The Least of These, a sermon based on Matthew 25: 31-46, preached on November 26, 2023

I once heard a story about a brand-new pastor who wanted to make a big impression during his first sermon at his new church, so that first Sunday, un-showered and unshaven, he dressed in his mangiest outfit and showed up in front of the church early, long before the service started. Pulling a knit cap over his ears, he curled up in a sleeping bag on the steps in front of the main doors of his new church. As the congregation arrived, you can imagine how this went. Not knowing who he was, and assuming he had spent the cold night out on the church steps, some greeted him compassionately. These gentle lambs invited him into the church parlor. They offered him coffee, a snack, and a clean change of clothes; while some others, having no idea that this was their new pastor who might one day visit them in the hospital or officiate their funerals, grumbled under their breath, just loud enough for him to hear those old goats express their concern about the decline of the neighborhood and criticize public transportation for bringing this kind of person to their part of town. During the prelude, imagining that their new pastor would be clean shaven and dressed in a black robe, everyone in the congregation was surprised to see the man who some had greeted with compassion and others with contempt walk down the aisle and up to the pulpit, where he quoted our second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus said, I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked, and you gave me clothing… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Friends, when I read our Gospel lesson, it occurs to me that Jesus, like this pastor, turns the world on its head and expects us to behave differently than we often do. Today is the Sunday we call Christ the King Sunday. It’s the last Sunday of the church year before Advent begins again. Today, we remember that while there were pharaohs in Egypt who were honored with pyramids and gold, emperors who ruled the Roman Empire with impunity, and while the sun never set on the land governed by Louis XIV of France, we bow our heads before the King of Kings. The Lord of Lords. The Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. Today, we say that He will reign over the nations forever, that His kingdom shall have no end, and so long as we desire to remain in His good graces, we must understand that He had no typical throne room but was born in a manger. If we want to hear Him say at the end of our days, “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” we must understand that in His lifetime, He associated with the outcasts of society, and as He died, He was executed as a common criminal with a thief by His side. Given His nature, must we push our neighbors aside to kiss His ring or bow before Him? Should we amass great riches of silver or gold to lay at His feet? Can we impress Jesus the way we impress our neighbors, with the best car in the driveway or greenest lawn on the street? As He considers those who will enter His kingdom, will He examine our resume? At the gates of Heaven, will there be one last check for our good credit score? No. A good credit score will get you a car and a mortgage, but it can’t get you into the Kingdom of Heaven. For entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, what is required, according to the Gospel of Matthew, is a letter of reference from the poor. While we can’t always impress the powers of the world this way, our second Scripture lesson makes clear what the Lord requires, for when we look into the eyes of the thirsty, the downtrodden, the lost, the afflicted, the marginalized, and rejected, we may well be looking into the eyes of Christ himself, for Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” In other words, should you be one who lives by the dictum, “It’s not what you know but who you know,” then recognize this truth with me. Get to know the friendless and you’ll get to know the Lord. Rub shoulders with the imprisoned and make it through the pearly gates. While the hungry may not help us get that promotion, the naked can’t get our kid in the starting lineup, and the thirsty can’t help us skip the line to get a new iPhone, take Jesus at His word when He says, “When you welcome the stranger, you have welcomed me.” This morning, let us take Jesus at His word when He says that the time will come when the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and the only thing that will matter then, the factor that will set one apart from the other, is who has shown kindness to those society rejects. That’s a plain message. It’s a clear message, but it’s a countercultural message, for Jesus is always countercultural. Even here in Marietta, GA, remember that Jesus is countercultural, and the ways we’ve conformed to Marietta, GA may be habits that enable us to advance in this community, while keeping us out of the Kingdom of Heaven, for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven requires us to act differently. The followers of Jesus must learn new ways of being. Future residents of that New Heaven and New Earth can’t settle in, adopting the ways of this fallen world. Right? So, while we have these wonderful schools that will help our kids get ahead in the world, and while we pay so much attention to their