Plumb Line of Love

 Christ Church, St. Joseph, La., 15 July 2012

When I was a kid, family vacations consisted of the occasional drive from Iowa to Ohio to visit my father’s family. That was before Interstate 80 had been built, and so the journey included passing through Chicago.

My father was always looking for educational opportunities for his children, and so we typically spent a day on the way to Ohio at one or more of Chicago’s amazing museums. It was at the Museum of Science & Industry that we encountered the giant Foucault pendulum, swinging ever so softly and silently, from a domed ceiling high over our heads.

A Foucault pendulum is, of course, a plumb line. It's a weight on a string that obeys the law of gravity by hanging straight down—regardless of what you hang it from. The one in Chicago, as I recall, is a huge brass plumb bob shaped like a child’s top, suspended from the center of the dome on a cable. And it moves because the earth moves!

Foucault's pendulum at the Panthéon, Paris.

In other words, the plumb line must obey the laws of gravity and always hang straight down. But because the earth is not a perfect sphere, and because it moves—rotating on its axis as it traces its trajectory around the sun—the ceiling of that building is also moving, and the plumb bob must constantly adjust it’s position in order to obey the law of gravity and hang straight down.

And so the pendulum gently swings, translating the earth’s movement into a highly regular, beautifully precise pattern of movement—on a scale that the human eye can actually see.

In other words, we know this planet we call home is, in fact, spinning and hurtling through space at an alarming speed. Yet we detect none of that. It is beyond the capacity of our human senses, our human perspective, our human experience.

But the giant plumb line brings it down to earth. A Foucault pendulum scales it down, transforms it, so that we mere mortals can in fact experience, perceive, see… the very rotation of the earth itself. 

How much of that did I understand as a child, standing in that museum looking at a Foucault pendulum? I don’t know. Probably not much. But I do remember awe and wonderment.

And, in striking contrast to today’s story from the Hebrew Scripture, I remember it as a reassuring experience rather than a threatening one, a peak at the music of the universe, if you will.

Of course, a plumb line is a builder’s tool for keeping walls vertical, such that the outcome of building is beautiful and functional. But a plumb line is also a kind of discipline that reveals quickly anything with a tendency to be crooked. And discipline appears to be on God’s mind in this conversation with Amos (7:7-17, NRSV).

Building a wall with a plumb line.

 ‘Look, I am not going to continue to look the other way,’ God says. ‘In fact, I’m going to put myself right there in the midst of my people Israel. I’m going to be a plumb line showing how crooked they really are. And, by the way, their crookedness is going to get them into all kinds of trouble. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.’

So.., how do we reconcile these contrasting images of a plumb line? Is it an eloquent translation of God’s creation into terms humans can comprehend, or a harsh discipline that ensures moral and mortal failure? Is it a reminder of the order of the universe, or a measure of the chaos humans inevitably create?

I would say it is “both and”—both eloquent and harsh, both about order and about chaos, both reassuring—for it is evidence that God is among us, and frightening—for it shows how utterly unworthy of God’s presence we are.

And if that sounds a bit like Jesus.., well, you’re with me all the way!

But, of course, Jesus was the ultimate plumb line God set amongst the people, but not the first. This conversation from the book of the prophet Amos is God calling Amos to be a plumb line among the Israelites.

We don’t know much about Amos’ life as a prophet. We know in general that the Israelites were not exactly fond of.. and did not necessarily respond to.. the prophets God sent to point out the many ways they failed to love God and their neighbors as themselves.

Today’s Gospel story (Mark 6:14-29, NRSV) is a graphic account of precisely what can happen to prophets. John the Baptizer was the last of the solely human plumb lines God placed among the people. His job was to prepare the way for Jesus the Christ by calling the people to their inheritance as God’s people.

King Herod was a conniver. He connived his way into a marriage with his brother’s wife, and ultimately into a dilemma that required him to murder John the Baptist in order to save face.

Answering God’s call to be a plumb line among the people can mean speaking unpopular points of view. It can mean standing up for the marginalized and calling for justice for the poor and oppressed. It can require speaking truth to power. And very little is more dangerous than people and nations who have gotten themselves into situations that seem to require “saving face.”

But Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (1:3-14, NRSV) reminds us today that regardless of the risks, at the heart of God’s call to be a plumb line among the people is love—God’s love for us as personified and perfected in Jesus the Christ.

God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing,” says Paul. God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. [God] destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ… [and] …in [Jesus Christ] we have redemption… forgiveness… the riches of God’s grace... lavished on us.”

