St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
October 31, 2021
Year B: The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost
Ruth 1:1-18
Psalm 146
Hebrews 9:11-14
Mark 12:28-34
The Kingdom of God is Not Far From Us
You know, very often I find it difficult to live in the present moment.
Maybe you have the same trouble.
It’s easy to spend a lot of time in the past, tempted by nostalgia or haunted by regret.
And then there’s the future, which, it’s true, I spend a fair amount of time worrying about – though, fortunately, there’s still a lot I look forward to, as well.
Of course, when I was younger, I was nearly always looking ahead to the future, convinced that at some point, when I had the relationship I wanted, the degree I wanted, the job I wanted, the place I wanted, then – then – my real life would finally begin.
Well, I’m old enough now to know that this – this moment – is my real life.
(Which, in case you’re wondering, I’m very glad about.)
But, nevertheless, I still do struggle to stay in this present moment.
The truth is, I’m often thinking about my to-do list – like, for example, I really need to finally unpack those boxes of books that are still stacked in our living room.
And, I’m often looking ahead to what we might do together as a church community – things like all the exciting ideas that we talked about at our outreach meeting on Thursday evening.
And, right now, today, I’m trying to stay focused on this Sunday, but I confess that I’m really looking forward to NEXT Sunday when I’ll have the privilege of baptizing three beautiful children – Parker, Edward, and Violet – my first baptisms here at St. Thomas’.
I’ve probably said this to you already, but I really love baptizing people – it’s just about my favorite priestly thing to do.
So, yes, as usual, maybe a little more than usual, I’m struggling to stay focused on right here and right now.
If you were here last Sunday you may remember that we heard the wonderful story of Jesus restoring sight to Bartimaeus – Bartimaeus who, as Caroline Stewart reminded us so vividly in her sermon, threw off his cloak and approached Jesus with faith – faith that was rewarded with more than he could have asked or imagined.
The Bartimaeus story is a turning point in the Gospel of Mark.
After healing the blind man, Jesus now makes his way to Jerusalem, where he has difficult encounters with some unfriendly religious people – people who try to trap or to ridicule Jesus, setting the stage for his rejection, suffering, and death.
But, that’s not the case with the scribe we meet in today’s lesson.
The scribe certainly seems genuinely impressed by how Jesus handled those unfriendly religious people. And now he sincerely wants to know Jesus’ answer to a big question:
“What commandment is the first of all?”
Since there are 613 commandments in the Torah – the Jewish Law – this was not an unusual question at all. Then and now, people like the scribe tried to prioritize and summarize the vast complexities of the Law.
For example, Jesus’ near-contemporary, the great Jewish sage Hillel, famously summed up God’s Law this way:
“What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”
So, Jesus’ response to the scribe is very Jewish, very mainstream.
To summarize the Law, Jesus combines two verses, one from Deuteronomy and the other from Leviticus:
“…you shall the love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
And,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The scribe is delighted by Jesus’ thoroughly orthodox answer, and then the scribe takes things in a somewhat different direction, saying that love of God and love of neighbor are much more important than rituals and sacrifices – perhaps that was a little shot at the religious people who had been giving Jesus such a hard time.
And, in turn, Jesus says to the scribe: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
“You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
At our Wednesday afternoon Bible study we spent some time puzzling over that line – which could be taken as praise for the scribe’s wisdom and insight, or it could also be Jesus’ way of saying “close, but no cigar” since the scribe has been unable to recognize Jesus as more than a teacher or a skilled debater – or it could be encouragement to the scribe that he’s on the right track, to keep going.
Or, maybe, Jesus is giving the scribe a little hint.
After all, Jesus is right there, so the kingdom of God is not far at all.
And the same is true for us, too.
Jesus is here with us in this holy place.
We are not far from the kingdom of God.
In this moment.
Right here and right now.
Last Sunday during the 10:00 service, while Caroline reflected on Bartimaeus throwing off his cloak, I was with our confirmation class, faced with the daunting task of talking about the Trinity.
The deck was definitely stacked against us – we were on Zoom and I don’t know our confirmands, yet. And, we were supposed to talk about a very complicated – impossible to explain, really – subject – our understanding of God as One in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Frankly, I don’t think my time with the confirmation class was my best work, but since some of you have asked, I’ll tell you what I told them:
The Trinity reveals that God is a community of love – in a fundamental and mysterious sense, this is what God is.
And, I assume that God-is-Community could have gone on alone forever and ever. But, that’s not what happened. That’s not what happens. Instead of going it alone, God-is-Community creates all of us, and invites us to be part of the divine community of love, too.
So, the kingdom of God is not far from us whenever we accept this holy invitation, whenever we try, with God’s help, to love God and to love our neighbor as our self.
The kingdom of God is not far from us when generous and faithful volunteers teach Confirmation class, not as a special guest, but week after challenging week.
The kingdom of God is not far from us when, in just five or six days, we open our piggy banks and hunt under our sofa cushions to come up with quarters - $410 worth of quarters, to be exact, my friends – all so that Afghan refugees here in Maryland, people we probably won’t meet, who can’t ever thank us - can wash their laundry and live in dignity.
The kingdom of God is not far from us when we celebrate and reflect on what our church is already doing to serve people beyond our doors, and dream of what more might be possible.
The kingdom of God is not far from us when we take the time to call, or send a card to, a parishioner who we know is having a hard time.
The kingdom of God is not far from us when some of you generously open your homes so that Sue and I have a chance to meet more people in our parish and community.
The kingdom of God is not far from us when we greet a newcomer to church as warmly as we would want to be welcomed.
And, yes, here I go again, but the kingdom of God will definitely not be far from us next Sunday when I’ll baptize Parker, Edward, and Violet, and when we all will renew our own baptismal promises to love God and love our neighbor as our self.
I really am trying to stay in the moment, but I can hardly wait!
In the meantime, look around St. Thomas’, right here and right now.
The kingdom of God is not far from us.
Amen.
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