All you need is love

John, Paul, George, and Ringo, are not exactly what one might call theologians, but the title of their 1967 hit ‘All You Need is Love’ does seem (at one level) to encapsulate the message of this morning’s Gospel.

At its heart, Our Lord’s teaching combines two of the central commandments of the Law of Moses: Loving God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and loving our neighbour as our self. Out of the 613 commandments of the Torah, these two are central – Jesus cuts right to the heart of the Old Covenant to show that what he is teaching is the fulfilment rather than the abolition of the Law and the Prophets. We know from elsewhere in the Gospels that when someone asks the follow-up question, Our Lord tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, to show what costly love in action looks like.

It is a big ask – in Leviticus the Lord says ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.’ (Lev 19:2) As people created in the image of God, we are called to be holy, to be like God, to live out this love and holiness in our lives, in what we say and do, and in how we treat people. It is something we do together, as the body of Christ in the world.

Christ shows the world what love looks like when he dies on the Cross - embracing the world with love, and reconciling the world to God and itself. This is what being the Messiah is all about. It is why Christ continues to give himself under the outward forms of bread and wine to heal and restore the world. This is why we are here today – to be fed by him, fed with him, so that our souls and bodies may be transformed more and more into his likeness. It is our food for the journey of faith, our manna in the wilderness of this world, to strengthen us to live out our faith. This is not some optional extra, but the heart of who and what we are. We listen to what Jesus tells us, and we are obedient to Him.

We do this together as people redeemed by Him, saved from self-absorption, singing a new song to call the world to have life and have it to the full. It is the most wonderful good news, which fills us with joy and confidence – a gift far too precious for us not to give it away, to share it with others so that they may be free.

The Pharisees are reduced to silence because they are faced with Truth, with God himself speaking to them. They cannot answer Jesus because he is what the Law and the Prophets look to for fulfilment. He shows how our duty to love God and to worship him is tied up with loving our neighbour, and living out our faith in our lives. He provides us with an ethical framework within which to live, to guide our thoughts and actions, not by casting aside the moral law but by fulfilling it – by showing us what love looks like. His death and resurrection shows us what love looks like in action. It is the same love which we can taste and eat here today, which shows us how to live – following Jesus’ example and his commands. We are to be people of love, not the saccharin-sweet sentiment of the movies, but the costly self-giving love shown to us by Christ, the love which gives without counting the cost – a love which can heal the wounds of the world, which can give us that which we truly long for.

We love God when we worship Him, when we listen to what he says and obey Him. We love our neighbour through living out the forgiveness which we have received through Christ, by showing the same love and care which Christ shows to us, in giving himself to die for us, and to be raised to give us the hope of eternal life with Him.

It is all about Love, a love which gives itself to fill us, so that we can have life and have it to the full. It is a love which we can touch and taste, which can transform our souls so that we can grow into the likeness of Christ. We are nourished by Word and Sacrament so that we can live out the holiness which is our calling. We live it out together, strengthening each other, building each other up in love, praying for our needs and those of the whole world, relying upon the God who loves us, and who gives himself for us, in his strength and power, transformed by his grace.

So let us come to Him, so that we can be transformed more and more into His likeness, and invite others to so that they may believe and give Glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.  

Matthew 22:15-22 Trinity XVIII 29th Sunday of Year A

Jesus and the Pharisees had something of a troubled relationship: they just don’t seem to be able to get him – to understand what he is saying or why. All they can do is to try and catch him out, to find a way to entrap him. In this morning’s gospel they must think that they have finally got him on the horns of a dilemma – they ask him the question ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ If he says ‘no’ then he’s allied himself with zealots, religious extremists, he has made a provocative political statement for which he can be denounced, if  he says ‘yes’ then they can write him off as a collaborator, he is not one of us – he is not a real prophet, a true son of Israel. All they are interested in is understanding what he says in political terms. Their opening pleasantries ring hollow, they don’t mean what they say; they are just trying to butter him up with empty flattery.

       He turns the tables on them by asking them to show him a coin used to pay the tax, so that he can ask ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answer ‘Caesar’s’ allowing him to say ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s’. Whereas they come filled with malice, with a desire to catch him out, Jesus uses this as an opportunity to show them the proper order of things: pay your taxes but give God what is owed to him – a heart filled with love, love of God and of each other, a life which proclaims this love in the service of others and through the worship of Almighty God. This is where real power lies, this is the truly subversive aspect of Jesus’ teaching, which he proclaims in the Temple, in the heart of the religious establishment – to show them how to live, and live life to the full.

       In the power of the Holy Spirit the Truth can be proclaimed, the truth which sets us free from the ways of the world, free to love and serve God. This freedom can be seen in the lives of the Thessalonian Christians to whom Paul writes. Rather than worshipping idols, they serve the living and true God, they are an example to Christians of how to live. Their lives proclaim the truth which they serve. This is the dark truth of which the prophet Isaiah speaks, these are the hidden riches.

