The Greatest Commandment; Proper 25, October 26, 2014; The Rev'd. Dr. Richard Smith

The Pharisee in today’s gospel who asks which commandment is the greatest is trying to start a debate. There were over 600 laws. Choosing one as the greatest would pit Jesus against those who had chosen another. And, if all the laws were given by God as devout Jews believed, then aren’t all of them of equal weight? This Pharisee is trying to engage Jesus in a debate, but he is disappointed.

Because Jesus answers not by choosing one or two of the commandments, but by pointing to what undergirds all the law and the prophets, the very reason they were given by God in the first place: as a tool to help us love--love God, love each other.

For Jews, it is the very reason for doing all the things the law requires; for us Christians, it is the very point of our lives. It’s all about love--love of God, love of each other, love of this world. We’re down to basics here.

And it’s important now and then to make this explicit, so we don’t forget why we do all the wonderful things we do.

There’s that touching scene from “Fiddler on the Roof” where Tevya turns to his wife and asks, “Golda, do you love me?” She dismisses him, “Do I what? What a silly question! You must be stressed, maybe it’s indigestion. Go lie down.” But Tevye insists, “Do you love me?” Again, Golde shrugs him off. “For 25 years I've washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cow. And you ask, do I love you? Ha!” But Tevya stands his ground, asks a third time “Golde, I asked you a question: Do you love me?” And finally, Golde stops and she thinks quietly and then gives in. “Well, I guess I do.”

And Tevye replies, “You know, it doesn’t change a thing. But after 25 years, it’s nice to know.”

It was very important for Tevye to hear those words from his wife. It was equally important for Golde to hear herself say those words to her husband. It’s important now and then to make love explicit, otherwise we can lose sight of the forest for the trees, the reason we do all the amazing things we do, the love that undergirds them, makes sense of them.

What’s true of Tevya and his wife is true of us at St. John’s. We do many good things here:
In the past year:

• We helped secure healthcare for working people in this City, 
• We helped keep the adult day centers open to make it easier for seniors to stay in their homes.
• We gave valuable input on the needs of LGBT seniors.
• We’ve delivered a quiet but powerful message of peace and ending gun violence in our neighborhood through our Nightwalks and our work to pass Proposition 47, 
• We’ve given out food for as many as 300 people/week through the Julian Pantry, 
• We helped bring water to poor villages in Nicaragua, 
• We’ve worked for immigration reform and helped the children who recently arrived at our border to have more adequate legal representation. Recently, we helped an immigrant family stay together when they were almost torn apart from an unjust deportation.
• Week after week, we’ve stood for an end to war at silent vigils down at the Federal building.
• Week after week, we’ve provided funds to people who are homeless, or needing a meal, or a little extra to pay the rent through the Vicar’s Discretionary Fund.

That’s is a lot for a small parish, and we should be proud of these things. But as this morning’s gospel reminds us, it’s not enough simply to do good things. What’s important is that these good things come from hearts full of love--our love for God, our love for each other, our love for this crazy world. Without love, as St. Paul puts it, we are a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Without love, we’re lifeless, dry, and empty, simply going through the motions.

Which is why we gather each week at this table to break the bread, sing our songs, and tell the story of Jesus. It’s here that we remember why we do the things we do, tap into the spiritual energy that inspires and supports our life and work together. It’s here that we make explicit what often goes unspoken throughout the week: that what we do comes from love, a love that we ourselves have received and tasted, a love that we now pass on to others.

And it’s from that same love that our parish leaders have invited us these last few weeks to give financially to this community as well. We give money to this community because we love--it’s as simple as that. We love each other, we love this crazy character we call Jesus, and we love this neighborhood and City with all their terrible beauty. We give financially to St. John’s because we love.

And there’s more and more about us to love.

• We have a few little ones who will soon be ready for some formation and spiritual guidance of their own in Godly Play. While we’re getting things ready for them, with a little more money, we could hire an occasional babysitter to free their parents so they could more fully participate with us grownups in the Eucharist.
• Our music has been greatly enriched with Aaron’s good work. The man knows how to play that organ! With a little more money, we could make some needed repairs to make that organ even more beautiful and powerful.
• Our garden continues to be an oasis here in the Mission. We’re grateful for the enhancements that Dennis Turner is making possible in the bequest he gave us when he died. But for those enhancements to happen, we have some preliminary work to do. Some trees need some tending. With a little more money of our own and Dennis Turner’s generous bequest, we can guarantee that our garden remains a place of beauty for us and the people of this City for years to come.
• And with a little more money, we can make some needed repairs to this building, like fixing those “thingies” on the tops of these columns that could come crashing down on your beloved vicar’s head at any moment. Just saying. With a little more money, we could make sure that this space remains both safe and beautiful for our worship and for the many in our neighborhood who rely on it: our friends from Mission Dharma, Friendship House, Mission Graduates, Volxkuche, the Aztec faith community, the Plaza 16 Coalition.

