St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
October 29, 2023
Year A, Proper 25: The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46
On Our Way to the Promised Land, Together
Many of you know about the Institute for Islamic, Jewish and Christian Studies.
Located over in Towson, it’s an organization with an important and now especially timely mission: dismantling “religious bias and bigotry” and building “learning communities where religious difference becomes a powerful force for good.”
St. Thomas’ has had a long association with ICJS. Over the years, several of our people have been involved, very much including Bill Baxter, our beloved twentieth rector, who was deeply committed to its work.
When I first arrived here, Caroline Stewart brought me over to ICJS to meet some of the staff and learn more about their programs and activities.
And since then, I have attended a few of their events, but always just online. Like many other people, I have come to appreciate the advantages of not having to drive, and enjoying the comforts of home, and, yes, I admit it, the possibility of checking email or scrolling through social media while half-paying attention to the program.
But now, with the sickening and frightening rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, I decided that this time an online presence was not enough.
And so, on Monday evening, I headed down to Northern Parkway to Northside Baptist Church to attend an ICJS program on the great 20th Century theologian, philosopher, mystic, and teacher, Howard Thurman.
Thurman is someone who should be better known than he is.
He taught Martin Luther King, Jr., and was a profound influence on him, especially his notion of the Beloved Community.
Some of you may have seen one of Thurman’s quotes – it sometimes shows up on coffee mugs and internet memes. Thurman said:
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Good and true words, right?
One of Howard Thurman’s main concerns was the search for common ground.
Writing in the early 1970s – a time, like ours, of war and divisions so bitter that they seemed unbridgeable - a time, like ours, when society appeared to be coming apart at the seams - in such a time, Thurman searched for common ground.
Thurman insisted on the necessity of community.
Thurman wrote, “For this is why we were born: Men, all men, belong to each other, and he who shuts himself away diminishes himself, and he who shuts another away from him destroys himself.”
Powerful and haunting words.
But, in a time such as ours, with bitter divisions and unspeakable violence, how can we possibly rebuild community?
How can we find common ground?
Well, for us, of course, Jesus is the way.
Jesus shows us the only way to community, to common ground, to the true promised land.
Jesus shows us the way to how things were always meant to be.
And the way of Jesus is always the way of love, the way of very costly love.
In today’s gospel lesson, we continue a theme we’ve been hearing for the last couple of weeks: the ongoing conflict between religious leaders and Jesus.
I say conflict – and there definitely was conflict between the unlikely but powerful Teacher and Healer from Nazareth and the religious establishment – I say conflict but, just like the question about paying taxes that we heard last week, today’s question about the greatest commandment could be a sincere one.
After all, there are 613 commands in Jewish Law.
That’s a lot.
And back during the first century and ever since, Jewish teachers have reflected on which of these laws are most important.
Jesus gives a direct answer, one that’s hard to argue with.
Jesus gives an incredibly challenging answer – an answer that shows us the way to common ground, to the promised land.
Jesus says:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like unto it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love of God and love of neighbor – two sides of the same coin - is the way of Jesus – it’s the way to the common ground that we seek and so desperately need.
I know only too well that my love for baptism has become kind of a running joke around here, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the Hemuka Family for presenting young Nathan for Baptism today, and how delighted I am that Sean James has chosen to be baptized next Sunday.
In a time when joy seems to be in very short supply, Baptism is an even greater gift, such a blessing, such a sign of God’s love for us all, such a reminder of how we can get back to community, back to common ground, back to the true promised land.
Together with Jesus and each other, we journey to community by trying, with God’s help, to live out our baptismal promises – coming here week after week, in person, if we can, even when we may not feel like it or it’s inconvenient, because life is hard and we need the Good Food offered here – and because the person beside us or behind us may really need to see us, to be reminded that we are in this together.
We journey to common ground by trying, with God’s help, to live out our baptismal promises – turning away from evil, the evil in our own hearts, the evil done by our “their side” or by “ours.”
We journey to the promised land by sharing the Good News with words and actions – seeking and serving Christ in all persons – striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being.
This is the way of Jesus – the way of costly love.
This is the way to community – the way to common ground – the way to the true promised land.
It’s definitely not an easy way.
It’s only with God’s help that we can take even just a few halting steps along this way.
Howard Thurman once wrote, “There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The first is, ‘Where am I going?’ and the second is ‘Who will go with me?’”
I believe that, despite all our many troubles, we are on our way to community, to common ground, to the way things were always meant to be.
And we – Nathan, Sean, and all of us “fully alive” people here at St. Thomas’ - we are on our way to the true promised land, together.
Amen.
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