       As opposed to either the collaboration of the Herodians or the rigorist harshness of the Pharisees, Jesus proclaims the freedom and love of the Kingdom of God. It is a place of welcome – the image is that of the wedding feast to which all people are invited. People are too busy or preoccupied to come; others just don’t want to be invited: they mistreat the people who invite them. This does not stop the invitation being offered to all, it still is. It is why we are here today, so that we can be nourished by Word and Sacrament, so that we can be strengthened in love and in faith, to proclaim the reality of the Kingdom of God, to be an example to others to draw them in to the loving embrace of God – to be healed and restored by Him.

       We see this love and healing most fully in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the costly love in action which restores our relationship with God and each other. Thanks to this we are here today to be restored and renewed, to be built up in love together, it is a reality in our lives.

       Let us come to him, to be healed and renewed, strengthened, built up in love.                                            

A Harvest Sermon

It is good to celebrate Harvest because it is a celebration of what the Church is all about.

If you were about to go to a foreign country the first words you would learn would probably be ‘Please, Thank you, and I’m sorry’ ‘os gwelwch yn dda, diolch, mae’n ddrwg gen i’ along with greetings like Hello and How are you? They’re basics of conversation, they help us to be understood, they make people willing to listen to us, because to use them is polite, not to use them is impolite.

We teach them to our children and encourage them to use them. And in the same way theta they’re useful in conversation when we pray, when we talk to God, and listen to Him, as we do in Church and in our lives we need to use these words in prayer. In our prayer we ask God for things, we say thank you to God for things, and we say sorry for what we’ve done wrong or haven’t done. It is important that our prayers just like our every day conversation are appropriate and polite – it helps form our character, and helps us to live out our faith.

Harvest is mostly about saying thank you to God, for the gifts of his creation, for the food we eat, for all that the earth provides As well as recognising the gift we realise that it is also our duty to share what we are given with the hungry, the poor and the need, so that all may be fed – it is no good living in a world where people go hungry – it produces enough food so that everyone can have enough to eat, so that everyone can say thank you to God for the gifts of his creation. It is up to us as the church to ensure that we live out the generosity which we receive from God in Our Lives.

This caring sharing vision of the world is what the prophet Isaiah envisions in his vision of the Kingdom of the Messiah – That’s here and now, it’s not some future hope, but rather it’s how we’re meant to be right here and now.

The celebration of harvest is not a new thing – it goes back to the central festivals of Judaism – Jesus gave thanks for the harvest – and so should we, because in giving thanks we recognise the greatness of God’s generosity, we recognise our own dependence upon God and each other, and we help to ensure a culture of thankfulness.

        In the feeding stories in the Gospels, one of which follows our second reading, Jesus thanks God and blesses the offerings of food. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist bread and wine are taken, blessed shared and given so that we the Church can carry on doing exactly what Jesus did, not because it’s nice or fuzzy or nostalgic but because he tells us to do it, and we listen to him. Christ alone can satisfy our spiritual hunger and thirst – only when we are fed by Him, the living bread which came down from heaven can we have eternal life in Him.

As the Prophet Isaiah says: ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ We see this most fully in God’s gift of His Son, to show humanity how to live and to give Himself to die and be born again, to take away our sins and to restore our relationship with God and each other. It is an act of supreme love and generosity – giving people something which they do not deserve so that they may be transformed by it into the loving generous people God longs for us to be.

The miraculous feedings and the Eucharist point to the Cross where Christ gives himself for love of us- our response should be one of generosity and service, because it matters. The Church is decorated with the fruits of the Harvest through the generosity and effort of people who want to put their faith into action – we are grateful that they have done so much to help us celebrate – to help us to say thank you to God, to recognise all that we have to be thankful for. In our saying thanks to God, let our thankfulness not be something we do here once, but rather let it form our lives so that we may be thankful at all times and in all places. May we be grateful people, loving people, sharing people, whose faith shines through all that we are or say or do, nourished by the Word of God, by the sacraments of the Church so that we may filled with God’s love and transformed by His Grace, that we too may be an offering to God, sharing our love and our faith with the world around us, putting it into practice so that it too may reap a great harvest, a harvest of souls, to the Glory of God.

Let us work to prepare for a harvest of love, of generosity, and forgiveness, sowing seeds of love in the soil of our lives, and those of others, confident in the promises of God that He may reap the harvest, that the world may be transformed to sing his praise, to rejoice in his love, and to share it with others.

 Here is the proclamation of the covenant faithfulness of God, which finds its fulfilment in Christ, As we are mindful of this we give thanks to God and let that thankfulness become a defining characteristic of our lives, overflowing into all that we are or think or do, Thus we live out our faith, we live life in all its fullness and encourage others so to do so that they may believe and give Glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.