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The Rev. Joey Noble "All
Your Heart; All Your Soul; All Your Mind" For all the times in your life when you've said, "I don't know what to do'" For all those events that were overwhelmingly complicated and confusing, and it seemed impossible to find the way, this morning's Scripture lessons are a welcome relief. For here in the ancient Hebrew text of Deuteronomy, there is absolute clarity:
Jesus recites this text in our Gospel lesson from Mark when one of the scribes asks him, "Teacher, which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus immediately replies,
Then Jesus adds one step more: The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And that's it. That's what is required of us as people created by a loving God: a God who wants to have a relationship with us, and a God who wants us to have a relationship with each other. But as we all know, "love" is not easy. "Love" requires a commitment -- a commitment that involves our hearts, our minds, our souls. That is why this passage from Deuteronomy is repeated over and over by our Jewish sisters and brothers. It is called the Shema, and it is repeated every Sabbath. It is printed in our bulletin this morning. It is attached to the doorposts of many Jewish homes. It is taught to their children: love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and might. We Christians attach the same importance to this commandment, remembering also Jesus' addition: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Victor Frankl was a psychotherapist in the Viennese school of Freud and Adler. Because he died the same week as Princess Diana and Mother Teresa, his life didn't get the attention he deserved. He spent three years in four Nazi concentration camps, including Dachau and Auschwitz. All of his family except for Victor and his sister were killed in the camps. In his incredibly powerful book, Man's Search for Meaning, he describes how he came to understand through his suffering that "everything can be taken away from a prisoner, except one thing: . . to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." Frankl helps us to understand that in loving God. loving our neighbor, and loving ourselves, we are free -- free even when we are bound in chains -- to choose our attitude toward any particular experience or relationship. We may not be able to change the outward circumstances, but we can choose how we will respond to them. For example, I cannot choose whether or not to have cancer, but I can choose to be defeated by it or to live in the midst of it. A neighbor of ours could not prevent being laid off from work when his company downsized, but he could choose whether or not to remain bitter, or to put his energy into finding another job. Frankl's insight was borne out of his own concentration camp experiences. When he was being processed into his first camp, his coat was taken away from him, and he was given the coat of another prisoner. Frankl was devastated, because his wife had sewn the manuscript of his first book, his life's work, into the lining of the coat that was snatched from him. When he looked in the pocket of the stranger's coat, he found a torn piece of paper. Printed on it was the Shema: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength. He knew then that he would have to live his life's work through daily prayer. Frankl identified three ways to counter the despair all around him -- and the despair we experience in our own lives as he read about a young man infecting several young girls with HIV in a rural New York community; or as we drive through areas of abandoned buildings in Washington, D. C. Frankl said that we confront and crush despair by creating a work or doing a deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; or by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. Frankl's own experience fell primarily into this last possibility. He chose the attitude of love, saying, "It is essential to keep practicing the art of living, even in a concentration camp. . . for the salvation of humankind is only through love and in love. It is love that shows us the way to our deepest spiritual self." The scribe who questioned Jesus about which commandment is most important really understood Jesus' reply that emphasized love. He responded to Jesus' injunctions to love God and our neighbors and ourselves by saying, ". . . this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." As we gather on this All Saint's Day to lift up those who left our community of faith this year for God's eternal realm, we remember them not because they were pious or lived perfect "saintly" lives. No, we remember them because they loved us and we loved them. We laughed and cried together, worked and prayed together. They were part of us, and remain part of the "cloud of witnesses" that surround us each time we enter this sanctuary. They were ones who helped to teach us about love -- love as kindness, love as respect, love as caring. As we remember those saints and other "saintly" people in our lives, we are called to be more "saintly", more loving and caring. I was energized by a conversation I had with one of you this week as you described the long relationship with a couple of girls you had tried to help over the years. Now, after some time of being out of contact, one of those girls called to ask for help. Here it was: an opportunity to love, an invitation to get involved in her life. It is impossible to know where this invitation will lead, but it will almost certainly involve surprises, disappointments, celebrations, frustrations -- all those dynamics in a relationship when people seek to love each other. Love is not easy. It is
costly. But it is also what gives life meaning. The
Scripture lesson from the Book of Ruth that Lucy read
earlier is a wonderful love story. Naomi and her husband
leave their Jewish homeland to f~nd work and food for
their family in the neighboring land of Moab. In that
country, Naomi's husband dies. In time, Naomi's sons who
have married Moabite women, also die. The women are left
alone with no means of supporting themselves. The ancient
Near East cultures were not kind to widows. Naomi decides
to return to her homeland and seek sustenance from her
relatives there. Her daughters-in-law want to go with
her. Naomi persuades Orpah to return to her people and
her gods, but Ruth refuses to leave Naomi. She speaks to
her mother-in-law some of the most beautiful and loving
words in all Scripture:
What a love story! What amazing words, held up as exemplary by those who selected the books for our Bible, and yet spoken by a foreigner, a women, someone quite young. But Ruth understood love. She understood what it meant to love another -- her mother-in-law -- as herself. Ruth was willing to risk all for Naomi. In this sense, Ruth was a saint. It is the kind of sainthood to which we all are called. In Victor Frankl's conclusion to Man's Search for Meaning, the writes, "You may of course ask me whether we really need to refer to 'saints' (in the concentration camps). Wouldn't it suff~ce just to refer to 'decent people'? It is true that saints form a minority. Yet, I see our very challenge as to join that minority." There is a Hassidic tale that emphasizes this central idea that miracles happen when love is present. When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezeritch, had occasion for the same reason to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say, "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer," and again the miracle would be accomplished. Still later, Rabbi Moseh-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say, "I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I do know the place, and this must be sufficient. It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished. Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God. "I am unable to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer. I cannot even find the place in the forest. But I do love my people and long for You to protect them. My love and Your love must be sufficient. And it was suff~cient, and the miracle was accomplished. Our closing hymn is often referred to as a children's hymn -- and it is sweet! I love the part that says you can meet saints at tea! Yet, this hymn challenges each of US to sainthood by doing God's will -- loving the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds, and by loving our neighbors -- young women seeking help, foreigners, folk different from us, our own kin -- loving all these neighbors as ourselves. May God be with us as we truly seek to love God, to love others, and to love ourselves. Amen. Back to Table of Contents. |