grades and their extracurricular activities because we want our kids to get into Georgia, Georgia isn’t everything. Eternal life requires its own work of preparation. Now, don’t let that scare you. Heaven may be easier to get into than the University of Georgia. According to a columnist in the Marietta Daily Journal, years ago, his letter of acceptance to the University of Georgia came addressed to him “or current resident.” It doesn’t work like that these days. Kids need a tutor and a good ACT score, plus letters of recommendation. I say, help your kid get into college, but don’t forget to teach her what she needs to do to get into Heaven. Pay attention to how your kids and grandkids act around poor people. If your kids don’t know how to act around people who don’t look like them, whose parents make less money, or if your kids don’t know how to talk to their classmates who have unwashed hair, threadbare clothes on their backs, or the wrong shoes on their feet, remember what Jesus said, “Just as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.” I’ve been watching too much TV lately, and so I have in my mind these plot lines I’ve seen. Have you been watching The Gilded Age? It’s just like Downton Abby, but it takes place in New York City. In the episode last week, the Duke was coming to town from England. Everyone wanted to be seated next to him, and to sit next to the Duke, you had better know which glass to drink from when and what to do with the tiny fork at the top of your place setting. In high society, knowing how to deal with silverware matters, so I want our kids to know about this kind of thing. Our daughter Lily has even been to The Social Class, which will get her far in life. Table manners will get you far. They’ll help you impress the Duke, but what about the King of Kings? Jesus won’t be checking for good table manners at the Gates of the Kingdom of Heaven. Will he? No. According to our Gospel lesson, He’ll be watching for which hungry people get fed by whom, for when we’ve fed the least of these, we’ve fed Him. Knowing that when we feed hungry people, that what we do for the least of these, we’ve done for Him, how might we better use our Saturdays? A few Saturdays ago, I took our daughter Cece to this place up near Cartersville so she could play in a basketball tournament, which lasted all day. I was glad to drive her up there. I love to watch that kid play, but at the tournament was a crowd of parents all cheering for their kids, wanting to see them do well. With that many parents and that many kids, it was a pressure cooker in there. We were yelling at the refs. Yelling at the other team. One kid’s dad got kicked out and then so did her grandma. Why? Because we want our kids to do well. We want them to make whatever team they try out for. All parents want their kids to do well because only those who can really play make the team. Yet Jesus won’t be asking anyone to make a free throw before he enters the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s not how it works. What, then, should we be teaching our kids? How should we ourselves be living? Rather than a line out the door to get them into the right preschools, there ought to be a line right around the Cobb County Jail so that we can visit the people whom Jesus calls us to visit. There ought to be a line right around the block to volunteer for the Pantry on Church, our food distribution ministry, because Jesus says, “If you’ve fed them, you’ve fed me.” We all ought to have empty closets because we clothe the naked. We all ought to be digging wells in arid regions of our world because those who give a drink to the thirsty are getting in. And those who haven’t? That’s there in verse 46: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” What a Gospel lesson this is. It’s easy to understand what Jesus means here, and it’s even easy to do what the King of Kings is expecting of us if we put our minds to it. Yet, our minds aren’t always in the right place. I told you before I’ve been watching a lot of TV. I’ve been watching too much TV, really, so I’ve moved from the good shows to the documentaries. I was watching a documentary last Wednesday morning about the holy relics of Europe. Did you know that when Notre Dame burned, the fire department had to go find the crown of thorns? For generations, believers have traveled far, gone on pilgrimages, to get close to holy relics, be it the crown of thorns or the Shroud of Turin. No doubt these are priceless items, worthy of respect and veneration, but people go miles to visit them so that they might feel close to Jesus, while Jesus says right here in the Gospel of Matthew, “When you have served the least of these, you’ve served me.” We don’t have to travel half-way around the world to be close to Jesus. We can just go next door. Around the corner. To the MUST shelter or our own Pantry on Church. We don’t have to get on a plane to get close to Jesus, for He is all around us all the time. All we must do is open our eyes and our hearts to the people our society has taught us to be indifferent to. Let’s let go of what our society has taught us about getting ahead in this world, for getting ahead in the Kingdom of Heaven comes down to how well we’ve served the least of these, for in serving them, in holding their hands, we’ve held the hands of the King of Kings. Halleluiah. Amen.

