Living In Love

         

            When I got out of the army, I tried to go back to the radio station where I had been working before I was drafted.  They didn’t only want a disc jockey, they also wanted me to be an engineer so that they could easily fulfil the Federal Communication Commission’s requirement for every station to have qualified engineers as well as announcers on their staff.  I would have had to go to a special school for several weeks and get a certificate.  I didn’t want to do this, so I told Rosie that I was going to apply to a television station for employment as an announcer.  She told me that they better pay me more than the radio station had paid me.  I went off to audition.  Fortunately, I got the job and came back and told her of my fortune and of the considerable increase in salary that accompanied it.  I loved that work.  It was back before the days of teleprompters, so I had to memorize all of the commercials; and I learned to do the weather there. 

            Working has always been important to me.  I have enjoyed all of the careers that I have chosen.    When the last TV station that employed me went bankrupt in the early seventies, I spoke to the bishop of Pittsburgh about being an Episcopal priest.  He was enthusiastic about that and made sure that I was enrolled in Virginia Seminary that September.  I did well in the seminary, graduated and was ordained.  I have loved this profession, serving a number of churches and meeting some of the best people that I could ever have known. 

            In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is trying to describe the Kingdom of Heaven to his listeners. He tells them that it is like a landowner who goes out in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  He agrees with them on a daily wage.  He then goes out several more times and hires more laborers each time.  At the end of the day, he pays them all the same wage that he agreed to pay those who were hired first.  The early workers were upset and complained that they ought to be paid more.  The landowner pointed out to them that they had agreed when they were hired to be paid what they received.  He told them that he ought to be able to do as he pleased with his own money.  He finished this comment by saying the last shall be first and the first will be last.

This is Jesus’ description of the Kingdom of Heaven, not the economy in which we live.  That is important for us to know.  There are a lot of inequities in the world in which we live. Jesus is telling us that those inequities will disappear when we come into his kingdom, even if we don’t think that it is fair that the least who are among us are treated as we are. 

            That is a beautiful description of God’s kingdom, where love is the predominant feature.  It is love that we are taught needs to be the foundation of our world also.  When we love, we learn to forgive and to accept our differences.  Ultimately this results in our learning from each other, not constantly arguing.  If we can learn this, wars will cease and our economies will prosper and all of us will live lives that make much more sense that then ones that we are living now.  That is what Jesus is trying to teach to both his apostles and the crowds that come to hear him.  He gathered up all of the hatred in the world, went to Jerusalem and presented himself to the authorities, who arrested him, handed him over to Pilate who ordered him to be whipped and crucified.  God’s response to this incredible demonstration of hatred was the incredible love of Jesus’ resurrection.  That is the message that we need to hold in our hearts as the essence of our religion.  To learn to love above all things is the way of life that our God gives us.  When we learn this, our world will drastically change.

               

Revelation Violence or Resurrection Love

           

            There are some people in this country, and probably all over the world who want to take the Book of Revelation literally.  They want us to understand that a great apocalypse is coming and coming soon.  That the skies will open and God’s army, led by Jesus will descend and kill all of those who are not born again.  Mostly these are very conservative evangelical Christians who believe all of this.  It is disturbing to me because they leave the essentials of the Christian faith behind them when they preach these things.  There are a lot of examples of violence in the scriptures.  God frequently helps the Hebrews destroy the Philistines.  The destruction of Pharaoh’s army as the separated Red Sea closed around them as the Hebrew’s fled from Egypt is another example.  But things changed when Jesus came among us.  The issue no longer was violence, but forgiveness.  That is what Jesus taught all of his life.

            I spent twenty-two years working as a part time chaplain at Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh.  I saw a lot of men who had done some very bad things.  Some of them seemed to be almost lost because of their crimes.  We talked constantly about forgiveness.  This was a welcome subject, but very few of them believed that forgiveness for them was even a remote possibility.  One old man, who had come to prison in his mid-seventies would always tug my sleeve at the end of a group session that talked about forgiveness and would say to me, “listen preacher, there are two people in the graveyard because of what I did.  God is never going to forgive that!”  One day a year or so later, I saw his eyes light up when we were again talking about forgiveness.  He, all of a sudden understood that we were talking about him.  His life changed drastically after that.  He was living in the hospital and would be wheeled out and across the yard when we had group.  When he got to the yard, he would be swamped by other inmates who wanted to be near him because there was a light around him that was undeniable.

