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.
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