Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Proper26 Yr B Oct 31 2021

Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Proper26 Yr B Oct 31 2021

Ruth 1:1-18, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:11-14, Mark 12:28-34

 

Jesus may have been asked the hardest final exam question ever. Which is the greatest commandment, and why, give examples, show your work, and cite your sources. 

 

You 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. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And we spend our entire lives trying to work this out. 

 

So today I want to tell you a story about how we got to this great commandment, consider this me showing my work and citing my sources. 

 

The Ten Best Ways story follows.

 

Desert Box

People of God

heart-shaped box with commandments

Mount Sinai

 

This is the desert. It is a dangerous place. People do not go into the desert unless they have to. There is no water there, and without water we die. There is no food there. Without food, we die.

 

When the wind blows, it changes the shape of the desert. People get lost. Some never come back.

 

In the daytime, the sun is so hot that people must wear lots of clothes to protect themselves from the sun and the blowing sand. The sand stings when it hits your skin. The sun scorches you by day. At night it is cold. You need many clothes to keep warm The desert is a dangerous place. People only go there if they have to.

 

(Put some of the People of God in the far-right corner. Arrange them in a circle. Also, place Mt. Sinai in the left hand corner of the Desert Box, the corner nearest you.)

 

The People of God went through the water into freedom. They were free! So Miriam led the dancing! 

 

Now that the people are free, they can go anywhere they want to go and do anything they want to do. So where should they go now? What should they do? Where will they go now? What is the best way?

 

God loved the People so much that God gave them the Ten Best Ways to Live. Sometimes these ways are called the Ten Commandments. 

 

(Show the heart-shaped box as you say this, but don’t open it yet.)

 

As the people traveled across the desert, they followed fire by night and smoke by day. They began to complain. Some even wanted to go back to Egypt. There was not enough food. There was not enough water. God helped Moses find food and water. Finally they came to the great mountain.

 

(Begin to move the people to your left. Mt. Sinai is in the lower left corner of the Desert Box, closest to you, so that most of the children can see what happens. Move the people carefully until they are all at the foot of the mountain.)

 

The people came close to the mountain, but they were afraid to touch it. Mt. Sinai was covered with fire and smoke. Moses was the only one who had the courage to climb up into the fire and smoke to meet God. 

 

(Move Moses up to the top of the rock. AS he moves up the mountain, hide the figure in your hand to show his disappearing in the smoke.)

 

When Moses was on top of the mountain, he came so close to God, and God came so close to him that he knew what God wanted him to do. 

 

God wanted him to write the Ten Best Ways to Live on stones and bring them down the mountain to the people.

 

God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. Moses gave them to the people and they gave them to us. 

 

(Present the heart-shaped box, and then open it. Begin with the summary. One tablet says, “Love God.” The other one says, “Love People.” A third triangular piece completers the shape of a heart and says, “God loves Us.” As you lay these pieces flat in the sand, read them aloud.) 

 

Here are the Ten Best Ways. when we put the Ten Best Ways all together, this is what they tell us: Love God. Love People. God Loves Us. when we say “us,” we mean God’s love for each one of us as well as all of us together. 

 

(Place the tablets in a line behind “Love God”) 

1)    Don’t serve other gods.

2)    Make no idols to worship.

3)    Be serious when you say my name

(Place the fourth tablet in the middle because it tells us how to love both God and people)

4)    Keep the Sabbath holy.

(Read the next tablets slowly and place them behind “Love People.”)

5)    Honor your parents.

6)    Don’t kill.

7)    Don’t break your marriage. You know, when people get married they think they will be married forever. Sometimes that just doesn’t work out. 

8)    Don’t steal.

9)    Don’t lie.

10) Don’t even want what others have.

 

These are all hard. God did not say that these are the “ten easy things to do.” They are the Ten Best Ways. They are hard, perhaps even impossible, but we are supposed to try. They mark the best way – like stones marking a path. 

(End of story)

 

These ten best ways get translated into the Shema that Jesus repeats when questioned by the scribe, and it is extraordinary. This was not a new thing with Jesus. This love ethic is built into the law and the Ten Best Ways. 

What Jesus does is to restate the commandment. 

 

So now we wonder. This is where you participate. I wonder what it means for you, that the greatest commandment is, You 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. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And that the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

 

We have been hearing from Mark for weeks now these stories of following Jesus. Following Jesus is about being healed from blindness, it's about seeing with new eyes. Following Jesus is about being baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Following Jesus is to walk with the poor. Following Jesus is to be in relationship with all of God's creation, and to protect the most vulnerable of God's creation. Following Jesus is to cast off the idol, to lay down that which is killing you. Following Jesus is to live one's life as if God matters. Amen.