            Forgiveness is the theme of the passage from the 14^th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans and the 18^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel.  Paul talks about the constant problem that we have with judgement.  He asks why we judge one another when we are all accountable to God.  He says that in the end, God will judge all of us.  In Matthew’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus how many time he is supposed to forgive, could it be as many as seven times?  Jesus answers him that it should not be just seven times, but seventy times seven.  Jesus is saying essentially that forgiveness needs to be endless in our lives with each other.  The most revealing story of forgiveness is when Jesus met Peter and the other disciples on the shore of the sea of Galilee after his resurrection.  He was cooking fish over a fire.  He asked Peter, “do you love me?”  Peter answered, “yes Lord, you know that I love you”.  Jesus asked Peter this question three times, the number of times that Peter had denied Jesus at the time of his arrest before the crucifixion.  The effect of this encounter was to forgive Peter for his denials.  If Jesus could do this for Peter, how wonderful it would be if we could do this for each other. This is God’s desire for all of humanity, to be willing to forgive those who have hurt and sinned against us.  Peace would be the result of this.

            None of this sits very well with the Revelation preachers.  They want us to stay away from those who are not born again and remember the great apocalypse that is about to descend on humanity.  With the threat of North Korea and its nuclear capacity, this is sometimes easy to imagine.  I believe, however in a God who loves humanity and will do everything necessary to keep us alive, despite even our worst desires.  The proof of God’s love is that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus, to come to us, to die for us and to be raised from the dead as a gift to us all to show us that forgiveness is the one constant that we can count on from our God. 

           

           

                            

Moving Beyond What Divides Us

 We have two monstrous hurricanes hitting our country as I write this.  One has hit Texas and another one has hit the west coast of Florida.  Harvey has done unimaginable destruction to the Houston area of Texas.  Hurricane Irma is currently causing destruction in Florida and wherever it will go from there.  There are uncounted people affected by these storms.  Houses have been destroyed, people’s lives have been put on hold as rescuers work hard to save people from the high water and get them to safety.  We all know that we should help these people in their distress; money is being donated to a number of organizations that are doing everything in their power to help the affected people. 

            What I notice about all of this is that people are being helped regardless of their beliefs.  Nobody is asking any questions about who people voted for, what issues they support or if they have any same sex marriages in their families.  Nobody cares about any of these things, which makes me wonder how terribly important they are in the wider scheme of things.  What is important here is that we take care of one another.  That means putting the “issues” aside, the things that seem to drive our politics; and working only for what is important:  the welfare of the people in front of us.

            These aren’t the only destructive problems facing us today.  There are massive fires in our Western states that threaten many houses with destruction with many lives being upset.  Here, firefighters from all over are working hard to put out the fires and to help those who are affected find relief.  Again, issues are not important, only the welfare of those affected.

            Rosie and I had some experience with this kind of destruction.  In March of 1993, a monstrous winter storm that put three feet of snow all over the east coast and generated winds in excess of 100 miles per hour that destroyed the beach house that we had had in North Carolina for over fifteen years.  It was a terrible moment in our lives and I can understand how the people who are losing their primary residences feel about these storms.  In a strange way, these things are a blessing for all of us.  They get our attention away from the issues that divide us and focus our concern on the needs that these dear people have.  I know that this is what love is all about. 

            St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, tells his readers: Owe no one anything, except to love one another. He lists the commandments, stealing, adultery, murder, coveting; and tells them that all of the commandments are summed up in the great words, Love your neighbor as yourself.  He makes it clear that love does no harm to anyone, but is the fulfilling of the law.  That is what our Lord wants us to do for all of these people who are in distress, not only from the storms and fires, but in all of the ways that this world creates misery.  Our job is not to judge, but to help.  That is the essence of our faith.