And who is us? And what is the proper response to this outpouring of love?

Can you include in us the people you fear the most or like the least? An illegal immigrant, perhaps? A smelly street person? Someone who deviates from sex or gender norms? A Muslim?

Can you welcome into that passage the last person in the world you love and think capable of loving you? Are we willing to see such people as our neighbors and our equals in the eyes of God?

Because that’s the kind of plumb line Jesus is: God among us, saying over and over again, in every possible way: We are all God’s children. We are all in this together. Not one of you is any better than anyone else. Not one of you is loved by me any more or any less than anyone else. Stand by me. Walk with me. Dine with me. And you will know and be God’s love in the world.

AMEN.

Love in a Time of Partisanship: A Sermon for 23 October 2011

St. Luke's Chapel, Grambling, La.

In last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, the Pharisees had sent their disciples to try to trap Jesus in what he said. They asked him a question about taxes, a contentious issue then as it is now. Surely a question about taxes would get Jesus into trouble with somebody, no matter how he answered it!

Today seems to be “pop quiz day.” The Pharisees seek to “test” Jesus, and, again, they pick an ideal topic: The Law (Matthew 22:34-44 NRSV). We can almost hear the wheels turning in their minds. A question about the law will surely trip up this peasant from Galilee!

Now when I announce a pop quiz in one of my classes, I am typically met with widespread moaning and groaning. But Jesus—ever on top of the situation—has a ready answer. It is succinct and clear, and reduces the complexity of the law to two truly memorable mandates. We’ll come back to those mandates shortly, but for a moment I want to consider further the Pharisees and what they are up to.

Barbara Crafton is an Episcopal priest who writes an online meditation (The Almost Daily eMo). Writing on today’s lesson, she suggests that we modern Christians tend to forget that the Gospels were written at a time of partisanship within Judaism.

That is, followers of Jesus were a “party” within Judaism and what they believed was deemed heresy by mainstream Jews. The Pharisees were leaders of the orthodox party. They studied Torah, God’s Law and covenant with the Jewish people. (The Sadducees were temple priests and a third party within Judaism, but I’m not going to say more about them this morning, lest we need a score card to keep track of things.)
                               

Simchat Torah

These parties within Judaism thoroughly mistrusted each other. Little wonder then that the Pharisees questioned Jesus! Likewise, little wonder that the Gospel writers, left to carry on the work of the followers-of-Jesus party after his death and resurrection, tend to cast the Pharisees in a negative light, and to show Jesus handily defeating them at every turn.

And because the Gospel writers disliked the Pharisees, we think we should too. 
 
But we are misguided in our dislike of the Pharisees. They are the forerunners, not only of rabbinic Judaism as we know it today, but of those men and women we call Biblical scholars who contribute so much to our understanding of Holy Scripture.

Moreover, Jesus was not the first to reduce the complexity of the law to a clear, concise statement of concern for one’s neighbor. A few decades before Jesus’ time of teaching and preaching, a rabbi by the name of Hillel was challenged by a would-be convert to Judaism to explain the law while standing on one foot.

It’s hard to say what the challenger’s motive might have been. Perhaps he hoped Rabbi Hillel would not be able to meet the challenge and he would then be justified in giving up on the project of becoming a believer. Or, perhaps he was genuinely tired of long, complicated explications and really needed a simple understanding of the faith he was interested in—one that could be given while standing on one foot!

Either way, Rabbi Hillel met the challenge. He immediately raised one foot off the ground and said, That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.

So when the Pharisees test Jesus, he too is prepared with a standing-on-one-foot summary of the law. First he says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. 

And we recognize that as a theme of Hebrew Scripture. Many places in what we call the Old Testament, the people of Israel are commanded to love and commit themselves fully and only to the one and only God, the God of their ancestors, the God who brought them out of bondage in Egypt.

But then Jesus ups the ante over Rabbi Hillel. He says, And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

In other words, where Rabbi Hillel says don’t be hateful toward your neighbor, Jesus says LOVE your neighbor, and not a little bit but just as much as you love yourself. Care as much about the wellbeing of your neighbor as you care about your own.

Now Jesus is, in fact, quoting a passage from Leviticus when he says love your neighbor as yourself, but the bulk of Torah is devoted to other things: Property laws to ensure fairness in society, holiness laws for keeping oneself pure, laws about how and where to worship God, and so forth.

So when Jesus makes “love your neighbor as yourself” the second most important commandment, he is taking a radical stand. And he is upping the ante over the standard teaching and practice of mainstream religion in his day.

