You shall love your neighbor as yourself,
because I am the Lord.
A long time ago, oh, four or five thousand years
ago, the Lord God Almighty looked out over creation to see how it was
going. Frankly, the Lord was disturbed
by the view. All over the world, people
worshipped strange gods. There was a god
who liked war. There was a goddess who
helped people succeed in business. There
was a god who specialized in politicians, telling them that, whatever they
wanted to do, their god was behind them 100%.
In fact, for whatever interest or desire anybody
ever had, there was a god who supported that interest or supplied that desire:
power, prestige, control of neighboring nations, wealth, good sex life, even
obedient children!
And in the midst of them all, the Almighty could
not find – himself.
Now the Almighty did find a few people who,
given proper encouragement, might turn from the worship of their own desires to
the true God. But how were they to find
out that Someone other than themselves even existed?
Well, God is pretty smart, and soon fixed on a
plan. Advertising. If you want people to buy your product, tell
them about it. Make it stand out from
the crowd. So the Lord searched the
universe again, this time for an advertising agency.
The agency the Lord chose was rather small, no
other big clients. In fact, it didn’t
even have a name. That suited the Lord’s
purpose. God wanted to be this agency’s
exclusive account. So the agency took
the name that the Lord gave it. That
name was Israel.
They sat down for their first conference at
Mount Sinai, to lay out the campaign.
You will find the fundamental message in today’s reading. Torah is the first five books of the
Bible. Torah means God’s Word, or God’s Will.
Leviticus is the central book of the Torah. The Holiness Code is the core of
Leviticus. And here is the very heart of
the Holiness Code, You shall be holy, for
I the Lord your God am holy. You shall
love your neighbor as yourself, because I am the Lord.
Just an aside here – it’s astounding how much we
hear about and how little we know about Leviticus. You think the New Testament supersedes it? Actually, the New Testament quotes it, often. Jesus quotes it, This is what you need to know about the Law, today’s memory verse.
Okay, back to the conference. God said to Israel, In my experience, one
picture is worth a thousand words. So
before you write any copy for me, I want to show the world what I am like in a
picture. You, my children, are to be
that picture. You are to act out the God
you represent.
The Lord said, You become what you worship. Of all the gods out there, all the things
that people worship, I am different. I
stand out from the crowd. So I want you
to stand out from the crowd.
That’s what the word holy means, something you don’t see every day. It makes you sit up and take notice. Holy.
So God’s people were to be the kind of people who attract
attention. They were to be holy.
Well now, what is it about the Lord that stands
out in the marketplace of all the things people worship? The Lord is powerful; other gods claim
power. The Lord creates; there are
stories about how the other gods made the world. The Lord makes the rain to fall and the grass
to grow; but there is that golden calf outside the Stock Market Exchange
Building in New York City, promising economic success, to this very day. What makes this God different from the Golden
Calf?
I’ll jump ahead in the story to a later time
when the agency did write some copy, so I can quote a jingle, Psalm 145. Verse 9 says, The Lord is loving to everyone.
(See, Jesus knew his Bible, didn’t he: Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be
children of your Father in heaven.) The
Lord is loving to everyone, and his
compassion is over all his works.
Of all the things the Almighty does, the one the
Almighty thinks is most important is compassion.
Compassion, to feel with, to take another’s
passion or concern and to identify with that person. Compassion means to forget oneself long
enough feel another’s concern. All the
other gods are about our own passions.
The Lord God Almighty is known for caring about others. And the Lord’s representatives are to be
known for the same thing.
Now God is not interested in a bunch of nice
feelings. Like in the Epistle of James,
You can tell a homeless person, Be warm,
but what good is that? So the contract
got specific about this compassion.
When you harvest your
fields, do not cut the grain at the edges, and do not go back for the grain
that was left. Same with your
vineyards. Leave the grain and the
grapes you missed for the poor and for foreigners. Because I am the Lord, your God.
Other gods required farmers to leave behind a
portion of the harvest. But that was to
feed the gods, to make an offering for a good harvest next year. In other words, to invest capital gains back
into the development of the company.
But the Lord God Almighty told his children to
forget their passion for gain. He didn’t
need their offerings. Instead
demonstrate his compassion, feel with the poor in their passion to eat. Leave behind some of the profits for the
poor. And the foreigner.
It might be said that God’s system is inefficient. Why not harvest as much as possible, maximize
profits, and give charity to the poor?
But efficiency is not the greatest of God’s
works; compassion is. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness
with God. Charity is the last
resort, for when we have failed to build justice into the way we earn our
livings. If we truly feel with the poor,
we will feel with them the need to be part of the system, to have a place at
our table, not beneath it, picking up the crumbs.
Today we are pleased to provide shelter for the
homeless. That’s the charity step, and
good for us for taking that step. The
next step toward justice might be to provide an address, so our guests can
apply for jobs, and then showers, so they can keep those jobs, so they can
participate in the system with honor and dignity.
That’s the kind of thing Israel was supposed to
do to be holy, to stand out and make the world take notice that here was a
people, and here is a God you don’t see every day. A people and a God who forget self long enough
to figure out how the other person feels.
The Lord and Israel signed a contract, an
exclusive contract. You will be my ad
agency, and I will be your account. And
you will draw to me the nations of the world.
After a couple thousand years, the Lord decided
to review the account. The results
weren’t quite what God hoped. Israel did
stand out, in some good ways. The
mightiest conquerors of the world just gave up trying to get them to work on
the Sabbath. Their God is about workers’
rights! But the compassion thing got
lost in that exclusive account thing. And
the drawing all people thing never happened.
So the Lord came down for another conference, to
do some product demonstration of his own.
God’s love is for everybody. His compassion is over all his works. Those are not cheap words. You know that person you despise, that unnamed
despicable one? God loves him, too. Pray for him.
Pray for him by name. Pray for
him every day. You don’t have to pray
for his success. Pray for his
healing. Pray for his soul.
If you love the loveable, well that’s fine. But, doesn’t everybody? Stand out!
Be perfect, (remember, be holy) because your heavenly Father is holy.
All the way to the cross. His last prayer, Father, forgive them.
The night before he died, Jesus formed a
subsidiary of Israel. He took a few good
people, and then they recruited a whole lot of new people, to take up the task
of showing the world that we are his disciples, because we love as he loves.
I’m not telling you it’s easy. I’m not telling you it’s nice or comfortable
or pretty to follow Jesus. You want
nice, comfortable, pretty, there are other sweet-smelling gods out there for
you.
You come here, you got a job to do.
Be the light for this dark world to see. Be the salt that makes a difference. Go out there and be the people of God, the
God whose compassion is over all his works. Amen.
Moses at Mount Sinai by Meister der Bible des Patrice Leon, 10th c., public domain
Photo of Wall Street bull, Carol M. Highsmith, public domain
The Good Samaritan, Aime Nicholas Morot, 1880, public domain
Alouite women and children gleaning, whiting and Matson, 1938, public domain
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