Pentecost XXII, Proper 26, Year B

Deuteronomy, 6:1-9
Hebrews, 7:23-28
Mark, 12:28-34

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My four year old interrupted the adults at dinner. “What is politics?” I launched into a pedantic, mind-numbing explanation about how the word ‘politics’ relates to the Greek word ‘polis’ meaning ‘city’ and that it’s about how people live together and make decisions, which affect each other.

My talking began to dull the light in his eyes, and fortunately our dinner guest cut me off, “Your dad has it all wrong. Remember the funniest thing James Carville ever said. ‘Politics’ is made up of two words: ‘poly’ meaning many, and ‘ticks’ – those tiny bloodsucking parasites.”

I love politics. I am going to vote on Tuesday – even though I live in an one party city, even though I pay federal taxes without real representation. How we live together, how we govern ourselves is not only endlessly fascinating, but also very important. It can make a real difference in peoples’ lives.

I’m ashamed to admit that in the ‘90s I didn’t vote much. I understand how people become cynical and depressed about politics. I find that less of a problem if I stay focused on the bigger picture – that voting, participating in our government, is a great gift and a great responsibility. As citizens, as ‘polites,’ we’re obliged to be more concerned with politics than with bread and circuses.

I’ve been reading a tome about Abraham Lincoln, and there’s a section on his famous debates with Stephen Douglas. “[H]uge crowds were riveted for the full three hours.” Lincoln and Douglas debated in seven small towns in Illinois, and thousands from all over the region would pour into each of the towns. “With marching bands, parades, fireworks, banners, flags, and picnics, the debates brought tens of thousands of people together ‘with all the devoted attention,’ one historian has noted, ‘that many later Americans would reserve for athletic contests.’”

How do we compare today? Although they have no influence whether people have jobs, go to war, live with a modicum of safety, get medical care, receive an education, we sometimes find more passion for, interest in, and involvement with the Redskins, the Fighting Irish, or the Yankees than we do with how we live together.

Our Christian faith, our desire to follow Jesus, of course, shapes how we think that we should live together. In today’s gospel, Jesus lays out the foundation for Christian community – love. The defining feature of a faithful Christian is not a profession of orthodoxy, not hours spent in prayer and devotions; it’s love. For Jesus, the Temple sacrifices, religious ritual – the mass – is empty without love of God and neighbor. Love is what authenticates worship. Without love, worship is not sincere; it’s drivel. Do we love God? We know whether we love God by whether we love our neighbor. Love is the essence of Christian living.

Jesus tells us, “Love God with all of your being and love your neighbor as yourself.” How do we love God? It begins with the same way we love people: we give him time, we make room for him in our lives and in our hearts, we talk to him, we listen to him, we sacrifice for him, we thank him, we allow him to shape our lives. And we love God by loving our neighbor.

Today’s gospel says that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. But we don’t always love ourselves as we ought to. I prefer what Jesus says in S. John’s gospel: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15:12) How does Jesus love us? “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13) In other words, loving our neighbor means putting them first, being fully committed to their well-being, forbearing and forgiving their weaknesses. Love means that other people – not ourselves – are the center of our universe.

In today’s gospel, when Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” he is quoting Leviticus, and that chapter of Leviticus gives explicit descriptions of what that love looks like. It says, “When you harvest your field, don’t reap all the borders of it. When you gather grapes from your vineyards, don’t collect them all. Leave the excess for the poor and the foreigner.” (Lev 19:9-10) Love is caring for the vulnerable and responding to the needs of others.

One of Mother Teresa’s prayers is: “Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: ‘Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.’” How we treat the vulnerable, the weak, the offensive, is how we treat Jesus.

As Christians, we size up our government and make political decisions based upon our understanding of the best way to live in a community of love and care. Despite all of the mean-spirited talk and the denunciations, both Democrats and Republicans ultimately want the same thing. We all want a good, loving community. How we conduct politics influences whether we can occasionally restrain evil, and create opportunities, and improve lives. Government, politics can make, and has made, a mighty difference.

But government can’t do for us what we most need. It doesn’t fill us with the love of God. It doesn’t transform our hearts. It doesn’t re-orient our lives toward the eternal. An article in a recent The Wall Street Journal noted that many of the Church’s saints had unsavory pasts.

• St. Callixtus of Rome, who died in 222, was an embezzeler, a brawler, a twice convicted felon. Yet Callixtus was touched by grace, repented, became a priest, was elected pope and died a martyr.
• St. Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614) was an Italian mercenary soldier, a cardsharp and a conman.
• For six years St. Margaret of Cortona (1247-1297) lived as a Tuscan nobleman’s mistress.
• St. Moses the Ethiopian (c. 330-405) led a gang of cutthroats in the Egyptian desert.
• In 217 in Rome, St. Hippolytus set himself up as the first antipope. And St. Pelagia was the porn queen of fifth-century Antioch; her contemporary, St. John Chrysostom, recalled that “nothing was more vile than she was, when she was on stage.”
• Perhaps the worst was St. Olga. When her husband, the prince of Kiev, was assassinated by a rival tribe in 945, Olga embarked on a program of revenge that bordered on the genocidal.

The article said that these were “notorious men and women who turned their lives around and became saints.” Well, not quite. They didn’t turn their lives around by themselves. Their conversion was a gift. It was the work of God. It was the fruit of love. Martin Luther King said, “Whom you would change, you must first love.” King, like Lincoln, understood that influence and persuasion become possible only when people are sure of your goodwill toward them. Callixtus, Pelagia, Olga, these flawed, hurting human beings came to know God’s love for them; it changed them; and, it made them saints.

At coffee hour this morning, Tony and Susan are going to talk to us about church growth. Today’s gospel, often known as ‘the Great Commandment,’ is the context for all evangelism. Love is why growth is important to us. It’s what God wants from us. The Great Commandment to love God and neighbor leads to the Great Commission – Jesus’ command that we, his disciples, go and baptize all peoples. God calls us to make his love known to the world. It’s about welcoming and sharing, laughing and rejoicing, supporting and healing, forgiving and forbearing, making friends and expressing gratitude. That’s evangelism, and when we’re doing it, then Jesus says to us, “Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1.Mark Steitz, 26 October 2006.

2.Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, Simon & Schuster (2005), p. 201.

3. Ibid., p. 200. Quote from Fehrenbacher, Prelude to Greatness, p. 15.

4. Mother Teresa, “Love to Pray,” A Gift for God (1975).

5. Thomas Craughwell, “Saints Misbehavin’,” The Wall Street Journal, 27 October 2006, p. W13.

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