America's Second Commandment Church

What if we declared ourselves a second commandment church?

The city of Tombstone declared itself America's Second Amendment City earlier this year. What if we made a similar declaration? What if we said, we are going to love our neighbors as ourselves? What if we did it? I mean, not what if we made the declaration - but what if we love our neighbors as ourselves? How are we different?

I knew a congregation once that declared itself to be "a welcoming Christ-centered community".  They made it their mission statement. They put up a sign.

And the first Sunday you were there, either they ignored you completely, or they greeted you; the second Sunday, they asked you to be on a committee.

They got mail inviting them to join a national association of welcoming congregations - they'd never heard of it. 

And by the way after that second week, they never heard from a lot of people.

Of course if you stuck with it - if you stuck with it you learned welcoming is on you. And maybe so is loving your neighbor. So the sign is not important. 

In fact I knew another congregation - the only one where my parents got big smiles on their faces when they went - that did not have a sign. But they sure had a welcome.

The declaration is not important. And it doesn't matter so much if you ask yourself, are we (meaning they) doing it? 

It's a simple religion, really. Love God. Love your neighbor.

The joy in this is that to love God brings you to love your neighbor; to love your neighbor expresses your love of God.

Over centuries people have puzzled it out, turned it over, tried it out, said it in many ways; and those ways were lovely, some of them, others simply challenging:

- Love of God comes out of love of neighbor.
- Love of God is to love of neighbor as contemplation is to action.
- Love of neighbor is love of God because it is love of the image of God.

If we are made in the image of God (not the man on the coin, from last week's Gospel) and we discover that image in each other as we go to love them -

Sometimes it seems pretty hidden - but it can be found!

As we practice the law of love, that is the love of the person that is made in God's image, we begin to see through the dim and distant mirror the love of God reflected in another's face and even in our own.

Christ is the image of God most perfectly to have come among us. When we love the image of God in neighbor it is powered by our love for Christ the living image of God. 

So. Love God in your neighbor. How?

How you and I carry that out is our call, our vocation. Our call to serve. It is our charism as a community, the thing that we do that shows our love for God in our way. And maybe it does mean declaring ourselves "America's second commandment church" if that will create a witness.

How? is our charism, our calling, our challenge. And our freedom. For we do seek to love God, to love God's image, to love our neighbors, and ourselves, as we ourselves are called to do it. 

Where are we tugged? drawn? What are we shown as a way to love? What is right on top of us? What is within earshot? 

What says, here you can, here you are, loving God?

Love God; love your neighbor: is it two commands, or one? Possibly only one, really, the way Jesus connects the two... not an abstract answer to a tricky question or a negative to beat a negative ("Do not do to others what you would not want done to you") but a calling to a way of life, a way of love. 

And so we come to it: God is love.



Of course Jesus knew Rome wasn't sacked in a day. So he gave people a way to practice: Love one another as I have loved you.

Seek out the image of God in another: begin to perceive it; it becomes clearer with practice.

As we practice the law of love, the love of the one that is made in God's image, we begin to see through the dim and distant mirror the love of God embodied in his son reflected in another's face and even in our own.

For as we love the one made in his image, we begin to love as Jesus shows us love, the way that shows us, in his image, the mystery: God is love.


And now let us confess the faith of America's second commandment church in the words of the Nicene Creed....


~ ~ ~

The Peace:
Delight in the Lord in his love and light
Proclaim his peace by day and by night
The peace of the Lord be always with you...

(David Adam, Clouds and Glory, SPCK, 2000, 135.)

The Blessing:
Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong. 
Let all that you do be done in love. 
And the blessing...

(1 Corinthians 16:13-14) 

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Tombstone, Arizona.
October 29, 2017
Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost 
Proper 25. 

Leviticus 19:1-2,15-18. 
Psalm 1. 
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8. 
Matthew 22:34-46. 

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

"...you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord." (Leviticus 19:18b)

You shall be holy as your Father in heaven is holy. (cf. Lev. 19.2, 11.44) 

He watches over his holy ones. (Wisdom 4.15)


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/01/17/tombstone-site-of-the-gunfight-at-the-o-k-corral-dubs-itself-americas-second-amendment-city/?utm_term=.fa3fd67f0335

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-wounded-in-shooting-during-fight-in-tombstone-saloon/2017/10/14/219043da-b122-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.128c91591009

Eliza Linley My ancestor, Martin Ruter Peel, was a mining engineer in Tombstone, shot and killed for the copper mine payroll he was carrying from the bank to the mine in 1882. His father was the judge. Wyatt Earp came to the house to offer to find and kill the two men who shot him, but Judge Peel would have none of it, as it was not a legal solution. Never mind,the two murderers fled across the border and were killed for the stolen payroll. Exciting times. Welcome to Tombstone, vicar! (Martin is buried at Boot Hill).

LikeShow more reactions

 · Reply · 

2

 · October 24 at 1:39pm · Edited ... from facebook page comments.

sour apples

Remember the story Augustine told of the boys in the orchard? That was not gleaning - that was stealing!

Do you remember the story of Ruth? - gleaning among the sheaves, following the harvesters in the field of a man named Boaz. She was following Leviticus 19 - and so was he.

