Today's Sermon

 

"New Neighbors:  Do Unto Others 5"

 

New Neighbors:  Do Unto Others 5

          What a full day:  It’s World Communion Sunday, our “Do Unto Others” sermon series comes to a close, in honor of St. Francis’ Day we have a blessing of the animals, and we are on the home stretch of the public phase portion of our annual stewardship drive when we ask you to support the church because we believe this church has a special voice and gift to offer.  You’ll hardly even hear me reference the church’s trip to Scotland until next week.

          Have I missed anything?  Probably. 

          How could we name everything in the life of the church, much less in the lives of everyone here?  In addition to our shared life, everybody here brings their own story. For someone today the main plot is one of grief, or lingering question, or concern.  For another, a need for guidance or courage or hope.  For yet another, connection, with God or others.

          “Do unto others” is an elegant ethic, simple, profound, meant to guide us in whatever chapter or scene we find ourselves.  It has dimensions interpersonal and international. We end this series where it all begins, with love, a word easily said, less easily enacted.  This was the heart of Jesus and his way.

          When the “Separated Ones” try and trap Jesus—that’s how the First Nations Bible names the Pharisees—When the Separated Ones try to trap Jesus because his way called into question the compromises they were making, Jesus grounded his answer in this simple love:

Matthew 22:34-40

          34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

          In another story, someone asks, “and who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-37).  This is where Jesus introduces the Parable of the Good Samaritan, in which an ethnic enemy becomes a lifesaver.  Jesus’ circle of love is always expanding.  Today, let’s continue to expand the circle of who our neighbor is.  Something struck me this year.  Words work on you.  Ever notice, it’s “World” Communion Sunday?  World. Not “All Peoples Communion”; it’s “World.”  I don’t know the intention behind the name, but I’ll happily play with the implication. Could word invite us to consider a circle wider than humanity? 

          I told you about teaching in Virginia a couple of months ago.  Among the figures I taught was Thomas Berry, a “geologian” by his own naming.  Berry, at the turn of the last century, said our “Great Work” will be to make a number of fundamental changes in the human community, for the sake of the faith, for the sake of all people, and the sake of the planet.  Atop these changes for Berry, a priest, was a shift away from anthropocentrism, living with people at the center.  We are interrelated, and the interrelationships are what feed our wellbeing. 

          It’s tempting here to go into all the ways in which the other species give uslife.  I had a note about how whales surfacing and diving help oxygenate the ocean, and a healthy ocean sucks carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, produces plankton for larger creatures to eat, which then provides food for millions upon millions of people.  While true, this frames other species worth only in terms of their utility to us.  We long ago learned the sun does not revolve around the earth; you could say we have yet to learn the world doesn’t revolve around us. 

          Scripture says that all creatures can worship God (Psalm 150:6).  Jesus says saying if his disciples are silenced in the work of love and justice even the rocks will cry out (Luke 19:40).  As part of Berry’s work, he called for the legal rights of nonhumans, a system not only to serve us, but of course serve us by serving them.  We’ve seen this happen, with rivers granted personhood status, animals granted legal status all over the world including here.  Other creative responses have emerged, such as Buddhist priests ordaining old growth trees to avoid their felling.

          Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Let us expand our thinking about others.  And yes, as we said in the beginning, we mustn’t stay on a superficial level here. I understand many eat meat, for example. This isn’t a fundamentalism, but one can eat meat and have a more sustainable relationship with the species it consumes and its habitat.  Yes, we can cut a tree to build a home, but we can be in better relationship with the forests, and wiser about our use.  As many have said in various forms, we are not apart from nature; we are a part of it. It’s time Christianity catches up with this. 

          Love your neighbors, all your neighbors.  The circle with Jesus always gets wider.  St. Francis, whom we honor this day, knew this. Jane Goodall, who we lost this week, goodness knows she knew this.  You know this.  On Iona, the Call to Worship at the Abbey on Sunday began with the words, “Just ask the animals, and they will teach us.” I’m saddened on some days, maddened on others, when I think of what a limited vision of love we have fostered.  What hubris to think we, who have occupied such a small sliver of history’s timeline are either the center or the culmination. 

          One communion Sunday years ago in another church, we had an unexpected guest.  Before the service began, right through the door, down the center aisle came a squirrel. It stopped and stood, almost reverently, before the communion table.  On one level, it knew, and was showing us, it had a place.

          During our communion celebration today, we will have a slide show of our fellow creatures.  The viewing angle is limited so you are invited to move about the sanctuary.

          World Communion Sunday.  I like the sound of that.

          Amen.