Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is from The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle, and both men and women
will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another's will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young, and then all will cherish life's creatures
And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.

SECOND LESSON

The second lesson is from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 22, verses 34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “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 it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

This Week's Sermon

Date: SUNDAY, August 17, 2008

Title: The Greatest

Message Delivered By: Rev. Joe Mc Murray

It’s wonderful to be here at MCC Key West as your candidate for Senior
Pastor. Eric and I want to thank you all for the warmth and hospitality we’ve
received. We feel so blessed to be among you, and it is an honor to speak to
you today.

When we arrived to tour the church earlier this week, I was flattered and
humbled that in the front of the church, the marquee read: “The Greatest
Rev. Joe McMurray” until I remembered that the name of my sermon was
“The Greatest.” Then I really felt humbled.

But then Dr. Rob asked me this morning if we were responsible for bringing
Tropical Storm Fay with us to Key West. Though it might be tempting to
have you believe we are more connected than we are, we cannot take credit
for Fay, either.

As I begin this morning, I want to broach a topic that we can never say too
much about: forgiveness. Forgiveness is a vitally important aspect of the
Christian life. It’s so important, I led a retreat this past year on The Grace of
Forgiveness. Forgiveness is something that should be revisited again and
again as our spirits open more and more to its practice. Forgiveness is
something ongoing, even when we feel we’ve achieved it successfully.
Many religious leaders consider forgiveness the third rail in Christian
teaching because people are adamant about holding on to their anger,
resentment and bitterness. Many consider it easier to pull up roots, move
half-way across the world, and start a whole new life than to accept or offer
an apology.

One religious leader, a priest in a rural Catholic church in Northern Florida,
saw firsthand the divisions created in the lives of his congregants. People
entered the confessional and though they would speak of the disappointment,
anger and resentment they felt toward family and friends, few knew how to
process it, and many refused to do their penance, which was to confront the
person and offer forgiveness to those with whom they held broken
relationships.

So one Sunday morning, to drive the point home, the priest read the scripture
from Matthew 18, about forgiving those who have wronged you not seven
times, but 70 times seven. The title of the sermon was "We Must Forgive
Our Enemies." As he preached, he watched the faces of his congregants.
And at the end of his sermon, he asked how many who heard his words were
willing to forgive their enemies. About half the people held up their hands.
Of course, the priest was not satisfied with 50 percent, and with the service
moving on to the Prayers of the People, the priest took the opportunity to
offer a solemn prayer that that God would open the spirits of the
congregation, and he encouraged them to bring forgiveness into their hearts.
After the prayer, the priest again asked the question, “How many of you are
willing to forgive your enemies?”

This time, about eighty percent of the congregation raised their hands. Still
unsatisfied, when it came time for the communion prayer, the priest went on
for ten minutes more about how forgiving Jesus was and how people should
emulate this important teaching. After the prayers, the priest posed the
question once more. This time, everyone raised their hand – all but for one
elderly gentleman, Mr. Bishop.

The priest was very put out because Mr. Bishop was hard of hearing and
sitting right near the front, so everyone could see he did not raise his hand.
The priest decided to face this head-on. "Mr. Bishop, are you not willing to
forgive your enemies?" said the priest.

"Ain’t got any," he replied.

"Mr. Bishop, that’s very unusual,” The priest said. “And how old are you?"

"Ninety-three," said Mr. Bishop.

The priest said, "Mr. Bishop, may I ask you to please come up here and
teach us today’s lesson: how a man can live to be ninety-three years old and
not have an enemy in the world?"

The man slowly got up and climbed the stairs of the chancel, went up to the
podium, and turned to face the congregation, and said, "I ain’t got no
enemies ‘cause all them suckers is dead!”

It’s good to laugh on a Sunday morning before we get serious, isn’t it? And
now will you join me in prayer?
_____________________________________________________________

God, Goddess – you know every single thing there is to know about us, and
yet you still love us. With all our faults, you still love us because you are
love, and everything that comes from you is love. Let us be loving beings,
especially when we invoke your name in what we do. And forgive us when
our ways lead us away from love – and away from you. And may my words
and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen.
_____________________________________________________________

“Teacher, which commandment is the greatest?” And Jesus said, “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.”
“You shall love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all
your mind.”

Easier said than done, isn’t it?

Of course we say we love God. And I’m sure we mean it when we say it, as
far as it goes.

But are we really serious about loving God in this deep sort of way? And if
we think this is true and we subscribe to this deep love, what kind of love is
it – this “all your heart, soul and mind” kind of love?

To love God so deeply, it seems, would require that God be in our thoughts
much of the time, if not all the time. Do we consciously think about God that
often? Probably not. So then, how many times a day do we think about God?
Or how many days out of the week, including Sundays do we think about
God?

Do we “take God with us” wherever we go? Or have we relegated God to
those moments of daily meditation or prayer, those few moments at the
beginning and the end of our day? Or is it more likely that we give God this
measly 75 minutes on Sunday mornings and that’s it?

Of course God cannot be in our conscious minds 24/7. We could not live
that way. Even we are not on our minds 24/7.

