Is Death the End?
November 2, 2014Interfaith Service
November 16, 20149
Nov.
2014
What Should I Dedicate to God?
“What Should I Dedicate to God?”
As our Chancel Players express, Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The Thousandth Man, is an example of a focus on commitment.[i] Kipling reflected a late 19th and early 20th century attitude towards gender relationships. The poem is based on Solomon’s Ecclesiastes 7:28, and the difficulty in finding true commitment in this world. The challenge of finding a relationship that stays with us through thick and thin. That does not waver. That goes with us always.
My grandmother used to say if you have three true friends in your life you are lucky. Don McLean sang in his classic, American Pie, that the three friends he admires the most are the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. The Psalmist would say that kind of committed relationship is possible with God. A committed relationship with God is one in a thousand, one in a million type relationship. One great thing about relationship with God is that God is already fully committed to us. We just have to decide to commit back. Let us pray.
We live in a time of great anxiety. Ebola. Terrorism. Finding a job. Saving enough for college or to deal with the rising health care costs.
A recent study by the Lilly Endowment on motivations for spending money found that most Christians don’t think money can buy happiness. What motivates people is less buying or acquiring things to be happy and more about being anxious about losing something. People’s decisions anymore are less about status than security. Respondents were scared they would not have enough money to take care of their children, live in a safe neighborhood, send their kids to a safe school, and be protected in case of illness. The researcher called this SUV theology. Worshiping the need to buy things which protect us. Now I am sensitive to this SUV theology idea having just purchased the first new car in my life for me to drive. Trading in my 2000 car for an SUV this summer.
Since the 1990’s, futurist Faith Popcorn has called a similar trend “cocooning.” One’s staying or working from home, creating a safe place with alarm and filtration systems. In 2000, Harvard Professor Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone lamented the decline of social capital in the U.S., describing a reduction in all the forms of in-person interaction and civil engagement. This past week we saw an election characterized by record numbers of people not voting. The Wall Street Journal reported that this was an usual election, even for a midterm, with so many staying home in places like Maryland and Virginia.
Well, on Dedication Sunday, we celebrate that God offers us an opportunity to escape these trends and to give of ourselves for something special.
Matthew tells us the Pharisees sought to trap Jesus, as they often did, by asking him what the greatest commandment is. Jesus answered that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul. A version of this appears in all four Gospels with slight variation, but it’s clear historically that Jesus expressed it. He was repeating to the Pharisees, Deuteronomy 6:5, a central part of the Shema, the most basic part and essential creed of Judaism,[ii] the “sentence with which every Jewish service opens, and the first text which every Jewish child committed to memory.”[iii]
The great theologian William Barclay argues that Jesus suggests here that “religion starts with the love of God….It means that to worship God we must give a love which dominates our emotions, directs our thoughts and is the dynamic of our actions.”[iv]
In a world of SUV theology, cocooning and bowling alone, where we are too often disengaged from institutions and individuals, the great commandment gives hope for humanity.
For as Barclay suggests, it is only when we love God that other people become lovable.[v] Indeed, Barclay says, the basis for democracy is the love of God. Take away the love of God and we look at human nature and can become angry, impatient, pessimistic and callous about others. When we love God, we realize that human beings are not collections of chemical elements, but are men and women made in the image of God. If one reads the very next line in Matthew’s Gospel, we discover that a second commandment flows from the first, we are to love our neighbor as ourself. So perhaps the kind of commitment that Kipling wrote about is possible.
We are to love the Lord with all, all our heart and mind and soul. The Greek word Holos (ὅλος/ ólos), meaning all, whole or complete, appears over and over and in each Gospel.
What holos implies is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
We are to love God with our whole being. This is more about big picture priority than about every single moment of our lives. Indeed, the Hebrew Bible is full of historical, poetic, prophetic and wisdom literature in which the writers don’t seem to love God at particular moments. The books of Job, Lamentations, and Psalms contain frustration with God. Yet underneath is a love of God which transcends the moments of despair. In many cases, it allows the writers to be true to God when it really counts. When they aren’t, God’s grace and forgiveness make up the difference.
I would suggest a similar focus occurs in Matthew 5 when in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus suggests we should be “perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.” We wonder how we are supposed to be perfect. Yet the word perfect, telos in the Greek, again means complete or whole. It does not mean we are suddenly without fault. It means our complete selves are true to God. It means the whole of us is bigger than the sum of the parts. Our love for God transcends individual moments. God’s grace is present and we are not on our own.
This is good news for busy folks in Montgomery County who struggle with how to get to church every week, teach our children our faith and find a way to be committed to God over the bumps and bruises of life.
Just as our relationship with God is not in peril if we are not focused at every moment, we are not left on our own to understand God. We have a place that can help us draw closer to God. We have a place that can help our children learn and can reinforce our values. We have a place where music helps bring inspiration that we could not find on our own. We have a place where we join with others in mission to have an impact we cannot by ourselves. A place where we learn about Jesus who helps us understand God. A place where we pray, study and worship as a group. A place where we find that our whole selves are greater than the sum of our parts. Since Pentecost, the Spirit has given us a place to help us.
It’s called the church. The body of Christ. Our community where God comes to us. Through our dedication to the church, we create an environment, a sacred space, a spiritual home, for ourselves, our children and for all we care about.
We can stay in our SUVs, our cocoons, our own alleys or lanes. Yet if we want to find connection in our democracy, in our society of separation, in our age of anxiety, the church is one place which brings out the best in us. It brings out our whole and complete selves.
Yet the church only succeeds if we commit to it. Nothing worthwhile in this life is ever accomplished without commitment.
Today after worship, our Deacons will lead us in celebrating our Veterans as we approach Veterans Day. We all owe so much to those who protect our freedom or made the ultimate sacrifice. I cannot go to the granite pillars at the memorials downtown without being overwhelmed by some mixture of admiration, sadness, hope, and gratitude for the commitment of those who served.
I watched Peyton Manning and Tom Brady play football last Sunday. Can they or anyone win the Super Bowl this year? Not without commitment.
Will your business or enterprise succeed? Not without commitment.
Will scientists find a way to deal with Ebola and other diseases? Not without commitment.
After an election we have divided government in Washington and Annapolis. Will anything productive happen? Not without commitment
Will you beat that addiction or rehab that muscle? Not without commitment.
Will Bradley Hills be a beacon of hope for us and others in 2015? Not unless you and I make a commitment to support it.
With commitment, our community will see miracles of what God can do through us. It really comes down to the basic commitment of our selves.
Today we have 13 new members who are committing to join this community. When we join a church we answer questions of commitment publicly. We ask new members to identify with God in Christ and to commit to the church. That is what we all are called to do. We are called to identify ourselves with Christ and give our hopes, dreams, association, our very selves to God, and to commit ourselves to care for Christ’s church.
This church is a solid investment. It’s stable, growing in people and purpose, debt free, fun, and looking to expand its impact.
Bridget and I are going to commit to the church because we believe so deeply in what this church means to our community, its ability to help people and its openness to all. We hope you will join us.
The Rev. Tim Keller suggests that you can argue about the existence of God, but you really cannot prove things by reason.[vi] In the end, no matter who we are, no matter what side we come down on, we each believe something. The atheist believes as much as the Christian believes. We all make a ‘choice’ at one point or another and commit ourselves to it.
If we love the Lord our God holos, with all our heart and mind and soul, if we choose to commit to God and the church, if we give of ourselves, what we are really doing is saying thank you to God for committing to us.
For we have all faced love that is not committed. A relationship which hasn’t worked out. Or a connection which disappoints us. Kipling would say that most of the relationships in the world can change based on what a few people say about us.
God knows our limits and looks past them. God knows we are greater than the sum of our parts. God knows we are made in God’s image. God knows because God is behind it all. God loves us fully. God’s love for us is fully committed. It is complete.
God’s love for you and for me is a love which is honest and true. It is a love which doesn’t shirk from the realities of the world. A love that can stand up to pressure and pain. A love which can push back on insults and jeers.
It is a love which combats injustice. A love which welcomes everyone into God’s house. A love which says to all, no matter where we are from, no matter who we are, no matter what we look like or believe, that we are all children of God and loved by our creator and welcome in this place.
It is a love which stands its ground. A love which honors those who served and seeks peace amidst conflict. A love which finds the lost. A love that is closer than a brother or sister. A love which forgives and gives us chance after chance for our true selves to shine through.
It is a love which will sink or swim with you in any water. A love which will is true in any season. A love which will stand by your side to the gallows-foot — and after![vii]
This is a love which is there for you and for me. God’s love is a complete love. A whole love, a committed love. A love which is connected and compelling and carried through. It is a love which is dedicated to our well-being.
God created us in God’s image, sustains us through the Holy Spirit and ultimately redeems us through the blood of Jesus Christ. How could God possibly do that, unless God loved us completely?
So when we have a chance to commit, to dedicate ourselves to God, to love God in return, let us do so with all our heart and all our mind and all our souls. For that is the greatest commandment. It is God’s gift to us. Amen.
[i] Rudyard Kipling. “The Thousandth Man.” Rewards and Fairies. 1910.
[ii] William Barclay. “Matthew.” New Daily Study Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 1975. p. 324-325.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Tim Keller. The Reason for God. 2007.
[vii] Rudyard Kipling. “The Thousandth Man.” Rewards and Fairies. 1910.