Let Justice Roll Down, a sermon based on Amos 5: 18-24, preached on November 12, 2023

I’d like to begin this sermon with an announcement to any who haven’t ever been to this church before: I don’t normally dress like this. Our worship services aren’t always like this. Today is a special day, celebrating the Scottish roots of the Presbyterian Church. As this is a Presbyterian Church, one Sunday each year, we take the time to celebrate where our faith tradition came from with this special worship service, called Kirkin’ of the Tartan. You might be thinking to yourself, “If I’m not Scottish, can I still be a Presbyterian?” Hear me say, up until I became the pastor here, the most Scottish thing I’d ever done was watch the movie Braveheart and occasionally have a sip or two of Glenlivet. Every year, I struggle again to put on this kilt. It’s not immediately clear which side of this thing is the front. I also struggle to remember where the decorative dagger goes because it doesn’t go in this special purse around my waist, but in my sock. This special purse that goes around my waist is the best part of the outfit. It’s so nice to have a bag to put my things in; however, my point is that this outfit is not familiar. It’s not technically a part of my heritage. At some point in history, the Evans family left Wales, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and came to the United States, so Ancesty.com would not substantiate my claim to any of these tartans. Maybe the same is true of you. If it is, let me tell you that those of us whose last names do not appear on a tartan still have something miraculous to celebrate today. Today, we are celebrating the McDonalds and the Macfarlanes. We raise up the names of Anderson, Cummings, Duncan, and Hay. We do raise the tartans to recognize these great families who can trace their roots right back to the Scottish Lowlands and the Highlands, yet the preacher before you, who moved to Marietta from Virginia Highlands, has a place in this worship service as well. Today is a celebration for all God’s people because all God’s people have a heritage worth celebrating, especially if, as is true of the Scots among us, some oppressive power tried to take all your traditions away. This worship service is inspired by an old Scottish liturgy that developed during the English occupation. If you’ve seen the movie Braveheart as I have (I’ve seen it like 50 times, but I realize not everyone has.), then remember how hard it was for those people to remain proud of their heritage while living under the thumb of the British Empire. For generations, bagpipes were played in secret rather than out in the open, and the plaids of each family couldn’t be worn in public. Still, the families snuck in just patches of their tartans. Into the churches, they brought squares, small enough to be smuggled into the church, where they were blessed by God in secret during a worship service. So it has been for oppressed people throughout human history. Think about the long hair of the Native American, cut as Cherokee boys and girls were separated from their tribes and forced into schoolhouses where they’d forget the language of their people. Think about the generations who were enslaved in this country. They were kept from learning to read, they forgot the languages of their homelands, and they gathered to worship God in brush arbors and secret places beyond the prying eyes of their captors. Throughout human history, concurring armies have burned drums and books. Ritual dancing was outlawed. Accents have disappeared. Yet these are no scraps of wool snuck into this place of worship. These pipes are not played under the cover of nightfall. Therefore, this worship service is not just a celebration of Scottish heritage; it is also a celebration of God’s justice, which upon the head of the empire has come rolling down. Today, we remember that while they tried – while they tried to break our bagpipes and our spirits, while they banned our tartans and stole our land - justice still came rolling down. We boldly declare it in this worship service, and every worship service because we know that far greater than the power of the empire is the power of God who made heaven and earth. We know that far stronger than the weapon of our oppressor is the mighty hand of God. If the man has you feeling down, If you ever feel discouraged, If you have a boss who doesn’t respect you and your friends put you down, or if your teachers just don’t understand and bullies walk the hall, and everyone around you has already had their growth spurt and life just isn’t fair, look at these tartans that were held in secret but not destroyed, for justice will come rolling down. That’s the theme of today’s service. If we’re doing anything other than rejoicing in God’s justice, then this is just a pep rally in plaid. The prophet Amos spoke of someone who fled from a lion and was met by a bear, or of someone who went into the house and rested a hand against the wall and was bitten by a snake. Do you ever feel that way? Do the powers of sin and death ever