word I now you have heard before, “agape (ἀγάπη).” We see a further development of our understanding of God’s love, and the love we are to have for God, and our neighbor. It has been described as early as the prehistoric Greek poet, Homer, as “affection.” 
                 Agape was also used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity, which they were committed to reciprocating and practicing towards God and among one another. It embraces a universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. C. S. Lewis uses agape in The Four Loves to describe what he believes is the highest level of love known to humanity: a selfless love that is passionately committed to the well-being of others.
                And these are not just words. John tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. Jesus embodied, not just the commandment to give love, as in “ahava,” but something that goes beyond a duty, or obedience to a command. It is motivated by the affection of “ahava,” and is something we do to provide for what another person needs, the “chesed,” in Ruth.
                But it is more than that. Jesus told us the first must be last, that we must welcome the weak, the poor, the child, the stranger, and lose ourselves to gain ourselves. For, he said, in losing one’s life, one shall gain it. As Paul in his letter to the Philippians told us, Jesus who, though he was in qthe form of God, did not count equality with God ra thing to be grasped,2 but semptied himself, by taking the form of a tservant,3 ubeing born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by vbecoming obedient to the point of death, weven death on a cross.” That is the kind of love Jesus is about, and we, as Christians are to be about.
                And Jesus showed us, embodying the love of God and love of neighbor as ourselves. He gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan, an outcast half-breed to the Jews, who took care of the traveler who was beaten and left to die by thieves when the priest, and good law observing Jews would not. He touched and healed the untouchable. He invited the despised tax collector to become a disciple, Matthew, who gave us one of the gospels. He gave us the parable of the prodigal son, who squandered his inheritance, but was welcomed home by his father who ran to him and ordered the fatted calf be prepared to celebrate his homecoming. He said the widow, with her paltry sum, gave more than the wealthy Pharisee who proudly announced his greatness in giving. He reached out to the Samaritan woman at the well, and he stopped the stoning of an accused adulteress saying “let who among you has not sinned, cast the first stone.” He turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple. He disabused  the idea of a militaristic Messiah who would challenge Rome and the powers of that time, and told his disciples how he must suffer a humiliating death, and then rise again in three days.
                In all of this we see that Jesus lived into the words of love. He showed us who our neighbors are, and lived into it. Some call it grace. Some call it mercy. But the bedrock of all of it is love with affection, compassion, and being able to put aside that which blocks or interferes with showing God’s loving grace to each other, even if that means sacrificing what we want, even ourselves.
                 This kind of love enables us to forgive. Forgive ourselves, and others who have wronged us, as Jesus forgave the ones who crucified him, and the thief on the cross.
                This kind of love works for peace, and reconciliation. Much needed in a world so divided today. A world in which we are goaded into choosing sides.
                In Jesus, we are given a love of abundance – not scarcity – love and life, even eternal life, for all – he showed us – for all, not just some of us, or those on our side.
                Just as the Word became flesh, and dwelled among us, we are reminded in the Holy Eucharist, the meal Jesus asked us to celebrate in remembrance of him, that the unconditional love that transcends and persists, dwells in us, through the presence of Christ in the elements, and in our lives. Through thick and thin, and through all life has to offer. Jesus knows we will falter and fall. We will get angry, lose our cool, say things we shouldn’t say or do things we know we shouldn’t do. We will get tired and sick.  People make mistakes. That’s why we need to come to his table, and often, for he says as often as we partake of his meal, do it remembrance of him. Jesus has shown us the face of God. A God of loving kindness. Of unconditional love. We won’t get all the answers, but we worship a God who is with us on our journey.  We know the love we are called to. We know the neighbors we are called to love. With all our hearts, souls, minds, and might, let us live into it.
                Amen.


    [i] Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem.




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