November 6, 2024
Berkeley at Yale Eucharist
Mark 12:28-34
The Right Rev. Brian L. Cole
About three weeks, ago, I was at a Crossroads.
To be more specific, I was at the Crossroads Motel in Martin, South Dakota. I was visiting South Dakota on behalf of the Diocese of East Tennessee, to explore renewing a companion relationship between East Tennessee and the Diocese of South Dakota.
The Bishop of South Dakota and I were drinking coffee early in the morning, as he spoke about what we would see that day on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
A middle-aged man approached us and asked if we were some kind of preachers. We were in our clerical collars.
I did not think we were the kind of preachers he counted as preachers. Nevertheless, we both told him we were preachers.
He then asked what we thought about the Revelation of St. John. Having grown up Southern Baptist, I knew we were in trouble.
Before we could answer, he asked if we thought we were living in the End Times.
Before we could answer, he assured us we were, and then proceeded to name all those categories of persons who were to be condemned, as the Christ would be removing the true Church from the world.
It was a very long condemning list. It would be a very small church departing this world.
This evening, we are near the end.
We are near the end of the Gospel of St. Mark, and Jesus is responding to a last question from the diminishing crowd. At this point in the gospel, wherever you look, the shadow of the cross falls upon every way.
The question from the scribe, we believe, is not intended to trap Jesus. It is a question that seeks illumination. Can it all be distilled? If one is to follow the way of God, where do you start? Where does it end?
The scribe asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is. Does one rank above all the others?
In being asked for one, Jesus gives two commandments, though he suggests the two are really one.
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
Jesus is repeating words that all who heard him that day knew deep in their bones. It was the prayer. It was to be said daily and reflected upon as you come and go. As you rise and as you prepare for sleep. With all that you have, love God.
Jesus continues by saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love God. Love neighbor. Love self.
This evening, we see again that it will take the rest of our lives, and the whole of the Church, and a willingness to seek and receive wisdom wherever it is revealed to us to ever understand this, let alone inhabit this command, which is two and one.
In the common life of the Church, we confess that Jesus, in the Incarnation, is God become flesh.
God has become the neighbor, to teach us how to love God with everything and just how wide the definition of neighbor can be. Through the grace of God, I can love God with everything and come to see everyone as my neighbor. With the grace of God, I can do this.
Left on my own, my understanding of God and my definition of neighbor ends up being quite small.
Now, I do not want this to be true.
But fear, anxiety, anger, selfishness, good old tribalism, they keep showing up in me and so I end up loving a false God and abiding with very few neighbors. My church can be quite small, too.
In coming to be with you, as persons knew I would be preaching on the night after the election, I was asked how many sermons I planned to prepare. Two? Three?
The gospel lesson, however, reminds us there is only one sermon for all of us, on this night and every night. Love God. Love neighbor. Love self. This evening, we are called to be a people shaped by a command to love God and neighbor. This present moment does not change our call as Christians. This moment clarifies the call.
“Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.”
That is a line from a poem by Kentucky farmer and writer, Wendell Berry. It is a poem entitled, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, written in 1973.
The poem is a testament to going against the grain, to living simply in an upside-down world, taking courage to begin living in what might already be and not only what is.
Anxiety without end does not get us to that new country, the poet suggests. Somehow, a foolish joy just might.
“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”
The scribe asked a question seeking illumination. Jesus offers an answer that is both concise and encompasses everything. When the scribe readily agrees with Jesus, upon seeing this wisdom before him, Jesus tells the scribe he is not far from the Kingdom of God.
Not far. What does that mean, not far?
Is it a matter of physical distance, of how close he is to Jesus in that moment? Is the scribe leaning towards him, becoming an almost-disciple?
Is it a matter of a new wisdom emerging before the presence of Jesus, to grasp that something new is growing in this old world?
Or is the kingdom that is near only first discovered by following Jesus deeper into the city and the cross, where the Empire will kill the God who has become our neighbor. If we are to love God and neighbor and self, we do not get there by avoiding the cross.
This evening, we, too, are not far from the Kingdom. It is still in our midst.
For like the scribe, if we find ourselves close to Jesus, so close to speak to him and hear his response, then we are near, so very near, to what is breaking in now, even as we are being broken.
Remember to stay close to Jesus. And if we are near an ending, stay even more close to Jesus. And if we are near an ending, and Jesus is close, then do not be surprised if everywhere we look there is a shadow of the cross along the way.
For being given the gracious gift to love God with all that we have and to see that the face of everyone that God has made is the face of a neighbor, is to remain joyful, though we have considered all the facts.
To love God this way, to count all as neighbor, requires us to go again to the cross, to take up the cross, to die to self and let our limited definitions of God and neighbor die, too. Nothing new can emerge until we face this ending time.
This is also the time when we can no longer allow any of our siblings to be singled out for lists of condemnation. If you are being demonized, we are all being demonized.
This week, along with a national election, we have received a new Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, upon being elected this past summer in Louisville, Kentucky, invited the Episcopal Church to go with God further into the unknown.
Now, on the one hand, that is an obvious destination, the unknown. If we are willing to move, to get up and follow the Living God known to us in Christ Jesus, who has given us the grace to love God and love neighbor, then whatever is ahead is not known to us. We are the created ones, not the Creator.
Recall, however, we are Episcopalians. Historically, we have tended to believe and act as if we do control the future, determining the bounds of God’s love and who is and is not neighbor.
That is not true, but it is often quite satisfying to believe in falsehoods.
So, as we are near an ending, we are also approaching what is beginning. For the Episcopal Church, I would echo Presiding Bishop Rowe’s invitation to seek the only true destination before us, the unknown.
In going there, we go with God, who meets us here and abides with us as we go into the unknown. As we go deeper into the unknown, we are invited to go loving God and neighbor and true self.
Love God. Love neighbor. Love self.
Recall that God became flesh, became our neighbor to teach us how to love. As God became flesh, Jesus emptied himself to teach us how to be a true self, how to take on the mind of Christ, to love and keep on loving, to keep this commandment, to keep this commandment in end times and beginning times and for all times.
The Wendell Berry poem, Manifesto, ends with the following lines–
“As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.”
Friends, now we are called to the command to love God and to see and love every person we encounter as the neighbor, especially those whom others do not see as neighbor, if they see them at all. I pray this is a moment the Church will be able to meet. In doing so, I pray we will be a people practicing resurrection.