get you down? Sometimes, we go to the doctor’s office and hear that we’ve healed from lung cancer while cancer has sprung up some place else. Then, we watch the news and pray for the victims of one tragedy, even though tomorrow there will be another tragedy with another group of victims to pray for. Yet the day is coming when the power of empire, the power of oppression, the power of cancer, even the power of death will be broken, for justice will come rolling down. That’s what today’s worship service is all about. My wife, Sara, reads a lot more than I do. Next to her side of the bed is a stack of books. She must read three books a week. She puts me to shame. Plus, she reads the New York Times cover to cover every morning and does Wordle. Last Friday, she sent me an article about Matthew Perry, who was a star on the TV series Friends. You may have heard that he recently died. You may also have heard that he struggled with alcoholism. That struggle was a primary theme of his memoir, which recently came out. A good friend of his, another actor, named Hank Azaria, remembered him in a guest essay that Sara sent me, and in that article, Hank Azaria described what it was like to go with Matthew Perry to Azaria’s first AA meeting. We went to this very big gathering in Brentwood, California. We walked in, and I swear it seemed there were a thousand people in there. [Matthew] knew the look on my face – daunted. Beyond daunted: demoralized. It’s very hard to imagine how going into a room like this is somehow going to make you want to stop drinking or make you feel better. And he looked at me and said in his Matthew, half-joking, very loving way: “It’s something, isn’t it? God is a bunch of drunks in a room.” That may be a shocking thing to hear, but let me say it a different way. God is there among those who gather for AA meetings. God was there among those oppressed Scottish people. God was there among those enslaved people who gathered together under the cover of shadow to steal away to the brush arbor, or in the time of Roman persecution, among who confessed their faith in the catacombs proclaiming that there is a power greater than death, greater than oppression, greater than tyranny, greater than addiction, greater than cancer, greater than sin. Do not compromise with empire. Empire’s days are numbered. Watching the debates among politicians, you don’t need to settle for the least bad option. Corruption’s days are already numbered. Lift up your eyes to the hills today. Remember from which our help comes. For justice will come rolling down. There is a power stronger than death. There is a power stronger than tyranny. We lifted the tartans, which years ago were but tiny squares of cloth, smuggled in, but I call you today to lift up your head if you are bearing heavy sorrow. Lift up your eyes and see that the sun also rises. Lift up your heart, as justice comes rolling down. Amen.

What Will Be?, a sermon based on 1 John 3: 1-3, preached on November 5, 2023

Last week, Russell Davis, who is not only a Sunday school teacher at our church but also a Marietta attorney, told me a story of a miracle he was right in the middle of. Russell was representing a woman who had been in a car accident. Many of us have been in car accidents. I’ve been in more than one. The best result of a car accident is that it only ruins your day. The worst result of a car accident is someone loses his life. Russell’s client was in a car accident that resulted in the death of another woman, a grandmother who was a mentor to younger women in her church, who started an international prayer hot-line, and also founded several mission efforts; one, which helped people during the big ups and downs of life, she named the Road to Damascus. You know the Road to Damascus story. It’s told with the most detail in the book of Acts, where Paul, then a persecutor of Christians, is struck blind. This blindness is not a curse, but a step on his spiritual journey where he meets Jesus, Who asks him, “Why do you persecute me?” Blind and helpless, Paul is invited by a disciple named Ananias into his house, where Paul is fed and cared for, which is a great sign of Christian love and hospitality, for Ananias knew Paul to be, not the saint we now know in Scripture, but one who arrested Ananias’s friends, terrorized his community, and helped to stone one of his fellow disciples. But back to the miracle in Russel’s courtroom. He was defending the driver who lived, while the family of the woman who died were on the other side of the courtroom. They were visibly distraught, not only mourning the loss of a saintly woman, but they were angry, and anger needs a place to go, so they were angry with the woman who caused the accident. Russell, being a saintly man himself, could relate. According to him, the key to retaining your humanity in the legal profession is the ability to feel someone else’s pain. Russell felt the pain of this grieving family, but in his client’s defense, he said, “If your mother were still with us, she would be among the first to support and care for my client, to