But this first commandment, as Jesus recited it to those who tried to test him,
refers not only to the substance of our relationship to God – and our love
which is the basis of that relationship – but how we carry out that devotion;
how we live our lives every single day – in joy and in sorrow, at work and at
play, with friends and family or when we are alone. “How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways,” as Elizabeth Barrett Browning so beautifully
wrote it.

Loving God with all of who we are means that every single thought, word
and deed connected to us is reflective of that relationship. Every single
thought, word and deed that connects to us is reflective of our relationship to
God. Here again, we might think this is not possible.

But let’s stop for a moment and consider two important factors behind this
special kind of love: one is the intention or purpose behind what we think,
say and do; and the other is the level of consciousness we apply to each of
these things.

That’s what Jesus is talking about here. He brings an otherwise complicated,
impractical, almost impossible principle of faith to the simplest level that
almost anyone can understand. He refers to bringing all of ourselves –
dedicating ourselves, and giving ourselves fully – to God.

It reminds me of this hymn of great human sacrifice:
I give my heart to you, God.
I give myself to you, God.
I give my mind,
I give my all to you, oh God.

Giving ourselves – our full selves – to God in all ways. This is the
continuous love of God that emanates from heart, soul, and mind.
Here’s another way to think of it. What is it we do several times per minute
every hour of every day? We do it whether we are awake or asleep, yet we
are rarely even conscious of it. Yet if we do not do it, we cannot survive
more than a few minutes.

Breathing. Our breath. The average number of breaths the human body takes
to sustain itself is 12 to18 per minute.

Breathing appropriately is one of the keys to our overall emotional, mental
and physical health and well-being.

All the mechanisms of the heart and circulatory system are connected to our
breathing. In fact, scientists say that if we were to slow our breathing to as
few as six to eight breaths per minute, we would actually benefit the
important systems that keep our physical bodies going.

Okay, we know how important breathing is. So now – take just a moment –
and imagine God as your breath.

Imagine God as your breath. God is crucial, vital to our lives. God sustains
us. We are sometimes oblivious or unconscious about God, yet God remains
central to our being. God’s love sustains us emotionally, spiritually,
physically. Every system of interconnectedness depends on God – for
without God, nothing can be sustained.

And God – of course – is love.

So if we live with intention, and make conscious, life-giving choices – we
become more aware of God – and the important message of being deliverers
of God’s love. What an awesome calling: as deliverers of God’s love.

There’s a beautiful hymn that comes to mind when I think of breath and the
presence of God within it:

This is the air I breathe.
This is the air I breathe.
Your holy presence
Living in me.
This is my daily bread.
This is my daily bread.
Your very word
Spoken to me.
And I ... I'm desperate for you.
And I ... I'm lost without you.

We are capable of living consciously with God as our center, and with love
as the practice we strive to achieve in all things. In all things – because this
is what is expected in all our relationships – love as our practice, and God as
our center.

But that’s not the end of the issue. As we heard from the scripture this
morning, Jesus did not stop with the first commandment. Jesus continued,
saying: “And the other commandment is like the first: You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.”

Can you imagine the kind of world we would have if we loved one another
as much as we loved ourselves? This is our greatest challenge, isn’t it?
Because the last comment Jesus makes on the matter is: “On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

That means everything hinges on loving God with all we’ve got – and loving
others as much as we love ourselves. This we do not do. Not fully. Not
completely. But it is what we all must strive for as Christian people who live
together in community.

Perhaps we should think of love like the American Express card: “Don’t
leave home without it.”

Judy Chicago beautifully encapsulates what happens when we treat God, one
another, and ourselves with love:

If we have this love, we all will be one, moving in the same direction, even
though we may be on different paths.
We all will be one, gentle and strong, rich and free. We may not have much,
but we will have all that we need – and we will not be alone, for we’ll have
each other.
And we will care for each other, in sickness and in health.
We will nourish and nurture each other. And we will learn from one another
all the lessons we need to learn.
Living in harmony with all the Earth, so that “everywhere will be called
Eden once again.”

My heart is clearly in a singing mood, because everything reminds me of a
song. I’d like to close today with these lyrics from a theatre musical
“Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.” These lyrics rather
say it all:

”If we only have love
Then tomorrow will dawn,
And the days of our years
Will rise on that morn.
If we only have love
To embrace without fears,
We will kiss with our eyes
We will sleep without tears.
If we only have love
With our arms open wide,
Then the young and the old
Will stand at our side.
If we only have love
Love that's falling like rain,
Then the parched desert earth
Will grow green again.
If we only have love
For the hymn that we shout,
For the song that we sing
Then we'll have a way out.
If we only have love
We can reach those in pain,
We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names.
If we only have love
We can melt all the guns,
And then give the new world
To our daughters and sons.
If we only have love
Then Jerusalem stands,
And then death has no shadow
There are no foreign lands.
If we only have love
We will never bow down,
We'll be tall as the pines
Neither heroes nor clowns.
If we only have love
We'll be women and men,
And we'll drink from the Grail
To be born once again.
Then with nothing at all
But the little we are,
We'll have conquered all time,
All space, the sun, and the stars.”

Everything of importance can be reduced to this one simple concept: “If we
only have love.”
May it be so. Amen.

First Lesson: (from )

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Second Lesson: