The Greatest Commandment at a Time of Greatest Need

This has been another terrible week in the world. Not only are things escalating in the war between Israel and Hamas, I was shocked and deeply saddened when I opened Facebook about 9:30pm on Wednesday and saw a message from one of my friends marking them "safe" from the mass shooting in Lewiston, ME. 

Lewiston is not a huge metropolitan area. By Florida standards, it might be considered a large town or a very small city. The population, roughly 36,000 people, is one of those places where you know your neighbors in ways that most urban areas don't. 

To have 18 people killed...and more than a dozen wounded? My New England heart felt the injury. 

The next day...listening to the news was an exercise in collective grieving. And it was those thoughts that I had to sit down and start writing my sermon for the 22nd Sunday After Pentecost. 

Text: Matthew 22:34-46

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“The world is losing its humanity.”

I heard that statement on the radio this week.

Philippe Lazzarini said it.

He’s the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. He was speaking of the humanitarian crisis growing in Gaza…a result of Israel’s retaliation for the brutal and horrific attack unleashed on them by Hamas a few weeks ago.

In that same radio hour that I heard Lazzarini’s interview…I also listened with a heavy heart to a shell-shocked and saddened reporter in Maine.

The otherwise small and quiet city of Lewiston has joined the list of places in America reeling from a mass shooting event.

No one knows why it happened.

The gunman was found dead after a massive manhunt.

A report on the CBS Evening News suggested that this man…who was an Army reservist suffering from mental health issues… may have become enraged over a breakup with his girlfriend.

But that’s only speculation…as people try to make sense of a senseless act of violence.

“The world is losing its humanity.”

I thought about this comment…and the news of the week… as I stared at the words of our Gospel lesson.

I thought about the time frame in which this Gospel was written…roughly twenty years after the second destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The original hearers of this Gospel…just like us…were living in a time of upheaval…violence…and uncertainty about the future.

Judaism has lost one of its major structural grounding points…the temple.

A new thing…which would come to be called Christianity…was emerging for those who found Jesus as the way…the truth…and the life amidst the chaos of the world around them.

With that in mind…Jesus appears in this Gospel lesson as the symbolic representation of the beatitude: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

In this scene in our Gospel…we see another attempt to get Jesus to indict himself…and lose credibility among the people who are listening to his reinterpretation of the law.

He’s already dealt with business about paying taxes.

In the exchange right before this one…he’s had to answer a question about the resurrection to people who didn’t believe in resurrection.

Now here comes a smarty-pants lawyer asking him a question about the commandments.

It’s really a silly question in some ways to pose to an observant Jew.

The First Commandment…one Jews know as the Shema…is a phrase which is recited every day.  

Any Jew worth their salt would know that the first command is to love God.

God is one…love God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength.

These were the words Moses spoke in Deuteronomy.

The fact that Jesus could rattle that off probably didn’t surprise anyone.

What this cheeky lawyer wasn’t prepared to hear was Jesus’ further commentary on his question. Jesus expounds upon the law…drawing on a phrase found in Leviticus… that one must love the neighbor as one’s self.

He then ties the two together by saying that to love God and love your neighbor… are the underpinning to the rest of the law and everything the prophets ever said.

If we’ve been paying attention throughout this year of Matthew…we remember that Jesus famously told those listening to his Sermon on the Mount that the love of neighbor means not just loving the people you like to hang out with.

Loving our people…the ones who look like us…talk like us…think like us…is actually a pretty easy thing to do.  

But in addition to loving our own kind…Jesus expects his disciples…which includes us…to love our enemies.

As Jesus said:

“God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

Tough as this is…what Jesus is saying is that to love God with our all and all means that we must love the things that God loves: which is basically all of creation.

The trees…the birds… the animals…the waters…and most importantly….the people.

All humankind.

All the things who God has made in God’s image.

That sounds good, right?

Putting it into practice?

That’s where we hear again the lament: we are losing our humanity.  

At times of war…in the face of such horrific atrocities…how does one love the enemy who kidnaps and kills innocent people?

How does one love the enemy who retaliates with dropping bombs from the air with no concern for those getting killed on the ground?

How can one’s heart not harden with one mass shooting after another and no effort to change that narrative?

The phrase “thoughts and prayers” rings so empty now.

And yet the words in today’s collect…where we ask God to “increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity” and keep us moving in the direction of loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves…are so timely for this moment.  

It’s when the world seems to want to jack up our fears that our faith in a God who loves must become stronger and more resilient.

Much in the same way our ancestors heard these Gospel messages when they were facing times of crisis in their world…we must resolve to not give up hope…to not lose sight of those helpers who show up and stay with us during moments of pain and suffering.

Helpers like the 23-year-old Palestinian ambulance driver who stayed to administer aid to those Israelis wounded by Hamas gunmen at a music festival.

Or the doctors and nurses in Lewiston Maine who rushed back to work on a Wednesday night to treat people injured by high-powered bullets.

It was the PBS host and Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers who encouraged the young viewers of his television show to “look for the helpers” when they’re feeling scared and under threat. 

Look for those who show the love of God through the way the show up for others.

Not only can we be that for each other…we can look for those people in our lives.

We can elevate those stories and give thanks for those who despite efforts to undermine peace and justice…persist in never giving up on Love as their truth…their way.

Perhaps then we can hope to recover our humanity.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.