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Proper 25

Preached on the occasion of Appleby United Church's 187th anniversary.

Matthew 22
34When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
41Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42“What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, 44‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? 45If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” 46No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.


If I had to sum up everything I know about Burlington, I might say “there’s a hole in the lake.”

Not a hole in the lake itself, but a hole in the wind, in the lake, just off your fair city. Imagine our surprise, sailing from Toronto to Hamilton, feeling smug that all our trim and strategy gave us a competitive position in the race, only to sail into a hole in the wind.

But it gets worse: local sailors, those blessed with knowledge of the area and the wisdom to steer clear of the hole in the wind, sailed past without so much as a wave. I’m not bitter, and my feelings about Burlington are not determined by a hole in the wind, but I do think about it.

For you see, in the realm of sailing, and in the realm of a few others areas I will look at in a moment, local knowledge is essential. Prevailing winds, the direction of the current, the location of peril hidden beneath the waves: all these fall under the broad heading of local knowledge. If you know what’s coming, or what’s typical for a particular location, or what has changed since the last time you were there, you have the racing advantage. Some might say it’s life-and-death, but again, that’s jumping ahead.

Jesus never seemed to tire of being tested. He silenced the Sadducees, according to the word on the street, and the Pharisees thought, “We need to have a go.” So they set a trap for him and asked him to name the one commandment in the law that he felt was the greatest.

So, how is this a trap? First off, the assumption here is that whatever he said, whatever he named as the greatest commandment, could be debated. The Pharisees saw an opportunity precisely because they trusted in their own ability to make a counter-argument. That was a mistake.

What they didn’t anticipate, what they couldn’t anticipate, was that Jesus would not only answer the question, but also create a two-sentence summary of a ten-point summary that would sum up all of the law. Hence the ending of the little episode, when Matthew says, “from that day on, no one dared asked anymore questions.”

Here’s how it works: Take ten fingers, and recite with me the top ten commandments. More than one scholar argues that the ten finger/ten commandment thing is no accident.

No other gods
No idols
Don’t use God’s name in vain
Keep the Sabbath
Honour parents
No killing
No adultery
No stealing
No lying (false witness)
No coveting

Now take the first five (gods, idols, vain, Sabbath, parents) and imagine how you will “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Then take the second lot (murder, adultery, stealing, lying and coveting) and imagine how you will “love your neighbour as yourself.”

Like Dan Brown and a bad novel it all seems to fit. By loving God and loving your neighbour, you’re not keeping two commandments, you’re keeping 10 commandments. But not just any ten, the big ten, the same ten that are summary of the 613 laws that makes up the whole of the law. So two is ten and ten is 613 and fully half can be summarized with the simple sentence “love your neighbour as yourself.”

Before I go on, I want to you visit Youtube when you get home and search for “Stephen Colbert 10 commandments.” In this wonderful 56 second video, Stephen listens to an impassioned Georgia Congressman make the case for posting the ten commandments in every courthouse in the U.S., then Stephen asks him to name then. The congressman gets three.

So, fully half of the law can be summarized with the simple sentence “love your neighbour as yourself.” But what does that require? It requires local knowledge. It requires the kind of local knowledge that only comes from living in a place, knowing the people, and understanding their story. Local knowledge.

This year marks the 100 anniversary of J.S. Woodworth’s book “My Neighbour,” a sequel of sorts to his previous book “Strangers Within our Gates.” Woodsworth was Methodist minister, born to the manse, and went on to become the first leader of the CCF, forerunner of the NDP. And while Woodsworth didn’t invent outreach ministry, he was certainly among the first to write about it in Canada.

He wrote from the mean streets of North Winnipeg, where poverty and disease were rampant, and the church was struggling to respond. In the conclusion to a chapter called “A Challenge to the Church” he wrote, “The effort must be not merely to preach to the people, but to educate them and to improve the entire social condition.” In other words, love your neighbour as yourself.

In his six years ministering in the north-end of Winnipeg, Woodsworth became a student of place, gathering the kind of local knowledge that demanded two books be written. It was never a case of telling them what they needed (although when it became obvious, he told others), it was a case of learning the context, knowing the people, and understanding their stories. Love your neighbour.

One of the advantages of being a guest preacher is that I can say things that are really provocative and then just drive away. It seems, however, based on my chats with Tim, that the most provocative thing I can say is “keep doing what you’re doing.” Keep thinking about the needs of others, keep engaging the children, keep supporting local need. Now I can linger for coffee, having offended no one.

In many ways, the church I serve and Appleby are sister congregations. Next month we will celebrate 190 years of ministry (not that we’re competing) and we even share a connection through Edgerton Ryerson, the seventh minister to serve our congregation. We also try to keep the focus on local mission, through our drop-in and through an attached senior’s building that makes pastoral visiting a snap. And we try to look forward, imagining what it will mean to be faithful not in 10 years or 25 years, but when we’ve been at the corner of Weston Road and King for another 190 years.

When I described local knowledge in sailing as life-and-death, I was being only slightly dramatic. The old Celtic prayer goes “O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” And you don’t need saltwater to experience it, you need only head that way (pointing southeast). The curvature of the earth means that you can only ever see fifteen nautical miles in any direction, and when you cross the lake there is a time when you mostly lose sight of land. A sturdy boat and all the lifejackets the regulations require never fully eliminate that feeling of vulnerability.

So we seek to gain knowledge, we never stop being students of our setting. And should we ever feel we know everything we need to know to make decisions about out life together, Jesus is calling us to head our once more and gather more local knowledge. “Love your neighbour” is a summary, and a command, but it is also a way of life. It is a way of life that assumes that the streets around us are always changing, and that the things that we did in the past are not likely to work any longer. It is a way of life that accepts that expecting change is the only constant in our lives, and remaining faithful means being prepared set aside treasured things in favour of the new need that will inevitably make itself plain. It means understanding that the decisions we make will effect the life of the community and may (for some) even be life-and-death.

If we had more time, I would spend more time on the first half of Jesus’ summary, loving God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. But you can’t preach all day, so I have to draw to close. I love Jesus’ summary, and no preacher would try to suggest a change, but I will share a restatement. The command, you see, to love God with heart and soul and mind can sound to some like a command, with even a slight note of judgment. And I don’t think that was the intention. I think a long ago group of Presbyterians made a helpful restatement, taking out the command vibe and finding the joy. Pardon the old-style language:

1. What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism has 106 more questions, which we don’t have time for, but question one pretty much sums up when we follow Jesus and keep two great commandments: They allow us to glorify God and enjoy God everyday. This is good news, may it always be so. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 3:26 PM