Sermon For November 5, 2000
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
CHRISTIAN GOSPEL: Loving God, Loving Neighbor ~ Mark 12:28-34
SERMON: Living Beyond the Rules
People have been asking me the last couple of days, "Well, how was your vacation?" I said, "Two weeks in Hawaii were wonderful." Two weeks was just the right amount of time, because we were ready to come back home again. Ready to come back and take up all of our tasks. Two weeks gave us time away and an opportunity to reflect on our twenty-five years of marriage, to reflect on our lives. I had already written in last month's newsletter that the same sort of reflection takes place for me each time I officiate at a wedding service. I was about to do that on the Island of Kauai. While we were there, I officiated at a wedding and again, last night, here in this sanctuary. Every time I speak to a bride and groom before their vows, I reflect on what our marriage has meant for me. I had another opportunity to think about life yesterday morning, at a graveside service. I don't think that there is a time when I am part of a celebration of someone's life at a time of death, that I don't also reflect on my own life, and what is important to me. I think about what I have done, and what I yet hope to do.
These times of reflection are critical for us. I think that is what Jesus was talking about when he answered the question about what is the most important thing of all. You have already heard his answer: Love God. Love neighbor. Love self. To do those things means to be focused in on the things that are most important of all. Too often we are caught up in all of the daily activities and we don't stop to focus. We hear the cliché, "Stop and smell the roses." I don't think it's for the benefit of the roses, or necessarily for the beauty or the small. But it is valuable to stop our daily business and reflect upon what is most important of all.
To say that it is important to love God is a nice quick answer, but I don't think that it says enough to tell us exactly what is expected of us. To love neighbor and self gets a little bit closer to it, but, as I mentioned with the children, we often have trouble with the idea of loving ourselves. I like to turn to the psychologist Scott Peck for a definition of love - to love someone is to be concerned with their spiritual welfare, their spiritual growth. To love yourself, then, is to be concerned with exactly the same thing for yourself. You should be focused on what is spiritually enhancing, spiritually nourishing for you. The most important thing is to live your life understanding your connectedness. You don't stand alone, isolated from everything else. Instead, we are all part of each other, part of the planet woven together, a web of life. If we are able to do something that is spiritually good for ourselves, it is also going to be spiritually good for every person that we meet. If we are able to have the right relationship to creation, to God, to love, to justice, to compassion in that right relationship we will have a more honest and loving relationship with each and every person we meet. This harmony will also extend to the plants, the animals, the water, the air, with all the environment around us.
We are getting near the time of the church year when the Board of Finance is beginning to work on the budget for the next church year. You will have the opportunity to make your pledge of financial support for the work of the congregation. There are times when people feel that being religious and giving money are two entirely different things. I remember one of the fellows in the first congregation I served. I had invited him to come along to a stewardship meeting at another church. On the way home, he said, "I still don't understand what God has t do with my money." I was shocked to hear his words. The connection between faith and money is clear to me. My thoughts are much more along the line of another woman in a friend's congregation. The topic of the sermon was about tithing and the Biblical call to contribute 10% of income. She shook her head and said, "I don't know what all this fuss is about 10%, because I don't think that God is all that worried about my 10%. I think God is much more concerned with what I do with the other 90%. Money and faith, the way we treat people, the way we do our job, the way we raise our children, the way we are involved in politics. Anything we do and everything we do is part of our faith, part of who we are as God's children. It is important for us to always have the focus of love of God, love of self, love of neighbor. What is spiritually nurturing, spiritually enhancing, is what is good for the life of all of us together.
Quilts have always spoken to me of exactly that: reminding me of people who have spent hour and hours working on a quilt, giving of themselves. When we were in Hawaii, we saw many of the beautiful designs that were created by the Hawaiian women. They took the patchwork quilting that was taught to them by the missionaries and turned it on its head to express their own culture. They cut out intricate designs, like a snowflake, and appliquéd it on a muslin background. Turned over the side of the cloth half inch by half inch to whip stitch it to the background, then quilted the whole pattern. I looked at some of the small quilts, hoping to bring one back. But even the small ones were $250 and they were all quilted in the Philippines. I said to one of the shop owners that it was sad that all the "Hawaiian" quilts had been quilted in the Philippines. She said, "We couldn't sell them if they were quilted in Hawaii. Each of the full size quilts with a design, takes over one thousand hours and contains over a million stitches. A thousand hours at even $5.00 an hour would make the quilt sell for $5,000. There would be no buyers." If you push that back a little bit, it says something about economic justice, because in the Philippines are stitching those Hawaiian quilts at much less than $5.00 an hour. Each quilt, hanging here in our sanctuary, represents to giving of someone's heart, the giving of someone's hands, their loved poured out in an artistic endeavor or a piece of warmth for their family. We are surrounded this day by the remembrances of those who have come before us. The scriptures call on us to live our lives with integrity, connected in love with everyone around us. I pray that God's Spirit might be with us this day. Amen.