            In a letter to the editor in our local paper, a woman was chastising her church for leaning too much toward what she called “liberal beliefs” and getting away from the teaching of the church.  She was talking about churches that provide a place for same sex marriages, allow people to have an abortion if it is absolutely necessary; and making an effort to include everyone in their communities. She didn’t approve of any of this. She wanted the rules to be obeyed.   When I read the stories about Jesus, they all seem to be of a man doing his ministry and taking care of people, regardless of their background.  He healed the Centurian’s servant and the Syrophonecian woman’s child.  He did all of this because of his primary ministry, which was to love and to care for the people whom he met. Whatever issues that were current in those communities were not his concern.  It was the welfare of the people.  Caring for each other is the mission of the church.  We need to always put our pettiness aside and focus on the need that is around us.

            

Loving is Our Mission

             

            I spent the month of August preaching at Holy Cross church in Homewood.  Homewood is a suburb of Pittsburgh and difficult place for many people to live.  For a long time, there were signs up all over those neighborhoods that said: Stop shooting, we love you!  If you watch the news, you see lots of crime in that area of our city.  There is a lot of pain.  With all of the threatening activity that has been going on in our country, in Charlottesville for example, the threat is particularly felt in Homewood.  Those African-American people have endured endless prejudice over the years and have felt themselves frequently to be outcast.  I preached out there thirty years ago when the Rev. Junius Carter was their rector and I heard horrible stories of the way that prejudice and being outcast affected their lives.

            I wish that I had a quick answer to fix all of this.  We live in a time when hatred seems to be growing in this country.  I have never felt a more urgent time for the Christian message of Love above all things to be preached and understood.  It isn’t easy to love.  There are many things that prevent it.  Most of all it is our concern for self that gets in the way.  Our scripture lessons offer some thoughts about this problem and if we take them seriously, they point to some solutions.

            Paul speaks about the radical nature of Love in his letter to the Romans.  His words aren’t really very easy to hear:  bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep…do not repay anyone evil for evil…If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.  These are words of advice to his followers in Rome.  Those are good words, but hard to live out.  When we are offended by someone, we tend to respond with anger and retribution.  It isn’t easy to bless those who persecute us. 

            Jesus has some words for his disciples about their trip to Jerusalem.  He tells them that he will go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering at the hands of the priests and the elders, be killed and on the third day rise again.  Peter took him aside and rebuked him: God forbid it. Lord, this must never happen to you!  Jesus responded to him by saying, get behind me Satan, you are a stumbling block to me because you are setting your mind on human things, not on divine things.  It was hard for Peter to understand the suffering that Jesus knew that he was going to have to undergo.  Jesus was speaking about the extreme difficulty that Godly love poses not only to each of us, but also to Jesus himself who came to redeem us all by his suffering. Jesus confronted all of the hatred in the world with love; by offering himself to all of the hatred so that God’s love could prevail in his resurrection.  Continuing that Love is our mission as Christians.  It is our job to reach into this world and to find those who need love and to provide it for them.  That means taking care of the poor and the neglected; those who have no resources, and doing for them what they can’t do for themselves. 

            I have been heartened by the response that so many people have made to the horrible flooding in Houston and all of Southeast Texas.  Beautiful stories are emerging of how people are giving of themselves to make other people’s lives easier.  These are people who have frequently lost everything in the storm, but are given back love and concern by people whom they don’t even know.  The people who are helping are not asking questions about what the people in need believe; who they voted for, or anything else.  They don’t necessarily agree with the people whom they are helping.  That is what St. Paul was talking about when he said bless those who persecute you, as far as possible live peaceably with all.  That is the essence of his messages. That is how love works. 

            Many of the people in Homewood need help.  Holy Cross church does some wonderful things in that community.  Even with all of their own fears and wounds that have come from years of prejudice, they still want to help.  St. Brendan’s has always had a tithing ministry that had done unseen wonders for the charities that you support. You are offering the Episcopal Relief and Development as a place to offer support to all of the people in Texas who have suffered so much.

             I thank God for the persistent love that comes from churches who care for others in the name of Love.  God bless us as we do what we can to spread that Love as far as we can.