hug her and comfort her and let her know it was all OK because she is in a better place. My client is broken-hearted over this accident that took your mother’s life, but what I want you to recognize is that this accident did not happen on Memorial Drive in Decatur, Georgia, as the police report reads. Considering the character of the deceased and the change in my client, this accident occurred on the Road to Damascus.” Not every closing argument turns into a sermon, but that one did, and truly, that accident occurred on the Road to Damascus, for just as Paul received grace from Ananias, so Russell’s client received grace from that deceased woman’s family. Christ was also there in that courtroom, for, inspired by his closing argument, the mourning family went from thoughts of punishment and revenge to inviting Russell’s client to church. They provided her with a ride to get there. When she arrived in her Uber, they welcomed her in. They embraced her as she arrived, and just as it happened for Paul, Russell’s client was baptized and became a member of that family of faith. As a preacher of the Gospel, I have the honor of being told stories like this often enough. Some call such moments coincidence; I call it God at work in the world, but on this All Saints’ Sunday, think with me, not only about how Jesus walks beside us, but how the memory of one woman’s faithfulness influenced events in a courtroom, even after she died tragically in that car accident. Think with me about those who are robed in white. Who have come out of the great ordeal already. Who will hunger and thirst no more, for they are before the throne of God in that place where God will wipe every tear from their eyes. This morning, I call on you to remember the saints and how they lived. I don’t just mean, “Remember with me Bill Fogarty’s smile, which was warm enough to melt snow, or John Wells and his bowties, which are worth remembering.” What I’m talking about today is how, at his funeral last December, Bill Fogarty’s daughter Jean read from 2nd Timothy: As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. My friends, we have so much to learn from a man who lived in such a way that his daughter would remember him this way. Sometimes, I worry that at my funeral, Lily and Cece will say, “When he came home stressed, we knew it because he would use his preacher voice in the house.” If those who have gone on could speak to us today, how would they tell us to live? Would they tell us we worry too much? That we spend too much money on stuff that’s only going to gather dust? Today, we remember those like Judy Williams, who so looked forward to her granddaughter’s high school graduation that it’s all she talked about, as though her granddaughter’s graduation were the most important thing in the world. Was she wrong? Remember Bill Paden with me this morning. If you walk into the choir room, you’ll see a plaque on the wall listing those members of the choir who sang with our choir for fifty years. There are only three names on there. Bill Paden is one of them, and today, his grandson Karl is in the choir loft following in his footsteps. Think about how they used their time, and if they had the time that we have, how would they use it? How many cards would Flora Speed send if she had more time to tell people how much she loved them? What would Bob and Better Bomar do with a little more time? Would those two, who died within months of each other, not tell us, who are married, to spend our time loving one another well? What would they do with more time? Think with me of Karen Davis, who fed every cat in her neighborhood, or Don Mills, who from his hospital bed at AG Rhodes told his friends how much he loved them, or Skip Zehrung, whose children and grandchildren remembered him so well in their eulogies because he knew where to invest his time, not in front of the TV, but in people. Today, we remember those who have gone on. Faith Adamson, Don Goldberg, Jo Johnson, Doris Kitchens, Bill Majoros, Annel Martin, Anne Ray, Carol Watkins, and Ron Young. How did they live? And how would they have us live? I can just see Bill Majoros driving Wanda Reese to Thursday Bible Study. I can almost hear Jean Reed’s voice, as she told me stories of her days as a code breaker during World War II. I think about my friend Leo. Leo would invite me over for lunch. A couple years ago, I developed a sensitivity to beef and pork. He’d invite me for lunch, and I’d have to tell him that I was on a special diet, so he invited me to his house where he’d prepared a spread of chicken salad, shrimp salad, crab salad, all beef and pork free, for such was the hospitality that he showed me, and such is the hospitality that he has now received. My friends, we do not know what will be. We only know who will be there with us, who will welcome us when we get there. Know that the Great Cloud of Witnesses goes on before us, and they will welcome us there when our time comes. Following their example, let us embody the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ until that time comes. Amen.