Many people—not just the Jews of old but many people today—want to turn Holy Scripture into a rulebook that covers all sorts of things: Taxes, who can marry whom, what kind of government a country should have, what kind of economic system a society should have, which countries are justified in forcing their political and economic systems on others, and on and on, ad nauseum.

But Jesus gave us just two mandates in his 1-minute, standing-on-one-foot interpretation of all of Holy Scripture: Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Pretty simple, huh? Straightforward, direct, no conditions to remember, no complicated formulas to memorize. Just… love God and your neighbor as yourself.

So… how is that working for us? How are we doing with this command to love unconditionally in our own time of partisanship, both within the church and in the larger society?
                 

My Team vs. Your Team

With a presidential election just around the corner, we hear daily from politicians who are quite certain, on the one hand, that God is behind their candidacy, their platform, their agenda. Yet in the next breath they are equally certain we can’t afford to provide health care to all, that educating all of our children equally well is too costly, that the Mexicans who pick our fruit and pluck our chickens ought to be summarily kicked out, if not shot dead on the spot. And they have a following—a wildly enthusiastic following—people who applaud when they say these things and boo when a gay soldier ready to die for their freedom says he’s tired of living in a closet.

Turns out this mandate to love—completely, unconditionally, in our own time of partisanship—is much easier to say and to preach than to live.

But remember that Jesus ultimately and finally upped the ante on his own words. Ultimately and finally, with his own death on the cross, he says loving God and your neighbor is not enough. Be willing to die for them as well.              

  AMEN

Let Go and Love: A Sermon for 16 May 2010

Last Sunday at St. Luke’s in Grambling, I preached a sermon called “Love and Let Go.” Today, my sermon is called “Let Go and Love.”

You might be tempted to think that I just can’t get enough of my own clever alliterations with words! But in fact those titles help me focus on a truth brought home by this moment in the church year. (And, by the way, this is a continuation of that sermon, not a repeat.)

The truth those titles focus on flies in the face of conventional wisdom, as God’s truths often do. We say, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too!” And if it is cake we’re really talking about, that’s fine and good.

But if it is God’s love we’re talking about, then that saying can lead us down the wrong path. The truth about God’s love is we can only have it by giving it away.

This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life, from chocolate and ice cream, to a nice dinner at a restaurant from time to time, to retirement and travel.

Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess. And then something happens that drives home the illusory nature of possession. The economy nosedives. Hurricanes, tornadoes and floods demonstrate their power.

We get so confused at times that we think we possess the people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then life happens. Children grow up and leave. Friends and family die. We must let go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.

“To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.

This truth, that we must give away God’s love in order to have it, is brought home by this last Sunday of Easter. Throughout Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again.

Remember, he left them seemingly for good on Good Friday, only to return in resurrected body three days later. But even as they were struggling to adjust to his appearing and disappearing at will, entering and leaving rooms without using the doors, popping up to cook breakfast on the beach, looking not quite like the Jesus they knew… yet undeniably him…

Even as they were struggling to grasp this new reality, he was preparing them for something else. Two Sundays ago, he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. Last Sunday he said, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” What a contradiction in terms!

And then, he goes. Just like that—and seemingly without warning—he lifts up his hands, prays for them and blesses them, and rises into the clouds.

How mystified they must have been! The Gospel accounts say they “gazed” into heaven. Older translations say, “Their eyes were fixed.” In other words, they stared after him.

And now here we are in that same pregnant pause. Jesus of the resurrected body is gone. The words of his magnificent prayer for us ring in our ears. We are those who “believe…through their word,” that is the word preached and written first by those disciples, the word that has continued to be spoken down through the centuries.

We are those who have received his glory, so that we may be completely one as he and the Father are one. So that we may know the Father’s love as Jesus the Christ knew the Father’s love, and so that we may share that love with the world, which does not know the Father’s love.

How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away.  Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.

But we have an advantage the disciples did not have at that moment of watching Jesus leave them--again. We know about Pentecost; they had yet to experience it.

We know that by letting go of Jesus the resurrected body, they—and we—receive him in a whole knew way. They did not yet know.

Yes, Jesus had tried to tell them that too. “I will go away, and I will come to you,” he had said. The Father will send a comforter, he had said. And he had breathed on them. Yet they did not know.

They had to let him go, to watch him go. And then, when they began to share the love he had for them and the Father had for them through him, he came again on that glorious Pentecost day

And he comes again, over and over, whenever and wherever believers invite him.