He did not begrudge the foreigner, the poor, the widow, or the stranger, a share in God's bounty. He gave her dignity, respect for her loyalty, and generosity. He shared what God had given.

For who gives us bread from the earth? - the Lord - and we all belong to Him.

Abundance and generosity show piety - that is a love for God carried out in action, in behavior that honors the sacred character of all relationships and puts God first.

God is present in every relationship, every interaction with our fellow human beings.

And so Leviticus:

Do not steal or deal falsely or defraud or cheat or take advantage of weakness and ignorance.

Show by honesty and fair dealing that you love the Lord. Show this is God's world, and you know you live in it - by his grace.

Do not go around spreading rumors.

Do not bear grudges.

That you may be holy,

Broadcast not resentment but peace.

You are God's Temple; you belong to Christ.

So go beyond the circle of retaliation, of revenge upon revenge. Of 'getting your own back'.

End the cycle of violence.

Start a new cycle of generosity and holiness.

Do not rejoice in wrongdoing or delight in telling about it.

Rejoice in the right.

Begin the cycle of creative restoration is the way of life.

The goal is holiness in life together, in being light to the world.

We are the witness to the Gospel, the mirror of the holiness of God.

Our behavior testifies to God's nature, his holiness alive in us.

No grudge bearing.
No tale bearing.
No playing favorites.
No cheating.
No holding back from grace.

Yes "you will look like fools" - to fools, but glorious in the kingdom of God.

You are salt.
You are light.

Abandon retaliation for reconciliation.
Return not evil but good.
Be not a victim but a life-giver.

Your guide is God, not how other people act.

Act - live out - the love of God; make it real, make it show.

Be perfect, that is, be complete - love like God.


+


cf. Rules for Respect, Address to Convention of the Diocese of Olympia, 2007, by the Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel

And another apple story...

+

But to get back to our hazelnut...

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,
slow to anger and steadfast in kindness.
The Lord is loving to everyone,
and his compassion is over all his works.

Julian had a vision -- of God holding the world in the palm of her hand
as Julian would hold a hazelnut. There we all are -- saints, sinners,
mothers, daughters, rich, poor, -- all alike held in God's love.
Everyone, everything, we know and be and are, held together by God's love
-- and our love for one another.

This small cosmos of ours -- is all we know. And yet string theory --
I've been reading Scientific American -- implies that there's more. This
universe may be 13.7 billion years old, since the Big Bang, but there may
have been someting before that -- and other universes beyond it. We may
be one of an ultimate multiplicity of universes. Suddenly the picture
changes.

But to get back to our hazelnut,

Remember those Blue Diamond farmers on TV standing up to their chests in
a roomful of nuts? Our hazelnut is suddenly one of many, an infinite
roomful, with more pouring in all the time. And yet God still holds us in
the palm of hishand. -- And holds each ofus as of infinite worth. For all
that, he sent his son to live for us -- to kneel by the roadside and
touch a blind man's eye, to laugh at a wedding, cray at a funeral, be one
of us.

And we become one with him -- in his love. Each of us is of infinite
bvalue to God -- and he reminded us, too, love one another.

We are all together -- no man is an island, entire of itself; each is a
piece of the continent, a part of the mainland. If a clod should wash
away, Europe (our little island) is the less, as much as if a peak or a
promontory were -- and we all in our cloddish -- or peakish -- way hold
this continent together. -- We all _matter_ to God -- and we each matter
to the other.

We may not always see it out in the world, but sometimes we do in
microcosm -- a little world. For instance, in a church, or on a baseball
team, or in a jazz band, or at a square dance. When I was in DC I was on
a city rec league softball team. No uniforms. We mostly just showed. One
of us was a player/manager. He'd call us all together -- booked us with
the league, and brought the bag of equipment (bat, balls). And then he
played, I don't know, third base. (I was in right field.) We could play
whether he was there or not -- he could have someone else come with the
bat & ball if he couldn't make it -- but there we all were together, each
with a glove at our positions, or up to bat. Maybe our church is a little
like that.

Or maybe we're like Dave LeFebvre's jazz band -- called together, we show
for the gig with our instruments. When we play we have a basic tune --
and each of us gets a turn to step up and shine. It's the job of a good
jazz musician to make the others look good _ when they're playing. In a
jazz band -- or a bluegrass band -- or here.

And lastly our church may be like a dance. One fall evening in high
school a bunch of us from Gaithersburg piled into my 1967 International
Travelall and drove out to Barnestown. There was a square dance. The
eight of us wandered in the room at the crossroads church.

The other dancers welcomed us in, observed that there were enough of us
to make up our square, and got us started. The caller came over when he
could -- someone alerted him -- but it was the other dancers, mostly, who
showed us the moves. And we danced. We all danced. The dance went on
whether the caller was with us that moment to show us, or not.

And the dance goes on. Each of us is part of us loving one another,
laughing with each other, supporting one another in trial or
circumstance. All held together on this continent of love. This crazy
little hazelnut in the palm of God's hand.

St John's Episcopal Church, Lakeport, California
May 9, 2004 9.30am Holy Eucharist
Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C
Acts 13.44-52 or Leviticus 19.1-2,9-18, Revelation 19.1,4-9 or Acts 13.44-52, Psalm 145 or 145.1-9, John 13.31-35