Barriers to Love, a sermon based on Matthew 22: 34-46 preached on October 29, 2023

Some people love rules. The Pharisees, featured in our second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of Matthew, loved rules. They were one of the major religious groups in the time of Jesus. Along with the Sadducees, the Scribes, and the Zealots, they were one of the major groups within the Jewish religious community who competed for influence and converts. They each make their appearance in the Gospels, and we know that these established religious groups were intimidated by Jesus, so they tried to trap Him with their questions. On numerous occasions, the Gospels show that Jesus outsmarted them. Our second Scripture lesson is just one example. It began: When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. I may have told you the best way to remember the difference between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Just remember that the Sadducees didn’t believe in life after death. They were such adherents to the teachings of Moses, who failed to mention the afterlife, that they didn’t believe in heaven, so they were sad, you see. The Pharisees, on the other hand, loved the law. They wanted to follow, not just the Ten Commandments, but every law that tradition passed down. They loved to follow all those rules because they felt the rules ensured that people would be treated fairly, so they were fair, you see. I learned that in seminary. In today’s Gospel lesson, this lawyer, who was a rule-loving Pharisee, wanted to test Jesus, and so he asked Him a question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” To a Pharisee, choosing the greatest law would be like picking your favorite child. He and the other Pharisees just couldn’t do it. “How could you love one commandment more than another?” they wondered, while Jesus has no problem answering the question. He 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. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. That’s what Jesus says. You’ve heard it before. It’s an often-quoted verse that’s not just in the Gospel of Matthew, but also in Mark and Luke, yet the difference here in the Gospel of Matthew is that He follows up this famous answer with a question of His own directed towards the Pharisees: What do you think of the Messiah? He asked them. Whose son is he? They said to him, “the son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, by the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’ If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” In other words, Jesus is trying to help the Pharisees see whom they are talking with. They were waiting for the son of David to appear. They thought that they knew what to look for in the promised Messiah, yet they were looking right over Him, interrogating the Messiah rather than revering Him. You know all this already. While it came as a surprise to them, it comes as no surprise to you to hear that Jesus is Lord, nor does it come as a surprise to hear Him say that the entire law may be simplified to “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself,” only think about this with me: If the Messiah is the One who simplifies the rules, who makes it all so complicated? If God’s Messiah is the One who summarizes all the law down to love God and love neighbor, who is clinging so tightly to all the other standards of society? There’s a scene I’ll always remember in the TV show Seinfeld, where the main character, Jerry, goes to visit his parents, who have just moved from Manhattan to a retirement community in Florida called Del Bocca Vista. While Jerry and Elaine are visiting them there, she can’t sleep because they put her on the fold-out couch and that bar is right in her back; plus, they won’t turn on the air conditioning even though it’s Florida. Later, when a Del Bocca Vista neighbor dies, Jerry’s friend Kramer decides to retire down in Florida right next to Jerry’s parents. Jerry’s dad pushes Kramer to run for president of the neighborhood association. The campaign is going great until Kramer gets caught walking through the neighborhood clubhouse without his shoes on. As Kramer tries to understand why such a small thing would cause his campaign to go up in flames, Jerry says, “These people work and wait their whole lives to move down here, sit in the heat, pretend it’s not hot, and enforce these rules.” Some people love rules. The Pharisees loved rules. The residents of Del Boca Vista loved rules. And there’s a little bit of Pharisee in all of us. There are rules and regulations that we all cling to. We all have standards of morality and decency. We have codes of conduct, standards of behavior. There are things that we do, and there are things we wouldn’t dare do. “No shirt, no shoes, no service,” is a rule so basic in our society that it goes without saying everywhere outside the state of Alabama. Then, there are commandments: Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. These are good rules. They are life-giving standards of behavior, yet we must allow the Messiah to help us use these rules. Otherwise, they are confined to our understanding. Take the fourth commandment for example: Honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy and consider with me how we use it. We hear that commandment and say to ourselves, “Got it. Set Sunday apart,” only does the commandment set a limit or