Because we are doing Morning Prayer today, we skipped the Epistle reading. It is the closing verses of the Revelation to John, and I want to read it now because it ends with a prayer. Most obviously, this prayer is for the final coming of Jesus the Christ. But it is a prayer we can pray at any time, and it is perfectly suited to this breathless moment between the Ascension of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Here's the reading:

“At the end of the visions I, John, heard these words:
    ‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’
    Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
    It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." (Revelation 22: 12-14, NRSV)

And now here is the prayer:
    "The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
    And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
    And let everyone who is thirsty come.
    Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
    The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’
    Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
    The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.” (Revelation 22: 16-17, NRSV)

AMEN.

Love and Let Go: A Sermon for May 9, 2010

Lydia, the seller of purple cloth, is one of my favorite Bible characters. Perhaps that’s because purple is my favorite color. Or, perhaps it’s because I was once a seamstress, and couldn’t manage to pass through a dry goods store without lingering long over the many colors and textures. All too often, I went home with yardage that was already fashioned into something wonderful in my mind, but that ended up in a drawer, one of many unrealized projects.

I imagine Lydia, her colorful goods spread around her, leaning forward to listen eagerly to Paul preaching the Good News (Acts 16:9-15, NRSV). The workings of the Holy Spirit often seem hidden from human eyes. But the power of the risen Lord was quick to show itself through Lydia. Her heart was opened; she and her household were baptized. Then, having brought her household into the faith, she brought Paul and his mission team into her household.
                                                                                                                                                                  

I don’t know if the designers of the lectionary predicted the possibility of the 6^th Sunday of Easter falling on Mother’s Day, but they couldn’t have made a better choice. Lydia was a mother of the church in more ways than one.

She Worketh Willingly With Her Hands by Elspeth Young

Some sources say she was Paul’s first convert in Europe. As a merchant, she was no doubt a woman of some influence in the community. She not only brought her own family into the faith, but also turned her home into the beginnings of the church in Philippi.

Today’s lessons are full of “good things,” of which the work of the Holy Spirit in leading Paul to Philippi and in opening Lydia’s heart and mind are but two. “Good things” is even the theme of today’s collect. It begins, “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding...” (BCP, p. 225)

For the writer of today’s Psalm (67, BCP p. 675), the good things include God as equitable judge of all peoples and guide of the nations. They include a good harvest. These verses are all about interactions between a loving Creator who sheds light and generous blessings on those who love and praise God.

Light is also a big part of “the good life” in the new Jerusalem of John’s vision in Revelation (21:10,22-22:5). This holy city, which descends from heaven, needs no sun or moon because “the glory of God IS its light and its lamp is the Lamb.”

The gates of this wonderful place are never closed. The river of the tree of life runs through it, and the tree of life feeds the peoples and heals the nations. And all the people will bask in the light and worship the Lamb.

“O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things!”

In today’s Gospel lesson (John 14:23-29), Jesus is also in the business of handing out good things. The first is a promise: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,” he says, “and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The second good thing Jesus hands out in this passage is an outright gift: “Peace I leave with you,” he says, “my peace I give to you.”

Wow! The peace of the risen Christ freely given! And in return for our love, God the Father and God the Son in the person of the Holy Spirit take up residence in our lives.

What more could we ask? Yet so often, our lives do not seem the least bit peaceful. They are too full of unreasonable demands and unfair situations, death and destruction, and conflicts of all sizes and shapes, from road rage to the news of yet another oil spill and yet another suicide bombing in the Middle East.

Who could ask for a better deal than God-With-Us, in exchange for nothing more than our love? Yet so often, we can’t love God for all the unlovable people in the way! From the guy who curses our hesitation in traffic to the suicide bomber, from the slow cashier determined to test our patience to the teenager whose appearance and mannerisms are designed solely to shock our sensibilities—the children of God come to us disguised as the unlovely.

 “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things… as surpass our understanding.”

Hmmm. We are accustomed to not understanding evil things. But good things? What’s to not understand?

I love chocolate and ice cream. I love cool mornings to work in my yard. I love my son. These are good things. What’s to not understand?

Perhaps what is difficult about good things from God is that we can only have them by giving them away.

This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life: the chocolate and ice cream, a yard to work in, Mother’s Day dinner at a nice restaurant with our children.

Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing of goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess.

We get so confused at times that we think we possess the lovable people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then something happens that drives home our utter lack of possession of the people in our lives. Children grow up and leave, and we must let them go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.

 “To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.

During this Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again. Last Sunday he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. This Sunday he says, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” How mystified they must have been!

How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away.  Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives—the lovable and the unlovely—has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.

AMEN.