 

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 11 Yr B July 18 2021

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 11 Yr B July 18 2021

2 Samuel 7:1-14a, Psalm 89:20-37, Ephesians 2:11-22, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

 

Jesus said, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” And so they went.

 

I’ve described to you before the wonderful opportunity I had a few years ago, before I came to you, for a sabbatical. I took three months away from the congregation and did some traveling. The first couple of weeks Rick and I, and Tom and Amanda, who were newly married, and Willie, who was newly graduated from college, went to Norway. We saw family, we saw spectacular fjords and mountains, and we stayed in some mighty fine places. The kids flew home, and Rick and I were in London, and then we traveled through Europe ending in Paris. We were with a group of people who turned into friends, and we saw beautiful sights, ancient ruins, and ate really well. Rick flew home from Paris, and I had a month, by myself. The first two months were highly planned, and rightly so when you want to make sure you do and see some very particular things. But I purposefully did not plan out my month by myself. I went where the Spirit led. So the deserted place for me was the Scottish Island called Iona. Iona is a thin place, it is a place where the land and the sky meet. It is a place where prayer has been placed throughout time. It is a place where sacred and secular dance. And it is a place where there are not many people, mostly sheep.

 

Have you been to a deserted place? It doesn’t have to be far away. In fact, I believe we are called to deserted places that are not far from home. Sometimes it is in the deserted place, the quiet place, where we may listen and know we are God’s beloved. This last year of our lives has been something like that, a deserted place.

 

As you well know by now, Mark doesn’t waste any time getting down to business about Jesus, the Son of God, in fact those are his very first words. Jesus is then baptized by John in the Jordan, and we hear “You are my beloved Son, I am well pleased.” And in an instant, Jesus is in the wilderness. I believe that event, and this excursion to the deserted place, are related. Between these two desert place stories, Jesus calls the disciples and sets about healing and teaching. Jesus calls out unclean spirits, Jesus heals a paralytic, a woman who was bleeding, a man with a withered hand, and a little girl. Jesus teaches about the kingdom of God. Jesus feeds five thousand with five fish and two loaves of bread, and Jesus walks on water. The disciples are in all of this with Jesus, and they need to rest.  

 

We don’t hear the feeding story, with five fish and two loaves of bread, nor do we hear the walking on water story this morning, but we know they are there. After the feeding story, Jesus goes off by himself to pray. And when evening came, Jesus saw that the disciples were in trouble on the water, and goes out to help them. The disciples thought Jesus was a ghost and they were terrified. That’s also what is left out of what we hear this morning, and we pick it up again when they all get to the other side of the lake. At this point people recognize Jesus, and want to touch Jesus, or at least the fringe of the cloak, and be healed. Remember the woman who was bleeding, she reached out her hand to touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak and was healed.

 

This is a good news, bad news story. People were recognizing Jesus, they knew what Jesus could do, and what Jesus could do for them. The trouble it seems is that Jesus was beginning to feel closed in, torn apart, mobbed. Expectations of Jesus were rising, this man could heal, and so many needed to be healed. The disciples were beginning to feel afraid of what might happen. Just like at the very beginning, Jesus goes to a deserted place, a lonely place, but this time, Jesus invites the disciples to come.

 

This past year might have been like a deserted place for some. I heard about so much creativity, artwork, reading, and making music, the fruit of silence and reflection. And yet at the same time we worked hard at staving off some fear, some loneliness and heartache. 

 

 

But this Good News from Mark assures us that the deserted place is a place of refreshment. Jesus said, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” And so they went. Jesus makes this very same invitation to us. Come away to a deserted place. And yet, the deserted places are often the places we avoid and yet know somewhere deep down they are necessary places, truthful places. They are not just “time to get away” places. They are not just “we all need a break” places. They force us to recognize what’s necessary. What’s absolutely needed. And who will truly be there when everyone else walks away. 

 

When I was away, on my own in Canterbury, Durham, Edinburgh, Iona, I listened. I found quiet places, sometimes deserted places, thin places, in the catacombs and the cathedrals, in the countryside and the seaside. And what spoke most loudly to me in the quiet, was this, “In the end only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”

 

And so Jesus takes the disciples to a deserted place not just for a well-deserved respite, but to teach them what was learned in the wilderness -- and what will be essential for them to remember when it comes to their role in bringing about the Kingdom of God. Deserted places change our perspective. In the quiet places we have a chance to meet Jesus again. I wonder what you have heard in the last year of quiet? In the quiet places we have a chance to hear Jesus’ claim on our lives and our hearts. We are followers of Jesus. We are invited into the quiet places with Jesus so that we may hear Jesus’ call to us. Jesus says to us, you are my beloved, you are my beloved, and together we may build this Kingdom of God. Amen.