a minimum requirement? Would God not also have us honor our Mondays and our Tuesdays? Are we not called to love the Lord our God on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays? Does God not love us every day of the week and each moment of our lives? We hear these divine mandates from Scripture, and we interpret God’s rules through our human understanding, while Jesus, the Messiah, says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” Sometimes, we use rules to set limits and to draw lines; yet, if the way we use these rules creates a barrier to love, are we worshiping the rules or are we following the Lord? Following the Lord may require more than the laws or human culture stipulate, for the love of God has no limit. Right? OK. Then let’s think together about human culture and how what Jesus says in Matthew challenges some of what we do. Last week, the County Commission was discussing a statement on the conflict in Israel. It turned out to be a divisive conversation that resulted in a follow-up meeting before a big crowd last Wednesday night because the first draft of the statement declared Cobb County’s absolute support of Israel. That makes sense, right? We love Israel. Standing with the Jewish people and the nation of Israel is a part of who our nation is. Defending the cause of one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world is a part of who we are, so when we hear about the attack on Israel, we want to show our support. We want to stand with Israel, supporting them as they mourn the loss of innocent lives, as they call for the release of captives and an end to terrorism. However, some residents of Cobb County had a problem with the statement the County Commission was working on. Presbyterians born in Nazareth and Muslims from Palestine who now live here in Cobb County asked their commissioners: Why would you limit your support to the people of Israel? Do the residents of our county not mourn the loss of Palestinian children? Or does our concern have limits? Sometimes our concern does have limits. Sometimes, with our rules and regulations, we put in place barriers for whom we’ll love and whom we won’t. However, if we look to Scripture, while we clearly see God’s love for the people of Israel, we also see that God’s love does not stop there. That’s what the book of Jonah is all about. Jonah doesn’t understand how God could love the Ninevites. That’s why he doesn’t want to go and preach to them, yet God declares, “Should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left?” You see, it’s human tendency to put a barrier on love. It’s a human tendency to love one group and to hate another, while we must expect that just as God has wept over the innocent Israeli children killed by Palestinian bombs, so also, has God wept over the innocent Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombs because God’s love does not respect the boundaries that we draw. While we may limit our support and our concern, God’s love is for all of Creation. This is simply a truth that we must accept and may loving as God loves be a goal to which we aspire, for when it comes to transforming the world, there is no force more likely to transform society than love. Last Tuesday, my wife, Sara, sent me an article from Fox 5 Atlanta about a crisis dog who helps people. K-9 officer Barney and his handler, Paul Hill, got a call that a woman had locked herself in a bathroom and was threatening to end her life. When Officer Hill and his canine companion, Barney, arrived, the woman had moved from the bathroom and was lying on a bed, visibly distraught. Many of us, when we see a woman acting so strangely, would turn and walk away, yet without a second thought, Barney hopped up next to her and wiggled his way into her arms. He laid there peacefully, helping the woman to snuggle with him and relax. Soon, she was responding to the officers. Then, she was getting the help she needed, but it started not with threats, but with contact. Her healing began as a dog offered her his love on the worst day of her life. My friends, I don’t know the answer to so many of the problems that we face these days. I don’t know the answer to the conflict in Israel/Palestine, but I do know this: Years ago, I was a chaplain intern at the Metro State Women’s Prison, and I met a woman who was terrified she was going to hell. She’d been abused, and, in her dreams, she returned to this dark place with fire and daemons. It was a place she’d been before on the worst night of her life, and she never wanted to return there. I remember holding her hand through the flap in a steel door and saying, “Hell is a place you’ve been before, and I can’t believe that the God I know in Jesus Christ would send you back there again.” I’ll never forget how she cried as I said those words. I’ll always remember watching as the love of God set her free. On the other hand, shame keeps so many locked up and imprisoned. Sometimes, after violating the rules, people punish themselves so severely. I wonder if we punish ourselves more for breaking the rules than God does. If it hasn’t happened for you already, today, may the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, set you free, and may you be set loose on this broken world to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” Let there be no barrier to your love, for there is no barrier to God’s love for you. Amen.