Feel the Love

What a great day in worship today.  We had another new member join the congregation (which makes 10 thus far in 2011).  Heloisa has been attending regularly with Mark, whom she has been dating, since the fall and wanted to surprise him by joining on Valentine's Day weekend.  The two of them also had a fantastic coffee hour spread of Brazilian food.  I was even applauded after the gospel as apparently my biblical storytelling was quite dramatic.  The only downside was the gospel text itself.  


The WONDERFUL (read sarcasm) assigned gospel text for this Sunday is Matthew 5:21-37, which is Jesus' teaching on the sermon on the mount.  In the NRSV, these sections are entitled "Concerning Anger," "Concerning Adultery", "Concerning Divorce" and "Concerning Oaths" if that helps you understand how much pastors hate to preach on this text.  To make it especially cruel, it's Valentine's Day weekend.  


So I decided to deal with the text with a bit of humor and fun as I gave my congregation a nice Valentine's Day present.  Yep so if you weren't here today, you missed getting chocolate during the sermon. 


Enjoy!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Is this some form of sick liturgical joke that the assigned gospel reading for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, which just happens to be Valentine’s Day weekend, is all about murder, adultery, divorce and swearing? 

Aren’t we instead this weekend, as we celebrate Valentine’s Day, which granted is a Hallmark Holiday, suppose to be talking about marriage and love and caring for the other.  And instead we get murder, divorce, adultery, and swearing. 

Can’t you just feel the love?!

Can’t you feel the love in the air!   The law that was once at least easy to tell when you broke it, it was black or white, you know if you murder someone, sleep with someone who is not your spouse, divorce your spouse or swear falsely.  And instead Jesus has taken this law and made it many shades of grey.  Can’t you just feel the love! 

But love isn’t black and white, so why should the law be. 

We are told by companies that to show your love to someone you should get them certain things as Valentine’s Day presents.  And since I love you, I thought I would give you all some Valentine’s Day presents.  According to my trip to CVS this week, you are to give the people you love a card telling them that.  You are also suppose to give them chocolate, specifically in a heart shaped box.  You are to get the ones you love flowers.  And possibly even a balloon. 

See I am showing you my love.  But how would you feel if you found out that I charged you for these gifts, or that I had lunch with the bishop this week and was tell her terrible things about this place?   Wouldn’t these presents just be empty and meaningless?  Or maybe they would then take on a negative meaning and you will never be able to trust another pastor who brings you chocolate.  (Just to make it stop any rumors, yes I did have lunch with the bishop this week but I said wonderful things about Bethlehem) 

Jesus is trying to make a point about how our actions, thoughts and words are connected by making all these laws that were once black and white now many shades of grey.  When our actions say one thing, but our thoughts and words another; we are not living rightly.  Often our actions speak louder than our words.  But when our actions are automatic, when we just go through the motions, others wonder what our thoughts truly are.

When we can boast that we have never murdered anyone but yet go and ruin someone’s reputation by stabbing them in the back, we words and thoughts are worst than our actions.  When we tell our spouse that we would never cheat on them, but then put ourselves, work, sports, the computer, above them in our list of priorities, we are committing adultery by not giving them the respect that they not only deserve, but that we promised them. 

All these laws that Jesus spoke of, really all the commandments, fall into one of two categories.  How we are to love God and how we are to love others.  And God wants us to live in community; in fact we cannot live outside of community.  We cannot worship God by ourselves because our very relationship with God is a communal one.

We know God because others have shared with us their faith.  We worship God with a community.  We are able to grow in our faith because others support us in our giving, reading, prayer and worship.  And when we love God, we also love God’s creation. 

The law and commandments teach us how to love God and respect and love one another, both with our actions and our thoughts.  Because God wants us to get along, God wants us to have love for another.  And God wants this because God loves us. 

The law and commandments are given to us not because God wants to give us an impossibly long check list to follow in order to be worthy to receive grace.  Instead the law and commandments are given to us to help guide us in how to respect and care for each other. 

So yes the commandments fall into two categories for us to follow “Love God” and “Love others” but really they are all because “God Loves Us.” 

God loves us so much that God does not want us to be hurt by other in both action and words.  God loves us so much that God does not want us to hurt.  And this is why God sent Jesus to die for us, so that we will not hurt, that our hearts will not be broken eternally by the sins that we have caused.  God loves us so much that God does not want us to have to bear the pain that we have caused.  And this is the true love that we should celebrate this Valentine’s Day.