All of these things are within our reach. We can do them if we each do our part to share the financial load, if we are each as generous as possible.

Let me close with an old story from the rabbis. Two brothers owned a farm.  One brother was married and had several children, the other was single.  They shared the work equally, and they shared the fruits of the harvest equally as well, each with his own home, and each with his own barn.
Then one night, the single brother said, "It is not fair that my married brother and I share the harvest equally. He has several mouths to feed; he needs the grain more than I."  So that night, he took a sack of grain from his own barn and walked across the fields to put it into the barn of his brother.

That same night, the married brother said to himself, "It is not right that my brother and I divide the grain equally. When he gets old, he will have no one to take care of him. He needs the gran more than I."  He also took a sack of grain from his own barn and took it across the fields to his brother's barn.

This continued for some time. Each night the two brothers gave away their grain, yet each morning they found it had been miraculously replenished. They never told each other about this miracle.

Then one night, the inevitable happened. As the two brothers crossed the fields, each saw the other, each carrying a sack of grain. They realized at once what had been happening, dropped their loads and ran to embrace each other in laughter and tears.

The rabbis say that, on that very spot where the two embraced, the great temple of Jerusalem was built, because temples and mosques and churches like ours are built on those places where people embrace in laughter and in tears.

This is our story here at St. John’s. At the end of the day, it is love that builds this church.

The Man Without a Wedding Garment; Proper 23, Year A, October 12, 2014; the Rev'd. Dr. Richard Smith

So as you probably know by now, we’re in the midst of a special season in the church year. No, it’s not Christmas or Easter or Advent or Lent. It is rather the fundraising season!

There are many reasons why we members of St. John’s give our money to this parish. Probably we each have our own reasons. But speaking as your vicar, I hope that part of the reason we give to a community like St. John’s has something to do with today’s gospel. Let me explain.

I’m pretty sure this gospel is not about what we think it is about.

There's the old story of the pastor giving a children's sermon, where every week the children anticipate him making a new point about Jesus. This particular week he begins by holding up a stuffed squirrel and asking, "Boys and girls, do you know what this is?" Silence. The pastor asks again. Silence. Finally, one little boy is bold enough to shyly raise his hand and offer, "Gee, I know I'm supposed to say Jesus, but it sure looks like a squirrel to me."

If you’ve heard this morning’s gospel passage before, then something like that was probably happening in your own mind as you heard it again. Jesus, in his parables, often uses kings or lords as symbols for God. So as soon as he begins, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king...," we immediately think this king is a metaphor for God.

But watch what happens: The king Jesus describes here is a cruel tyrant, flat out. This cruel king invites some folks to a wedding banquet; when they refuse, he blows them all away, sends soldiers who kill them all and burn their city. When the folks who are left alive in his kingdom hear what this king does to people who turn him down, is it any wonder the banquet hall is filled the second time around? Knowing what he did to the last invitees, would you turn him down?

The first people to hear this gospel story would have easily recognized who Jesus is talking about here. He’s retelling a well-known story, still fresh in everyone’s memory, about how King Herod took over Jerusalem.

You remember Herod, the king who slaughtered all the innocent children when he heard of Jesus’ birth, the one who later beheaded John the Baptist. Herod was a cruel tyrant.

Jesus is here retelling the story of how Herod had taken over Jerusalem. This had involved his joining his family with the ruling Jewish family in Jerusalem. Herod had invited the Jewish leaders and their followers to ratify the joining of these two powers. But they did not like him, they knew he was a cruel tyrant, so they refused. Because they refused, Herod attacked the city, burned much of it to the ground, slaughtered people left and right. Those who survived were brought under his rule by force, as virtual prisoners in their own city.

Today’s gospel is a retelling of that brutal story. Like Herod, the king in Jesus’ story first tries to win over the people by invitation. When they refuse the invitation, he slaughters them and burns the city. Those left alive are then brought into the marriage celebration by an offer they cannot refuse, by force.

