Leviticus 19.1-2, 15-18, Matthew 22.34-46
The Last Sunday after Trinity 25th October 2020
Austwick and online
There’s a lot of promotion in church circles these days, of what is called ‘Discipleship’. It’s a long word to describe something quite straightforward - following Jesus, or if you like, living the Christian way, out there in our everyday lives.
There are books, training courses, diocesan initiatives aplenty, all of them well-intentioned, for in these unsettling times we live in, it is surely a good thing to help Christians feel confident in ourselves about who we are and what we’re doing, for God and others.
Some aren’t so drawn to books, and training courses, and diocesan initiatives, but rather get all the inspiration and help they need in living out the Christian life, from taking part in worship. When we gather together (physically, in church, or these days, connected through radio or tv or online worship services) the liturgy is all we need to encourage us: our worship is our means of praying, reading and learning, and when we are dismissed to "go in peace to love and serve the Lord" we respond with our lives in the hours and days which follow.
The key to living out the Christian life is contained in these words which we often hear in church, often called ‘the summary of the law’.
"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 a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'
They recall that other well known story where these words are spoken - the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25, when an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' " "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbour?" In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho ... "
So when we get up and "go in peace to love and serve the Lord" I suggest there are two questions we might ask ourselves: first, who is my neighbour? and second, How do I love them?
Living out the Christian life, living in response to God’s love for me, asks me to consider how - in what ways - do I love people?
How do you love….
- Someone in trouble… Do what you can to help; listen.
- Someone that’s ill… Send a card, or a message, visit them if you can, ‘be there’ for them
- Someone who’s bereaved, who has suffered a loss (maybe of a loved one, maybe of a job etc) … ‘Be there’ afterwards, listen, pray for them, give them hope.
- Your next-door neighbour… (If you know and like them) be hospitable, lend them things, (if you don’t know or don’t like them) put up with them, practice patience, reach out.
- Housebound, and/or lonely people… Be friendly, give them time, and encouragement, shop for them, make tea for them…
- People in need in other places…. Donate money, food, clothes; pray for them; join campaigns for their better treatment and changes to make improvements in their circumstances.
- Someone we know who helps us a lot…. Say thank you; treat them occasionally.
How do I love people? It’s a wonderful question to ask ourselves from time to time. Our answers help us to see how we are already loving our neighbours as ourselves - thus obeying the second commandment. And encourage us to keep looking for ways to do this.
Remember that the first commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.
I think that in the small, imperfect ways we try to love others, we are also loving God.
Because, as Jesus said in another famous conversation he had, "if you do this for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do it for me.'
Notes
Based on my Matt 22 - How do you love people?, a conversational sermon preached in Liverpool in 2005. Based originally on a conversation over a cup of coffee in a Piccadilly (London) cafe with the YMCA’s Pip Wilson. Also recent discussions with other church leaders about discipleship and discipleship courses; Liverpool diocese has its Rule of Life, whilst the Bishop of Oxford has recently launched Rule of Six: Living well through the next six months in this time of the coronavirus.
Where charity and love prevail,
there God is ever found;
Brought here together by Christ’s love,
by love are we thus bound.
With grateful joy and holy fear
His charity we learn;
Let us with heart and mind and soul
now love him in return.
Forgive we now each other’s faults
as we our faults confess;
And let us love each other well
in Christian holiness.
Let strife among us be unknown,
let all contention cease;
Be His the glory that we seek,
be ours His holy peace.
Let us recall that in our midst
dwells God’s begotten Son;
As members of His body joined,
we are in Him made one.
No race or creed can love exclude,
if honoured be God’s name;
Our family embraces all
whose Father is the same.
Hymn: Ubi Caritas, tr. Omer Westendorf (1961)
Tune: CHRISTIAN LOVE, CM, by Paul Benoit (1961)
Performed by WLP Choir in the collection
‘Catholic Treasures III: Classic Hymns and Songs’
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