For Sunday, October 29, 2023, Season
of Creation III*, Readings: Mother Theresa**, Psalm
133,
Alice Walker***, Matthew 22:34-40
Norman Rockwell “The Golden
Rule” 1961
Whether you
are a Hindu, a Muslim, or a Christian, how you live your life is the proof that
you are fully God’s or not…Our works of charity are nothing but the overflow of
our love of God from within… [Mother Teresa]
How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. [Psalm 133:1]
Praying–not a curse–only the hope that my
courage will not fail my love. But if by some miracle, and all the struggle,
the Earth is spared, only justice to every living thing (and everything is
alive) will save humankind…Only justice can stop a curse. [Alice Walker]
You shall love the Lord
Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and will all your
mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [Matthew 22:37,
39]
We are truly all in "this" together ~
this life, on this planet, right now. Mother Teresa was quite clear
when she said, how you live your life is the proof that you are fully
God’s or not. Love must undergird our lives and be
as normal to us as living and breathing. Too often, especially in
these fraught times, we look at "others" as different from
ourselves by skin color, nationality, religion, political views, sexual
orientation, life circumstance, or, merely, because someone lives in a different
part of the world, the country, or the community. How easily we dismiss and
worse, completely reject those whom we designate as not one
of us. Suddenly "they" become one of them, not
to be trusted or valued as the full human person God created in God's own
image.
How very sad and tragic it is
that we set ourselves, within our self-limited chosen circles, as above another
individual or group as if our judgments, or opinions, or neighborhood, or
economic circumstance, or political views are the only ones that matter.
Alice Walker minces no words
describing the enormity of (their) crimes against humanity bringing
such crimes from the global history of white colonization and the destructive
privilege of wealth, to her people, her family, and her own experiences in our
own times. Yet while outlining specifics for venting her justified rage, she
suddenly turns us all to the stark necessities of saving our planet when she
says So let me tell you: I intend to protect my home. Praying – not a
curse – on the hope that my courage will not fail my love…only justice to every
living thing (and everything is alive) will save humankind…Only justice can
stop a curse.
Matthew’s Gospel reminds of us the
words we think we know so well and utter easily and without deep examination of
how we are to apply them in our everyday moments, especially in the most
difficult circumstances: You shall love the Lord Your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. Love God with ALL YOUR/MY heart, soul,
mind, and YOUR/MY Neighbor as my self. Too many of us may
actually love God and our neighbors as we really do love ourselves: badly.
Judgment, criticism, anger, mockery, even hatred, may be more of a mirror than
we would like to admit.
The ways in which we care for each
other ~ all others ~ and our selves, with the love for God and
every human being that Jesus has exhorted us to give, is a measure of
the depth (or shallowness) of our own love for God. To prosper only ourselves
and those we count in our us, may carry us in this short
temporal existence but it is not the way of Jesus.
The humility that Jesus exemplified is
difficult to achieve and uncomfortable in an environment of excessive greed,
selfishness, and disdain for the life of others and this planet. We are
called to seek to become united with God through prayer, which is the
germinating power for our words and actions to be works of true love,
in the overflow of our love for God from within ourselves. It is
time to relinquish marking my personal achievements and live
more simply, putting one foot in front of the other, making each and
every breath a prayer and every step in love and with love
and toward justice for all of Our Common Humanity.
LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY
Leader: ~ Most Gracious Creator of Our Entire Common
Humanity, keep us ever mindful that we are each sometimes the other,
creating and receiving suspicion and fear, when we step away from our familiar
cultures and communities. May our eyes continually radiate Your Light, and our
everyday thoughts, actions, and prayers reflect the overflow of our love for
You from within ourselves.