But in his retelling of that brutal story Jesus adds a new twist. In his telling, one person refuses to go along with the program, refuses to dance and sing at the king’s wedding, refuses to wear a wedding garment. This man stands there defiant. When the king challenges him for not wearing the wedding garment, the man remains silent. The king then binds him hand and foot, and casts him out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Some scripture scholars say that when Jesus describes this man without the wedding garment, he’s referring to himself. Jesus himself is the one who defies the Herods of this world, stands silent before those who accuse him of treason, offers a different way of living--the way of nonviolence, of forgiving even of one’s enemies, the way of love. As a result he is cast out and killed. This is what the kingdom of heaven looks like when it stands against Herod.
We have two competing worldviews here: that of Herod and that of Jesus. And in today’s gospel we’re invited to choose between them.

The fact is, we’re very familiar with the reign of Herod.

• In Herod’s reign, a young gay man Matthew Shepard, the anniversary of whose death we remember today, gets tied to a lonely fence post, severely beaten, and left to die
• In Herod’s reign, a young African American man in Ferguson, Michael Brown, is gunned down by police when he’s on his knees with his hands in the air.
• In Herod’s reign, immigrant families like Ameli and Nicole whom we met last Sunday are torn apart by unjust laws.

This gospel passage puts the reign of Herod on display and invites us to choose between that reign and the reign of Jesus.

I like to think that here at St. John’s we choose the reign of Jesus, we create a space very different from the reign of Herod. In our best moments:

• Members of this parish have tutored young people from this neighborhood, many of them fugitives from Central America in the 70s and 80s, to make sure they could finish high school and go on to college. The reign of Jesus.
• Later, this parish became a home and a sanctuary to many gay men afflicted with HIV and ostracized from their families and churches. Many of them are now buried here in our garden. The reign of Jesus.

We still do this.

• Every Saturday morning this space is hopping as the Julian Pantry distributes food to people from our neighborhood and City. The reign of Jesus.
• Every Wednesday evening, proud young Native Americans gather here for a healing circle, make their beautiful native costumes, practice their powerful ancient dances. We provide this space to them. The reign of Jesus.
• Twice each month a joyful evening of free food and entertainment is shared by people from our neighborhood and City. The reign of Jesus.
• Last week, as I mentioned, we welcomed Ameli and Nicole, a mother and daughter, both immigrants who fled Guatemala for their lives. Ricardo, Ameli’s husband, is about to be unjustly deported to Guatemala where his life will once again be in danger. His wife and daughter came here to tell their story. We gave them our prayers and some money to fly to see Ricardo one last time before he is deported. They have been living under the cruel reign of Herod. But last Sunday, we showed them a different reign, the reign of Jesus.

Sometimes this happens in ways we’re not even aware of. A few Sundays ago, while I was getting ready for Mass, I saw a young man sitting quietly at the back of the church. I told him, “Hi, my name is Richard,” and told him was glad he could join us. He paused for a moment, then said very emphatically, “I am Will.” We chatted for a few moments, then I ran off to finish getting ready for Mass.

I saw Will a few more times in the following weeks, briefly saying hello each time. Then last Sunday he came up to me during coffee hour just as he was leaving. He said, “I just want you to know that I’ve been coming here while in town on a work assignment. That assignment is about to end, so I don’t know if I’ll be back again. But I want you to know before I go that this is the first place I’ve ever introduced myself as Will.”

Will is a transgendered male from another part of the country where people like him are neither understood nor welcome. While he was here at St. John’s, he looked around, saw who we are and how we are with each other. And, for the first time in his life, he felt safe enough to cross the threshold and introduce himself as Will. It’s what people do in the reign of Jesus.

In different ways we create a space very different from the reign of Herod. But most especially it happens week after week around this table as we gather--from university professors to street people; from beautiful toddlers and their parents to those of us in extreme middle age; from Filipinos and African-Americans to Caucasians and Latinos--all of us together, gathered around this table to tell the ancient stories of our spiritual ancestors, make Jesus present, and break the bread.

There are many reasons why we reach deep into our pockets to contribute our hard-earned cash to this community, and we each have our own reasons.

But ultimately it’s because we know that the alternative reign that Jesus invites us into is not some airy vision detached from the very real world in which we live. It is flesh and blood, brick and mortar. That kingdom happens in time and space. It happens right here, in this space, day after day, week after week.

And we want to be part of it, and we want it to be here for others as well. And so we contribute our money, to continue to make the reign of Jesus happen here, to make it real right here.