Homily for Thursday in the First Week of Lent
February 22, 2024 at Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville
Scriptures:
Additions to Esther (Apocrypha) 14:1-14
In the name of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
I've been thinking a lot recently, about love of neighbor, and about love of enemy. As one commentator put it, the two are often the same. Love of enemy, is actually an expansion and commentary on love of neighbor. And in looking at our Gospel texts today, Jesus here is making a traditional argument from lesser to greater: if you who are evil, if you who are imperfect, if you who are sinful, desire good things for your children then how much more will the good Lord, how much more does God, how much more will God, deliver good things to God's children?
And then we come to this golden rule. Jesus' summary of ethical teaching: in everything, do to others, as you would have them do to you, for this is the law and the prophets. So of course, this is Jesus summing up his own summary of the law, to love God and to love one's neighbor. And then now he's summing it up, again, an even shorter, more concise way to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And I would argue that that positive statement also includes within itself, the negative portion, or the corollary of that, which is, do not do to others that which you would not want done to you.
I think we're living in a time right now, where we look around the world, there are a lot of things happening--There's a lot of cruelty being exhibited. There's a lot of inhumanity and plain evil being visited upon others by people. And in this time, it seems that we all need to be reminded of both aspects of each of these things: that love of neighbor includes love of enemies, and that doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, also implies not doing the other foot we would not want done to ourselves. Jesus empowers us, I believe, to become able to keep these teachings. Sometimes I think our preaching can slip into a sort of moralism that says, go forth and do these things that are righteous, you who are righteous. And yet it is only through Christ, that we're righteous and it's only through Christ, that we're able to do these things. And I know in myself, the times where I have felt myself stretched to love another. I pray that we would be a people that is open to that sort of stretching, and is open to following Christ. And that we would challenge one another and our leaders to be stretched in loving others. Amen.