Words to Build a Life On:
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on July 29, 2018.
The Fifth in a Multi-Part Sermon Series

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Deuteronomy 6:1-9,
and Mark 12:28-34 (also included in the text below)

Today we’re turning to a well known lesson from Jesus.

It comes at a tense time for him.
He’s being questioned by the leaders of the day:

All of whom wonder if he’s teaching the right things
Or leading his followers in the right way.
Some of them, Mark tells us, are trying to trap him
To get him to say something wrong
But he keeps astounding the audience with his answers.

Someone in the audience, after seeing this going on for a bit
Comes forward to clarify things
That’s where we start today, from the Gospel according to Mark.

I invite you to open your hearts and your minds
To this reading from holy scripture:

28 One of the scribes came near
and heard them disputing with one another,
and seeing that Jesus answered them well,
he asked Jesus, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ 

²⁹Jesus answered,
‘The first is,
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 
³⁰you 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.” 

³¹The second is this,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
There is no other commandment greater than these.’ 

³²Then the scribe said to him,
‘You are right, Teacher;
you have truly said that
“God is one, and besides God there is no other”; 
³³and “to love God with all the heart,
and with all the understanding,
and with all the strength”,
and “to love one’s neighbor as oneself”,
—this is much more important
than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ 

³⁴When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him,
‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’
After that no one dared to ask him any question.

And may God bless to us our reading
And our understanding
And our applying of these words, to how we live our lives. Amen.

///
I was reading this story again this week
And it had me thinking of a wonderful old story
Of the blind men and the elephant.[i]

Do you know that story?
A group of blind men heard that a strange animal
Called an elephant
Had been brought into town
But none of them had ever been near one.

None of them knew anything about elephants
What they were like, their shape or form.

Out of curiosity, they said
“We must find out!
We must go and touch and feel with our own hands!”
So they brought it out
And when it came near, they started groping all over it.

The first man, whose hand landed on the trunk of the elephant
Said “Oh, I know what this is. It’s a huge, thick snake. That is what an elephant is”

The second man, the one who reached for an ear
Said “No, no. That’s not right. This is more like a big fan,
useful for cooling us during hot summer nights!”

Another, who was in a different part of the room
Reached out and touched the elephant’s leg
And was confused:
“I don’t know what you two are talking about.
This is clearly a tree trunk.
Its obvious!”

The last guy felt around and grabbed the elephant’s tail
And replied
“you all are surely mistaken:
this is a rope.”

My favorite version of that story
Ends with the various people arguing over who has it just right
They devolve into acrimony and division
And the elephant, with what is something like a sigh
Walks out of the room, and leaves them to their argument.

This old story is meant to help us understand that sometimes we only see things
From our own particular points of view
And often there’s more going on
Beyond our perception, beyond our vision.

Sometimes care for one another
Love for one another
Requires that we worry less about being right
And more about affirming that we’re in this together
You and I.
Besides: we may only be seeing part of the elephant.

///
The other thing that I was reminded, this week
As I reflected on this passage from Mark
Is the wonderful and often curious ways
that the stories of Jesus get woven together.

The people who sat to write the good news down
Did so with a purpose. Each of them. And that purpose was unique to each author.

For more than forty years after the death of Jesus
these stories were passed around verbally
Friend to friend, parent to child, traveller to those gathered around a fire
And some of them would be written down for memory’s sake here and there
And compiled and shared some more
And they eventually found their way to the desk of the author of the gospel itself
Who was trying to tell the Good News about Jesus for a particular community. [Read more…]

Words to Build a Life On:
Live Peaceably With All

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on July 22, 2018.
The Fourth in a Multi-Part Sermon Series

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Romans 12:9-21 (also included in the text below)

Good morning.
Our sermon series on “Words to Build a Life On” Continues this week
With a familiar passage to many here at this congregation.

In the fall of 2014, when we dedicated the Kirk Peace Park outside
And, as part of that, also the Pergola that marks the entryway to the walk
Through the plaza and around the building
Many people remarked at the scripture passage that adorns that structure.
As far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Romans 12:18.

A picture of it is on the cover of today’s bulletin.

It was one of Clay Cook’s favorite scriptures, our pastor emeritus
And it is a fitting epigraph for all to meditate on as people enter that space.

For the past few weeks, we’ve explored
Basic ideas of the Christian faith
that can be remembered in shorthand
That can become the building blocks of a faithful life
Some of you have been telling me that you’re writing these down
Keeping them handy
Next to your computer or in a journal.

That’s great.

Its helpful to have, at the ready
These fundamental ideas.

So that when you are trying to decide how to read some scripture passage
You can remember The Greatest is Love
And you can interpret your reading through the lens of love.

So that when you are wondering about
Whether and how to get involved in something
You can bring to mind Micah’s call
To Seek Justice, Love Kindness, and Walk Humbly.

Or when you are driving around town
You can remember God’s repeated desire to reorient our geography
Blessed are you when you walk through the realm of God.
When you stand where God stands
Comforting the mourning
And supporting the peacemakers.

Those were the first three weeks of this series.

Today we are thinking about Live Peaceably with All.
You can write that one down too, or you can just look at the pergola
And thank Pastor Clay for the reminder.

At first glance, it appears commendable
But we all know that its not quite that easy.
I suspect its that “all” part that is the hang-up, most of the time.
It is for me.
What is the Apostle Paul getting at?

I invite you to open your hearts and your minds
To this reading of God’s word from Paul’s letter to the church at Rome:

9 Let love be genuine;
hate what is evil,
hold fast to what is good; 
¹⁰love one another with mutual affection;
outdo one another in showing honor.

¹¹Do not lag in zeal,
be ardent in spirit,
serve the Lord. 

¹²Rejoice in hope,
be patient in suffering,
persevere in prayer. 

¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints;
extend hospitality to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you;
bless and do not curse them.

¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep. 

¹⁶Live in harmony with one another;
do not be haughty,
but associate with the lowly; 
do not claim to be wiser than you are. 

¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil,
but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 

¹⁸If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 

¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves,
but leave room for the wrath of God; 
for it is written,
‘Vengeance is mine,
I will repay, says the Lord.’ 

²⁰No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them;
if they are thirsty, give them something to drink;
for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’
²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

And may God bless to us
Our Reading, and our understanding
And our Applying of these words, to how we live our lives. Amen.

///
It was January of last year, 2017
during the presidential inauguration,
during the protests that filled the streets of Washington DC
when someone punched Richard Spencer in the face
while he was there, on the streets, talking to a reporter.[i]

[I don’t want to embed the video on my blog.
You can find the video on youtube
At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rh1dhur4aI]

Here’s some context, if you don’t know the name:
By all accounts, Richard Spencer holds some reprehensible views
He’s done some dastardly things.

He is a self-described White Nationalist
He runs a white supremacist think tank
And people often call him a neo-nazi
A label he himself rejects.

He was a featured speaker at the so-called “Unite the Right” rally
in Charlottesville last year
And he goes around spreading hate pretty much wherever he goes.

Now, this is a sermon. We are to proclaim the gospel,
And I don’t like giving this guy or his views even the amount of time I already have
Because its sinful and evil and dangerous and deadly, racism is, white nationalism is,
And I honestly hated having to read up on him again
So I could get these details right,
But I need to talk a bit about that January morning in 2017
When someone came up to him while he was giving that interview
and punched him in the face
before running off away from the scene.
[Read more…]