O God of Our Common
Humanity
RESPONSE: We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
~ Most Gracious Creator, grant us each and all, in our many shapes, sizes,
colors, races, ages, economic status, and genders, the ability to be Your true
voice in action. Let us challenge all those in governments across this planet,
to understand and work together to achieve the peace for all we kindred to live
together in unity. We pray especially for: add your own petitions
O God of Our
Human Family
We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
~ Most Gracious Creator, comfort all who are burdened with serious illness,
addiction, and/or emotional distress, and fill those who give them care with
energy and peace. We pray especially for: add your own petitions
O God of Our
Common Humanity
We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
~ Most Gracious Creator, in the midst of sorrow for our temporary loss, we give
joyful thanksgiving for the glorious welcome of our loved ones into Your
eternal kingdom. We pray especially for… add your own
petitions
O God of Our
Common Humanity
We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
~ Most Gracious Creator, we pause in this moment to offer You
our other heartfelt thanksgivings, intercessions, petitions, and memorials,
aloud or silently… add your own
petitions
O God of Our
Common Humanity
We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
~ Most Gracious Creator, we give You thanks for all who are chosen to show us
by Word and example, in prayer and preaching, how to live in this life, and who
walk with us on the path leading to You. We pray especially for: add
your own petitions
O God of Our
Common Humanity
We serve Justice through Prayer, Love, and Courage
The Celebrant adds: O God of the Hungry and the
Privileged, O Lord of those Raised High and those Laid Low, grant us the
joyful yet solemn awareness that we each physically, and spiritually, carry
within us the very substance of Your Incarnate Son. Let us be the seeds that
germinate the power of Your love, bear the fruit of unity among us, and
intentionally seek to be fully Yours in every day, so to love You and each
other as we are to love ourselves. We ask through the Compassion of Jesus our
Christ; and the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit; who live and reign with You as One
God, every day, every way, always, and forever. Amen.
* The Season of Creation originated in the
Anglican Church of South Africa and was formalized in 2008. It is designed for
us to explore our faith from a Creation perspective. Click here
for more information about: Season of
Creation ~ In The Beginning
**A Reading from Mother Teresa: "Whether you are a
Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian, how you live your life is the proof that you
are fully God's or not. Loving must be as normal to us as living and breathing,
day after day until death. To understand this and practice it we need much
prayer, the kind that unites us with God and overflows continually upon others.
Our works of charity are nothing but the overflow of our love of God from
within. Therefore, the one who is most united with God loves her neighbor
most." From Everything Starts With Prayer, White Cloud
Press, Ashland, OR, 1998
***A Reading from Alice
Walker: "When I have considered the enormity of (their)..crimes
against humanity…Against women, Against every living person of color. Against
the poor. Against my mother and my father. Against me. When I consider that
they are a real and present threat to my life and the life of my daughter and
the life of my people, I think...Let the earth marinate in poisons. Let the
bombs cover the ground like rain. For nothing short of total destruction will
ever teach them anything. And it would be good, perhaps, to put an end to the
species...rather than let these wealthy white men continue to subjugate it, and
continue their lust to dominate, exploit, and despoil not just our planet, but
the rest of the universe, which is their clear and stated intention, leaving
their arrogance and litter not just on the moon, but on everything else they
can reach. If we have any true love of the stars, planets, and the rest of
Creation, we must do everything we can to keep men like these away from them.
They who have appointed themselves our representatives to the rest of the
universe. They who have never met any new creature without exploiting, abusing
or destroying it. They who say we poor and colored and female and elderly
blight neighborhoods, while they blight worlds. However, just as the sun shines
on the godly and the ungodly alike, so does our destruction of our environment.
And with this knowledge it becomes increasingly difficult to embrace the
thought of extinction purely for the assumed satisfaction of–from the
grave–achieving revenge. Or even of accepting our demise as a planet as a
simple and just preventive medicine administered to the Universe...Earth is my
home–though for centuries white people have tried to convince me I have no
right to exist, except in the dirtiest, darkest corners of the globe. So let me
tell you: I intend to protect my home. Praying – not a curse – only the hope that
my courage will not fail my love. But if by some miracle, and all the struggle,
the Earth is spared, only justice to every living thing (and everything is
alive) will save humankind. And we are not saved yet. Only justice can stop a
curse." Excerpts from “Only Justice Can Stop A Curse,” in
The Impossible Will Take a Little While, ed. Paul Rogat Loeb, Basic Books, New
York, 2004
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