October 23, 2005 - 23rd Sunday After Pentecost - Mother Stephanie Parker

FIRST READING: Leviticus 10:1-2, 15-18
PSALM: 1
SECOND READING: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
GOSPEL: Matthew 22:34-46

(Audience participation will be noted in bold print and italics)

This morning, we finally come to the end of this great epic confrontation, which, in Matthew's particular rendering of this long story, is very confrontational. This conversation, for us, began several weeks ago, when Jesus first entered the town of Jerusalem to great Hosannas and great welcome and great glory, where He then immediately went into the Temple; and then overturned the tables, prompting the Temple authorities to confront Him later and say, "By what authority do you do these things?" And the questions had begun.

For the last weeks, we have witnessed parable after parable, as Jesus seeks to bring these Temple authorities, the Jewish Institution, into this new understanding of God - a God that is made about flesh and not about keeping the letter of the Law - and so, in the last couple of Sundays, we have seen direct confrontational questions. Many commentators call it Jesus' final exam.

There was a great question in Sunday School this morning about why . . . . you know, we have this wonderful parable about the commandments, but, why then, suddenly at the end do we have Jesus asking them this question about the Messiah? Well, when we look back at where we started, we see that, in fact, Jesus has just answered their question, "By whose authority do you do these things?" And Jesus is finished with the question that silences them once and for all, when he has them answer that very question themselves, or at least casts a great shadow of doubt on who they believe the Messiah might be. It just might be this Jesus of Nazareth, is what we are left thinking.

So, today's question on hand: "Which is the greatest commandment", they asked Jesus. This was a very traditional form of argument between teachers who respect one another. The lawyer that they sent in would have been sort of an Ace - someone who was one of their most skilled debaters - and that is why he is there. He is called an adversary - someone who is very much designed to bring out greater meat in the argument. And this very question: Out of the 613 laws that the Pharisaical expression of Judaism had held up for observance, they are saying, "O.K., you Rabbi from Nazareth, tell us: Which of these laws is the greatest?" And, of course, like any good Jewish boy, what does He do? He quotes Scripture, right? If you were Baptist, you would know! The answer is always to quote Scripture! Now, again, I was never a good Baptist - we have established that! - but that is neither here nor there! But, taking Jesus' example, we quote Scripture, so Jesus first, right off the bat, quotes the Shamah, a prayer that every faithful Jewish person would do every morning: Sh'ma Yisrael, Adonai Elohaynu - Hear, Oh Israel - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul. So He quotes Deuteronomy - simple.

Now, for the second one, He quotes what? You guys had a hint in today's Scripture! Leviticus. He quotes Leviticus, but He puts these two together - and possibly not for the first time. He puts these two together, and He says, "You take those 613 observances, and, if you get these two right, you can betcha' that all of those others will fall into place underneath." But He does something else. With Jesus, it is never just a simple answer to a question that is pretty straightforward. Right? What does Jesus always want? Jesus wants more, doesn't He? Doesn't Jesus require more than the status quo? So, He says, "The second is like it." How do we best love God with all of our hearts and with all of our soul and with all of our mind (and with all of our strength or might, as Luke and Mark say)? How do we do that? Jesus says, "Well, love your neighbor as yourself". So you say, "Well that's pretty easy. That guy Bob, next door, he's all right. Now, Susan, on the other side, I am not sure about her." (Not Susan Green; she is a saint among us, I swear!). Now, here comes the really deep question, right? Who is our neighbor? This is the deep and elemental question that not only we are called to, as Christians in this day, but who prophets, time and time and time again, called the ancient Hebrews to in their day. This is a continuing arch. Remember, Jesus has not abolished the Law. What does Jesus do? He fulfills the Law! He enfleshes the Law. He puts meat on its bones. He gives it warmth. He gives it meaning, and He asks each and every one of us today to identify, once and for all - Who is our neighbor?

Deep question. Deep question.

So, before I try to at least get to who I think our neighbor might be, I offer an example of how, maybe, we are supposed to feel about our neighbor, especially those neighbors that are most, what? - unlike ourselves, which means hard to deal with, right? They are unlike ourselves, so they must be the ones who are hard to deal with. So, we do a pretty good job, I think most of us, as people, in getting along with our neighbor, be they in a foreign country, or whoever they are, if they resemble us, so that we have a context to understand them. Now, do we do as well when we are trying to understand a neighbor that is much unlike ourself? - in culture, perhaps; a different class, a different education - we struggle, I think, a little bit more.

And so, here is an example that I read one time, and I wish I could credit it. Maybe I made it up! That is every possibility! If it is good, I actually made it up - sometimes - not always! But. . . .

Think of your pinky toe - your little pinky toe. How often, in the course of your day, week, or month, do you think of this little digit, sitting there quietly, on the edge of your foot? Do you think of it much? Do you think of your stomach? Do you think of your eye? You have all of these other parts of yourself that you think of quite often, but, how many times do you think of that little pinky toe? Now, you are walking through your living room on the way to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, and you smack that pinky toe against a table. Do you feel that pinky toe? Do you think about that pinky toe? Do you suddenly give that pinky toe a whole lot of attention and a whole lot of thought?

Well, this is sort of an example that has had some great meaning to me, because, my friends, people that Jesus are always pointing to on the margins - the people who are disenfranchised, the people in the Gospel that Jesus is constantly going out to the edge and bringing into the light and love of Christ's Gospel - are what? They are the pinky toes of the world!

