This is one of those gospels that when we hear it, we can get all comfy in our pews and say, \u201cOh well, of course. How lovely that thought is: Love God, love our neighbors. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. No problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what we might call \u201csqueeze me, Jesus\u201d theology \u2014 when we get all comfy with ourselves and think that just \u201clove\u201d is the answer. Thousands of popular songs have been written using those very words, heart-style jewelry is in every catalogue, movies by the score are based on our romantic notion of love. So, loving God and loving neighbor should be easy. Love should be the answer and everything would be all right. But we look at our world. We look at our church. What\u2019s the problem? What aren\u2019t we understanding?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Important questions! If we believe what Jesus is saying to this scribe, we have to admit that love is the answer. But really to understand what Jesus is saying, we need to define what we mean by love and perhaps more importantly (because it\u2019s so easy for us to get comfortable with the familiar) we need to define who our neighbor is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, we need to understand that the love Jesus is talking about has to do with loyalty. The Valentine heart thing is all well and good, but this kind of love is a deliberate mind thing \u2014 a deliberate choice. It\u2019s a commitment to living the kind of life Jesus lives. Jesus is telling his followers that to love God is to be loyal to God both when it\u2019s easy and when it\u2019s difficult. We must be willing to be loyal to the end no matter what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But even if we can wrap our minds around the concept of being loyal to God \u2014 of trying to live a godly life \u2014 we have to remember that this love, this loyalty is bound up, as Jesus says, in loving our neighbor. We can\u2019t choose to do one or the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, of course, comes the sticky part. Just who does Jesus mean by our \u201cneighbor\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We know the answer to that: everyone is our neighbor, both those who are like us, those who are easy to love \u2014 but also those who aren\u2019t just like us and those who are pretty difficult to stand, let alone love. Not an easy thing to do. Our neighbors are also those whom we may never meet, but who might be touched through our outreach and prayer. The good news here is that they just might touch us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Loving our neighbor isn\u2019t just about benefits we confer on them. Remember the Old Testament lesson for today, that wonderful story of Ruth and Naomi. That\u2019s a story of love going in both directions. It\u2019s a story about real loyalty. Orpah wasn\u2019t being mean or disloyal when she chose to return to her own mother\u2019s house, to her own people. That was a perfectly sensible and honorable thing to do in that culture. Ruth and Orpah weren\u2019t Jews \u2014 they were Moabites. We can sense the love that Orpah had for Naomi, but she chose to take a chance at being remarried, perhaps among her own people. Ruth on the other hand, made a radical and courageous choice. Her love, her loyalty to Naomi was so fierce and dedicated that she couldn\u2019t abandon her mother-in-law even if it meant she might never be remarried \u2014 a problem for women in that culture \u2014 and might never be accepted by Naomi\u2019s people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barbara Keener Shenk in her lovely book The God of Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel<\/em> puts words in poetic form to Ruth\u2019s decision to stay with Naomi. Ruth says to Naomi:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour inner flame warmed me and helped me see That kind of love asked a lot of Ruth and it asks more of us, too. Remember at the end of our Gospel passage, Jesus said to the scribe, \u201cYou are not far from the kingdom of heaven.\u201d (But you\u2019re not there yet.) And no one dared ask him any more questions. Being brought face to face with that concept of love \u2014 the kind Jesus is really is talking about \u2014 the Bible\u2019s kind of love \u2014 was maybe quite enough for Jesus\u2019 followers right then. They didn\u2019t yet understand love as Ruth did. Some of them eventually understood. Others walked away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, what now? We may be perfectly willing to accept the full responsibility of this kind of love, but we\u2019d like some guidelines. Jews seek to live out of Torah. We seek to live out our baptismal covenant. Take a couple minutes when you have your prayerbook in your hands, and read pages 304 to 305. You\u2019ve already said yes to this covenant at your baptism. Let the story of Ruth and the words of the baptismal covenant strengthen your heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is one of those gospels that when we hear it, we can get all comfy in our pews and say, \u201cOh well, of course. How lovely that thought is: Love God, love our neighbors. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. No problem.\u201d That\u2019s what we might call \u201csqueeze me, Jesus\u201d theology \u2014 when we get…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,3],"tags":[360],"class_list":["post-511718","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-proper-26b"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":360,"label":"Proper 26B"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":951173,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511718\/revisions\/951173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
That loyalty and truth form bonds \u2026 and last eternally.
I came to share your bitter dregs with you
And found the cup was filled with joy for two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n