“Oh, no,” you’re thinking to yourself, “Didn’t Mark talk about Jacob last week? Wasn’t that our Old Testament sermon for the summer? Where’s he going with this?”
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So, I’m guessing that almost everyone here has their favorite pillow.
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“You shall love…” There are a lot of things that I love about summer.
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A friend and fellow pastor wrote something that really stayed with me this week: “There were no white people in the Bible. Take whatever time you need to process this.”
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As I stand here this morning, I can’t help but think about how much more complicated the world gets with each week. Right now, we stand in the midst of a global pandemic, a world-wide economic crisis, and social unrest at a level that I have not seen since I was a child in the 1960’s.
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So, we’ve reached the end of the handful of weeks when the risen Jesus appeared to his followers. If you’ve ever lost someone that you loved dearly, you may be able to identify with this experience.
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Last week, we noticed that the story that begins with Jesus calling fishermen to follow him—promising that he would teach them how to fish for people—ends with the risen Christ teaching the fishermen how to catch fish.
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So, I have good news and I have bad news this morning.
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Have you ever been to Niagara Falls? Our family went years ago. We were officiating at a wedding in Buffalo. We had some extra time. We tossed the girls (who were still pretty young at the time) into the rental car and we headed off to see something new.
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Ever since Easter, I’ve been working on the notion of thinking of God as an unconditionally loving parent. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he answered, “You shall love…” You shall love God. You shall love your neighbor. You shall love yourself. Jesus insisted that the whole law was summed up in these words.
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So, years ago, a couple who had been long-term friends were going through a painful divorce. I cared about both of them and tried to walk the line on staying connected to them both. At one point, the husband’s birthday and what would have been his anniversary were both coming up. I gathered up all my pastoral wisdom…and asked him to go golfing with me. (No, that wasn’t a class in seminary!)
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Last week, I tried to offer a perspective on God as a loving parent who has never wanted anything more from us than to be loved back. Having tried to find that loving relationship with human beings in almost every way imaginable, God becomes one of us—Emmanuel—in order to show us what it means to live a life of faith. Jesus cares for the sick, feeds the hungry, forgives, humbles himself and loves the seemingly unlovable. Then, he keeps saying to the people around him, “Okay, now you try!”
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