We don't give them much thought in our daily life. They are there with us every day. We pass them on the streets of Palm Springs. We have them in our neighborhood - people who are lonely, people who are disenfranchised in one way or the other. So Jesus, when we think about neighbor, wants us to be very deeply aware of the pinky toes. When we see a homeless man bathing in this fountain across the street right here, we want to feel the pain of that pinky toe. That is what Jesus calls us to understand about how that person is our neighbor. When we see a good friend of ours, who is lost in alcoholism or drug abuse, and we see his pain, and we are angry at how this alcoholism and how this drug abuse has affected his life, we are supposed to feel that pain - and not take it on as our own, because we can't heal those (right?) who need to work with God to work out their own healing - but we are supposed to feel their pain. We are not supposed to reject them, and, most of all, we are not supposed to what? Pretend that they don't exist, or pretend that they are not there. "Feel the pain of the pinky toes", is the message.

Who is our neighbor?

So, I am just going to finish with two stories. One, a personal story out of my own life and one because I just think it is the most wonderful expression of what Jesus tells us today.

The first, out of my own life. The first year of Seminary, I was doing my chaplaincy at St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital in Washington, D. C. Now, if you don't know about this hospital, it is one of the oldest mental institutions in the world, and, at it's hay-day, it would house, hold, or imprison, whatever the current manifestation of mental health care was, up to 50-, 60-, or 70,000 people at a time. It is currently the place, as a matter of fact, where John Hinckley is. He is in the forensics side, and we hear a lot about political prisoners. Anyway, I was doing my chaplaincy at St. Elizabeth's for a short time of ten weeks, and the regular staff just sort of sees the summer chaplains come and go, right? And I am doing my first service at the big St. Elizabeth's Chapel. It is called the Chapel, but it is about as big as St. Paul's. We get some people from the community, but we also get most of the patients who can leave and who have those privileges, and we get a lot of homeless people who come in off the street, because the gates are open on Sunday. Now, the rule at St. Elizabeth's always was that, when you bring your belongings, your pocketbook, your wallet, into the Chapel with you, you lock it up in your locker - not because we expect all homeless people or poor people or mentally ill people to be thieves, but you wouldn't put piece of meat in front of a starving person and not expect them to pick it up and eat it. O.K.? It was out of respect, in many ways. But, of course, it is my first time preaching, and I know I am going to be, quite frankly, preaching to schizophrenics and homeless people and Baptists and Methodists and Roman Catholics and, you know, it is just all a mix. So, I am a little nervous, with the first-time jitters - remember, first year of Seminary - and I go in, drop my bag in the sacristy, run around getting ready, and go to the service. The service goes wonderfully, as far as I am concerned. Nobody died; nobody got injured; and we all survived. I go back into the sacristy, and, as soon as I enter in and see my bag sitting there, where I haven't locked it up, I think to myself, "This is probably bad". And, sure enough, there was my wallet, laying out on the side, and all of the contents of the inner pockets - that big fat one on the outside where you keep your money and stuff, where you want to get to it pretty quick - it was gone. Now, as a first-year seminarian, I had all of $30 in that wallet, which was a fortune for me, at the time, but not a great loss in terms of finances.

But, in that same pocket, was a small wallet-sized picture of my mother, whom I had just lost to cancer four weeks before, and I had pulled this picture out of all the pictures I had of her and was carrying it around with me, because, somehow, it kept her there with me as I was grieving her loss. And that almost killed me! It felt like, in losing that picture, I had somehow lost her all over again, so all I could think about was getting that picture. So, the first thing I did was start going through what? All the garbage cans! I am thinking, "You know, all they really wanted was the money, so my stuff has got to be here somewhere!" So, I go through all the garbage cans in the Chapel - not there. So, I go right outside to the gates. Now, St. Elizabeth's sits at Malcolm X and MLK, a pretty rough part of town, and, on Sundays, that gate is open to everybody, and you get sort of a lot of interesting people and activities that happen at that gate - now, that is all I am going to say about that! - and, in addition to that, you get a lot of interesting trash, as well - and that is all I am going to say about that! But I didn't care. I knew that picture of my mother had to be on this ground somewhere, most likely it did not make it off, and I immediately dashed outside and started going through every filthy garbage can I could find. Now, as I was headed to about my second garbage can, there was this picnic area where everybody ate, and somebody said, "Chaplain Parker! Why are you going through the trash?" I was very distraught, and I said, "Well, look, somebody stole my wallet, and I had a picture of my mother in there, and my mother just died a few weeks ago, and I really want that picture back, and I don't care about the money, but if I could just get that picture. . ." So, off I go to the next can. While I am so intent on my stuff, and I am looking, and I am looking, and I am looking, and I am looking - finally, I looked up, feeling kind of hopeless and grubby, thinking that I won't find the picture, and I look up, and what do you suppose is happening? Everybody is going through the trash - everybody - the homeless guys that come in off the street; the guy, Marvin, who wore a foil umbrella on his head - he got it! The guards at the gate who would never really talk to me because I was a short-timer - they got it! They are going through the garbage cans, looking for this picture of my mother. Then suddenly, from behind the Chapel comes an individual, holding the picture and a couple of other cards from inside my wallet. What was lost was found and, chances are, this might have even been the guy that took it. Quite frankly, I didn't care. All I knew was that I had this precious object back in my hands.

But what else do you think I learned that day? I learned who my neighbor was. I was not only trying to be a neighbor to them, but I saw very clearly that they were a tremendous neighbor to me. I must have heard people for the next three weeks, "Chaplain, I am so glad we got that picture of your mother back!" The guard at the gate, "Chaplain Parker, I am so glad we got that picture of your mother back!" All the way through - it had gone everywhere. That is what it means when the pinky toe becomes part of the whole foot again, and we are all in this deep understanding that we are one another's neighbor.

Now, that story took longer than I thought, so I am going to save the second story for another time!

(much groaning)

Yes! Continued in next week's episode! Baited breath! In the meantime, as we leave here today, just look around and know that everyone we meet is, in fact,

Our neighbor!

AMEN