Day: October 29, 2023

First Congregational Church UCC, Auburn, MA  October 29, 2023

Leviticus 19:1-18 — The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 

 “Speak to all the congregation of the Israelites and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. You shall each revere your mother and father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God. Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the Lord your God. 

“When you offer a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, offer it in such a way that it is acceptable on your behalf. It shall be eaten on the same day you offer it or on the next day, and anything left over until the third day shall be consumed in fire. If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is an abomination; it will not be acceptable. All who eat it shall be subject to punishment, because they have profaned what is holy to the Lord, and any such person shall be cut off from the people. 

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God. 

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another. And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.

 “You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. 

“You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand idly by when the blood of your neighbor is at stake: I am the Lord. 

“You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Matthew 24: 34-40 — When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘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 neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

My Facebook feed is filled right now with pictures of leaves…. First, my friends from northern Vermont, then central Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, then Massachusetts, and so on.  I can watch the southward march of fall foliage without moving from my computer screen.   Just yesterday, I saw my first picture from Pennsylvania…. And at the same time, there are new pictures… this time, moving from northern heights… my friend from International Falls, Minnesota, posted the first picture of snow there about two weeks ago.  And it’s been snowing on Mount Washington, here in New England.  Time is marching on, in the lovely ways we’re used to.  It all feels very traditional, very comforting.  Autumn leaves, pumpkins, hay rides, apple cider donuts… even the promise of snowflakes, maybe by Thanksgiving… or even tonight or tomorrow…. Makes it all seem as though we’re in that right, safe places, that all is well, and will be always.

And that’s all true, and good, tho I’ve always preferred for it to snow later and later, and wish we could make it stay on the grass only.  But that’s not the whole of our world, is it?  It’s such a temptation to so focus on the beauty around us that we block from our awareness, the evil that’s here as well.

But the beauty around us is not some sort of super-sweet frosting intended to blind us to the tastelessness of the cake.  We still have a war in Ukraine.  We still have a war in Gaza.  Eighteen people who were well and happy last Sunday were murdered in Lewiston by a man with an automatic firearm, murdered as he dealt with his own demons, and now he is dead as well.   And there was an incident up at Worcester State yesterday, with shots fired…tho not a mass shooting, it locked the campus down for a while.  People right here in our town are still struggling to pay their bills, desperately searching for affordable homes, trying to balance the demands of work with the needs of children, worrying about this, that, and the other thing.

Sometimes life is overwhelming.  And for many of us, those beautiful leaves are absolutely essential to keep going.. just that tiny glimpse can give us a little strength.  

The thing is, God offers more, much more, than the strength or peace we get from gazing on beautiful vistas.  God offers us a way to order and live our lives so that, no matter what happens, our lives will have meaning and purpose.  That’s what God plans for us, that no matter what we’re facing, we can still be a force for good wherever we go.

The reading from Leviticus lines out God’s plan for us.  It tells us that God intends for us to be holy, and then it describes exactly what it means to be holy.  Holiness, it says, is based on respect for one another.  

Sometimes it’s a challenge to understand exactly why a particular example is included, and that’s true with the one about what to do with meat that’s been offered to God in sacrifice.  Practically speaking, it’s easy to say you don’t want to save cooked meet (without refrigeration) for three days… bad things can happen if you try that, right?  So, I’m thinking that the problem here is that if you consecrate something to God, and then don’t use it in the way it should be (in this case, by eating it promptly), that you’ve spoiled something God had made special.  In other words, it’s about being disrespectful to God by wasting God’s good gifts and in some way, having been miserly in not sharing the meat with others.

God, Leviticus says, honors generosity to others almost more than anything else.  Don’t take all the crops from your fields—leads some for the poor.  Don’t cheat, don’t steal, don’t make fun of people who can’t hear or see… don’t take vengeance…. Love your neighbor as yourself.

So, when – hundreds of years later – someone tried to put Jesus on the spot, tried to catch him out, what he did was quote this line from Leviticus –  “Teacher,” someone asked him, “what is the greatest commandment”  Jesus answered, He said to him, “ ‘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 neighbor as yourself.’  

In other words, live your lives with respect for others, with generosity in your hearts, and you will be holy, as God has made us to be holy.

Jesus provides us with fewer specific examples, and that could make it possible to mistake the way to which he’s calling us.  When he talks about loving our neighbors, he’s not talking about “thoughts and prayers”; he’s talking about concrete actions such as dedicating a part of your money to the use of the church, so that we, as a community, might bring active love to others.  For Jesus, salvation was all bound up with generosity.  When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, we have to remember that, for him, “neighbors” meant anyone you met… not just the folks in your neighborhood, but everyone.

This is how we become holy.  

• We love our neighbors.
• We smile at strangers.  
• We admire squalling babies in the checkout line at the store, knowing how much stress their parents are under, shopping with a toddler.
• We don’t tell mean jokes, or racist ones either.
• We stand up for those who are being ignored because they are different.
• We live with generosity, welcome and love to all the world.

Amen.

© 2023, Virginia H. Child