It’s hard to love.
This morning’s readings set out
the vision, task and equipment for love found in Jesus Christ.
The first reading sets out
something of the vision, the Good Samaritan reading the task and the second
reading how you get equipped for the task of love.
As I share from Scripture I want
also to touch on an important anniversary tomorrow that’s explained in July’s
P&P. There you can read how this
bible was brought back from the Somme battlefield by Jack Knight who lived
in Timbers, Church Lane. Jack who lost his leg in the conflict picked it up
from the body of a dead soldier and later on gave it to Nick Turner who’s sent
it to St Giles archive. It’s inscribed: Bombadier
J Knight (455), RGA 69th Siege Battery, Found on the battlefield of
the Somme Nr Contalmaison July 11th 1916. Tomorrow is the
Centenary of that discovery so I want to weave thoughts about this Bible with
those I have described about the vision, task and equipment of love.
Let’s start then with the vision
of love in Moses’s farewell discourse in Deuteronomy 30:9-14 set for our first
reading. It refers to obeying the Lord your God by observing his
commandments and decrees that are written in [the] book of the law but goes
on to announce a new facet of such visionary obedience. Like Jeremiah, who
prophesied near the time of the writer up of Moses’s discourse, we’re told of
law being beyond what’s written on stone, in our context over the chancel
arch. The vision of what it is to love isn’t just the Ten Commandments over the
chancel arch you look up to when you return from Communion. The law of love is
something that seeks to be written on the heart. The word is very near to you; it is in your
mouth and in your heart for you to observe. This
thought or vision of love, last line of today’s Old Testament reading, is
pointer to the enactment of love set forth in today’s Gospel.
In the P&P article there’s speculation
on what the slain soldier was doing holding his bible. Could it be that knowing
he was mortally wounded he was using it for comfort as his life ebbed away?
The words and commandments of the Bible are
a reminder of God’s objective presence we need to sustain us subjectively. We
pray that soldier already had God’s Word in his soul, that it was in [his] heart for [him] to observe, so
that he died with a vision of a God over all with love for all whose grace lit
up the carnage around him so he fell own and yet up into the everlasting arms.
As those words later on in Moses’s discourse express it in one translation: the eternal God is your refuge, and
underneath are the everlasting arms.
The vision of love is given to rest in the heart
though it rests ultimately in the certainty of God’s overarching love. We must bear
heartfelt changes and chances, and what heartfelt terror surrounded this bible
a century ago on the Somme. We Christians like the next man bear uncertainty
and hardship in love, but we do so sustained by worship, word and sacrament en
route to certainty: the certain, all embracing love of God we’ve seen in Jesus
Christ.
In him we find the vision, task
and equipment for love.
There are few bible passages as
familiar as Luke 10:25-37. In the story of the Good Samaritan we need to know
that touching a corpse led to ritual defilement so that the priest and Levite
were doing right by the ritual law. The Samaritan who wasn’t a Jew followed a
higher law, that of love. His action illustrates love as a task. It’s not just
benevolence let alone tolerance but doing concrete acts for people in concrete
need. Our Lord turns the lawyer’s question who
is my neighbour? back on him by the question which of these three was a neighbour, or in another translation, proved neighbour to the man who fell into
the hands of the robbers?
Loving your neighbour in Jesus’s
book doesn’t mean loving some but not loving others. It means loving all, good
and bad. This teaching was acted out when Jesus died outside the walls of Jerusalem.
The Christian vision of love
links to a God of love who acts concretely to serve and save outsiders so that
Jesus Christ’s last conversation was with the thieves crucified with him
outside Jerusalem. To the generous one he said words we all hope to hear on our
death bed. Today you will be with me in
paradise. Luke 23:43
I must leave you to work out for
yourself the relevance of today’s scripture to the xenophobia sweeping Britain
in the wake of the referendum. Can there ever be outsiders so far as God’s
concerned? Can we trust a nationalism that falls short of the deep British
sense of fair play and inclusion, itself built from 1500 years of Christianity?
We want a society that doesn’t
just tolerate difference but which respects those who’re different.
Building respect is costly in time and trouble. It refuses to pass by on the
other side especially when it comes to the disadvantaged. The Samaritan
exemplifies this in the concrete tasks he took on. When
he saw him, he was moved with pity. Then, from the heart’s
motivation, followed these concrete tasks. He
went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then
he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of
him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the
innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you
whatever more you spend.”
The vision, the task, and thirdly the equipment for love. The
first reading set out the vision, the Good Samaritan Gospel reading shows us
the task now we look at the second reading which touches on how we get equipped
for the task of love.
Paul writes to the Christians in Colossae of his prayer that they be filled with the knowledge of God’s will
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding to
lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as they bear fruit in every good work and… grow in
the knowledge of God. He adds May
you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power,
and… be prepared to endure everything with patience. (Colossians 1:9-11).
The vision of love leads us into the task of love, that is, good works, that require the strength that comes from God’s glorious power that serve endurance.
We come to Church to join the angels, as the Glory to God and Holy, holy,
holy chants affirm, in looking forward to the certainty of heaven. Our
Sunday celebrations lift us up beyond the changes and chances of life, the hardships we bear in love, to the certain, all
embracing love of God that will be ours in heaven with the angels and saints.
In so doing the Eucharists we celebrate bathe us in heavenly love.
We come to Church primarily to worship God
but through word and sacrament, prayer and fellowship we are also edified,
built up, equipped. Church is a temple more than a place of edification but it
is both. When we hear the word, offer ourselves in Christ’s Sacrifice and
receive his body and blood we are the better equipped to love. The Holy Spirit
comes again and again in prayer and worship. Through reading the Bible we’re
further strengthened because there’s no word of God without power. Coming back
to the Somme Bible our P&P writer Nick Turner speculates on what the slain
soldier was doing holding his bible in his last hour. Could it be that he was
clutching it to give him courage to press
on in that bloody fray which took 420,000 British, 200,000 French and
500,000 German casualties.
There’s no word of God without power. The Bible the soldier held precious might link to
having God’s Word in his soul, in [his]
heart for [him] to observe. A century ago people knew the Bible, they knew
the promises of God, they held as I hope we hold to one or two choice texts.
That last sentence of our second reading is awesome if you can see it as
addressed to you personally and put it in the singular. He has rescued me from the power
of darkness and transferred me into
the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom I have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The
terrible darkness of the Somme loses its power for one marching forward
confident he can never be taken out of Christ’s kingdom and love. Though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me; your rod and staff
they comfort me. Psalm 23:4
It’s hard to love – in our own strength. It’s hard to persevere through tribulations small or great. The readings today set out the vision, task and equipment for love found in Jesus Christ. They awaken us to God’s vision of what it is to love, far more than the Commandments over the chancel arch, a vision to be written on our hearts. The Gospel reminds us of the task of love and how respect triumphs over tolerance in Christianity. Lastly we’re reminded how the commandment to love brings with it love’s supply in abundance through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment