Dan Harper | Sermons

Tag: Jesus of Nazareth

  • Fish for Five Thousand

    The following was given at the Thursday evening worship service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, at the 7:00 p.m. service. Copyright (c) Dan Harper 2011.

    Reading

    Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions, yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

    Frederick Douglass, from “An address on West India Emancipation,” August 4, 1857.

    Story

    I’d like to tell you a story about that radical rabble rouser and rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth.

    Once upon a time, Jesus and his disciples (that is, his closest followers) were trying to take a day off. Jesus had become very popular, and people just wouldn’t leave him alone. Jesus and the disciples wanted a little time away from the crowds that followed them everywhere, so they rented a boat and went to a lonely place, far from any village.

    But people figured out where they were going, and by the time Jesus and his friends landed the boat, there were five thousand people waiting there for them. So Jesus started to teach them, and he talked to them for hours.

    It started getting late, and the disciples of Jesus pulled him aside and said, “We need to send these people to one of the nearby villages to get some food.”

    “No,” said Jesus. “The villages around here are too small to feed five thousand people. You will have to get them something to eat.”

    “What do you mean?” his disciples said. “We don’t have enough money to go buy enough bread for all these people, and even if we did, how would we bring it all back here?”

    “No, no,” said Jesus. “I don’t want you to go buy bread. Look, how many loaves of bread we got right here?

    The disciples looked at the food they had brought with them. “We’ve got five loaves of bread, and a couple of fried fish. That’s all.”

    “That will be enough,” said Jesus.

    His disciples looked at him as if he were crazy. There was no way that would be enough food for five thousand people!

    But Jesus had spent the whole day teaching people about the Kingdom of God — today we’d call it the Web of Life — teaching them that everyone is dependent on someone else. And while he was sitting up in front of the crowd teaching, he looked out and saw that many of the five thousand people had brought their own food with them. He watched them as they surreptitiously nibbled away at their own food, ignoring the fact that many of the people around them had no food at all.

    Jesus told everyone to sit down on the grass. All five thousand people sat down. Jesus brought out the five loaves of bread. Being a good Jew, he blessed the bread using the traditional Jewish blessing: “Blessed are you, O Holy One, Creator of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.” Then, so everyone could see, Jesus broke the bread, and cut up the fish, and divided it up, so the disciples could hand it around.

    Everyone saw that even though Jesus and his disciples had barely enough food for themselves, they were going to share it with everyone. From where he sat, Jesus could see the truth dawning in people’s eyes. All day long, Jesus had been teaching them that the Kingdom of Heaven existed here and now, if only people would recognize it. Now Jesus was giving them a chance to show they understood, and to act as if the Kingdom of Heaven truly existed.

    The disciples began to pass around the bread and the fried fish, shaking their heads because they knew there wasn’t going to be enough food for everyone. Yet, miracle of miracles, there was plenty of food to go around. People who had food put some of their food into the baskets so it could be shared. People who hadn’t brought food with them took some food from the baskets. By the time the followers of Jesus had passed the baskets to all five thousand people, everyone had gotten enough to eat, and there was so much food left over that it filled twelve baskets.

    And that’s the story of how Jesus fed five thousand people with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fried fish. Many people believe that Jesus performed a magical miracle when he blessed the bread and fish, and that somehow God turned a dozen loaves of bread and two fish into thousands of loaves of bread and thousands of fried fish. It’s easier to believe that God performed the miracle, than to believe that humans could perform the same miracle. Because if humans performed the miracle, that means we could do the same thing today: to share with those who need it, and to live as if the Kingdom of Heaven existed here and now.

    Sources: Christian scriptures, Mark 6.32-44. Theological interpretation from Bernard Loomer, Unfoldings (Berkeley, Calif.: 1985), pp. 3 ff.; and Latin American liberation theology.

  • Another kind of good neighbor

    The sermon below was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, California, at the 9:30 and 11:00 a.m. services. The sermon text below is a reading text; the actual sermon contained improvisation and extemporaneous remarks. Sermon copyright (c) 2010 Daniel Harper.

    The following brief story was allegedly told by the wandering rabbi and political radical, Jesus of Nazareth:

    “There was a man going from Jerusalem down to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him up, and went off, leaving him for dead. Now by coincidence a priest was going down that road; when he caught sight of him, he went out of his way to avoid him. In the same way, when a Levite came to the place, he took one look at him and crossed the road to avoid him. But this Samaritan who was traveling that was came to where he was and was moved by pity at the sight of him. He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring olive oil and wine on them. He hoisted him up onto his own animal, brought him to an inn, and looked after him. The next day he took out two silver coins, which he gave to the innkeeper, and said, “Look after him, and on my way back I’ll reimburse you for any extra expense you have had. Which of these three, in your opinion, acted like a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” [Luke 10.30-36, Scholars Version translation.]

    I read you that story by way of introducing you to Dana Greeley, who in May, 1961 — fifty years ago this coming May — became the first president of the newly formed Unitarian Universalist Association. I knew Dana Greeley — not well, but I knew him — because in 1970, he became the minister in my home congregation in Concord, Massachusetts. And Dana Greeley was, to my way of thinking, an example of a good neighbor, a Good Samaritan. I mean this not in the popular sense, in which a Good Samaritan is a smarmy conventional do-gooder who makes the rest of us look bad. Dana Greeley was not smarmy, and he was a Unitarian Universalist, which means he was not conventional. So I had better explain to you what I mean when I say that Dana Greeley was an unconventional, but not smarmy, Good Samaritan.

     

    To begin with, Dana Greeley was an internationalist. He understood that everyone in the world was his neighbor. And he worked hard to make connections around the world.

    And when I say around the world, I mean it; I grew up thinking it was normal for ministers to travel all around the world. He was in New Delhi, India, in 1982 for the New Delhi Peace March. He was in Hiroshima for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb. In 1962, he visited Albert Schweitzer at his hospital in Gabon in Africa. He was an invited observer at the Second Vatican Council, and sat within thirty feet of Pope John when the council was convened. He met with President John F. Kennedy at the White House, and with United Nations secretary U Thant at U.N. headquarters. Nor did he only travel overseas: he was one of the ministers who walked arm in arm with Martin Luther King on the streets of Selma, Alabama, in 1965 during the struggle for civil rights in America. William Schulz, who later became president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and then the president of Amnesty International, said, “What Dana did for Unitarian Universalism was to convince us that we were worthy of being taken seriously as a world-class faith.” [The Premise and the Promise, Warren Ross (Boston: Skinner House), 2001, p. 31.]

    Why did he do all this traveling? In a sermon delivered in October, 1972, Greeley said, “World brotherhood and world government are the realities that must more and more be recognized.” [Forward through the Ages, Concord, Mass: First Parish, 1986.] “Brotherhood” is a word we don’t use much any more; today we might say all human beings are relatives, but the truth behind the phrase remains the same. Greeley was an internationalist because he really believed that all human beings are siblings, in the best possible sense. He not only believed this, he lived it out in his life. He was a naturally gregarious person who could talk with anyone, and so it was the most natural thing for him to know people all around the world and to build friendships and relationships that over time would naturally lead towards closer ties between human beings. Dana Greeley was the kind of Good Samaritan who understood the whole world to be his neighbor.

     

    While he understood the whole world to be his neighborhood, Dana Greeley also made the effort to create good neighborhoods in his immediate vicinity. Another way to say this is to say that he was a good institutionalist.

    That word “institutionalist” is not widely used in our contemporary society, so let me define it for you. A good institutionalist is someone who is adept at building up and maintaining strong human institutions. A good institutionalist may be the kind of person who is good at serving on committees and boards, and who is good at filling elected offices. A good institutionalist may also be someone who works behind the scenes in informal ways to strengthen our various institutions.

    People who are good institutionalists are essential to a healthy democracy. Of course democracies need committed citizens who participate directly in government. But democracies also depend upon citizens who participate in voluntary associations, that is, those associations outside of government and business in which we are free to mingle with other citizens. The democratic right to free association is crucial for democracies because it is in voluntary associations — groups like the League of Women Voters and citizen’s groups and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto — where democracy really takes hold. It is in voluntary associations that most of us learn and practice the skills of democracy: public speaking; public listening; leadership and followership; learning to lose gracefully and learning to win gracefully; setting and reaching goals (goals, not profits); discussing big issues with other people and learning to trust in the democratic process to get us ever closer to an ideal world.

    Dana Greeley once wrote, “I have always like people and have put a sizable measure of confidence in people” [25 Beacon Street, Boston: Skinner House, 1973, p. 69]. I watched Dana Greeley act as a good institutionalist in my home congregation when he was minister there. He strengthened the democratic structures in that congregation by engaging as many people as possible in the decision-making process. When I was a member of the high school youth group of that congregation, I remember that he made sure to invite youth members to planning retreats; to his way of thinking, people should learn the skills of democracy at a young age. He went further than that: he engaged both his opponents and his supporters in the decision-making process. He always had confidence in the people around him, and they tended to live up to the confidence he placed in them.

    Having confidence in people happens to be a fine way to build democratic institutions. When you understand everyone to be your neighbor, and when you treat your neighbor the way you’d like to be treated, not only do your neighbors tend to treat you the way you’d like to be treated, and not only is everyone happier, but you also tend to get things done. In the sixteen years Dana Greeley was minister at my home congregation, the Sunday morning attendance more than quadrupled.

     

    More narrowly, Greeley also knew his neighbors to be the people who come together each Sunday morning in Unitarian Universalist congregations. He once said, “My mother jollied me always, and challenged me, by reminding me that I was born on a Sunday morning at eleven o’clock…. I admit that eleven o’clock on Sunday is the time of the week I like best.” [25 Beacon Street, p. 22] He said this, I believe, not for selfish reasons, not because he happened to like that time of week, but because he knew how many other people value that time of the week.

    Consider for a moment all the reasons we have for coming to Unitarian Universalist services on a Sunday morning. I remember John (not his real name) who was a meat-cutter at a supermarket, and who liked to go to his Unitarian Universalist church because the sermon gave him something to think about all week long while he was working; and, he said, that made him a better person. Mariana told me that if she missed the worship service on Sunday morning, she felt off balance all the rest of the week; Unitarian Universalist just made her feel good. Steve, who grew up Jewish, said he decided to join a Unitarian Universalist congregation because Sunday morning services helped him map out a moral course in his job as the owner of a large construction company. Then there was Irene, who often missed the service on Sunday morning because she was out in the social hall chatting with her cronies; but Sunday mornings was the center of her community, and she wouldn’t miss it for the world.

    And without going into specifics, there are the people who come here carrying a burden of grief, or illness, or despair, or many other burdens; you can come here, and have a measure of peace for just a moment while you are held in the love of this religious community. That kind of thing happens all the time in this very room, at this very time on Sunday morning; I have seen it, and I have talked to people who have experienced it. Someone who really needs it can come in here and receive a measure of comfort, maybe even a measure of healing from the love that is in this room.

    We come here on Sunday mornings, and each one of us, simply by showing up, is acting as a good neighbor. Just by showing up, we are part of a human community that provides comfort and peace and maybe healing to others. Just by showing up, your presence here supports those of us who come here to map out a moral course for the week; your presence supports those who come here to find some balance in their lives; your presence makes you a part of an intellectual community. And of course your presence here is of great importance to all those who are your friends, and who maybe come here to talk with you.

    Dana Greeley was on to something when he considered Sunday mornings spent in with a congregation to be the best time of the week. This is a community of good neighbors, a community that offers peace, maybe healing, intellectual stimulation, time to map out a moral course for oneself.

     

    I began this sermon with the well-known story of the Good Samaritan. At the end of that story, the wandering rabbi and political radical Jesus of Nazareth asks his audience a question designed to get them thinking about what it means to be a good neighbor. There are many answers to that question, which is why we still tell this story some two thousand years after it was allegedly first told. A good neighbor might be someone who sees the whole world as their neighborhood. A good neighbor might be someone who builds strong democratic institutions. A good neighbor might be someone who shows up here, week after week, just to be a part of this human community.

    This coming May we will be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Unitarian Universalist Association. As we look ahead to that celebration, I would submit to you that Dana Greeley represents, in these ways, some of the best aspects of who we are as Unitarian Universalists. We are good neighbors: good world citizens, good neighbors in this congregation, good neighbors who have confidence in humanity.

  • Two Commandments

    This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon and story copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

    Readings

    The reading this morning is from the Christian scriptures, the book attributed to Mark, chapter 12, vv. 28-34.

    28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; 33 and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

    Story for All Ages

    One day, Jesus (and remember, Jesus was Jewish) Jesus was talking to a lawyer about the laws the Jews received from their God. Jesus asked the lawyer, “How do you understand what is written in our religious laws?”

    “That’s easy,” replied the lawyer. “We are supposed to love our God with all our hearts and minds; and we are supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves.”

    “Do you really believe this?” said Jesus.

    “Yes,” said the lawyer. “But I have a question. I’m supposed to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. But who is my neighbor?”

    To answer this question, Jesus told this story:

    *****

    One day, a man from Jerusalem was going from Jerusalem down to the city of Jericho. On the road, the man was ambushed by robbers. The robbers beat him up, took all his money, and even took most of his clothing. The robbers left the poor man, bruised and unable to move, lying by the side of the road.

    Now by coincidence, just a little later a priest from the great Temple at Jerusalem was going down the same road. The priests were very important religious leaders, sort of like super-ministers. The priest saw the man lying there, but instead of stopping to help him, the priest looked the other way and hurried on by.

    A little later, a Levite came down the same road. Levites were the official helpers of the priests of the great Temple at Jerusalem, and only a little less important. Like the priest, the Levite took one look at the poor man lying by the side of the road, looked the other way, and hurried on by.

    A little later, a man from Samaria came walking along the road. Now people from Jerusalem and people from Samaria did not like each other, and when the poor bruised man from Jerusalem saw a this Samaritan walking along, he was sure the Samaritan would walk on past him just like the priest and the Levite.

    But this Samaritan was moved to pity at the sight of the poor man lying by the side of the road. The Samaritan went up to him, bandaged his wounds, and poured healing oil on his wounds.

    Then the Samaritan hoisted the poor man onto his donkey, brought the poor man to an inn, and looked after him. The next day, the Samaritan went to the innkeeper with some silver coins and said, “Look after that poor man until he gets better. On my way back, I’ll make sure to pay you back if there’s any extra expense.”

    SERMON — “Two Commandments”

    The first reading this morning tells a story about the itinerant teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, and about some people who were asking questions about their religious tradition. The reading ended with the words, “After that, no one dared ask him any question.” Obviously, there were no Unitarian Universalists in the group listening to Jesus of Nazareth, because this story only raises more questions for us. Lots and lots of questions. Like, when the scribe responds to Jesus, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’” — and Jesus agrees with the scribe — well, doesn’t this mean that Jesus is not God? And what does Jesus mean when he says back to the scribe, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God” — does that mean the Kingdom of God is actually here and now and we can each attain it in this lifetime? I also want to know who this anonymous scribe is, because it sounds like this scribe is just as wise as Jesus.

    For us Unitarian Universalists, this little story in the Bible raises more questions than it answers. We can only wish that there had been someone like us in that crowd listening to Jesus, someone who was willing to stick out her neck and say, Wait a minute, Jesus, just what do you mean that the two greatest commandments are ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ — and — ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’?

    But you know what? There’s nothing to keep us from asking these questions. So let’s do it.

    I’d like to start with that second commandment, the one that says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” I want to start with that statement, because it is a statement made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr., who asked us: Who is our neighbor? and who asked us: Does it matter what color skin your neighbor has? and who asked American Christians, If you really believe the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, don’t you think it would be wise to pay attention to the story of the Good Samaritan? Since today is Martin Luther King’s birthday, it seems especially fitting that we ask questions about this matter of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

    So here’s a question: if we are supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves, in what way are we supposed to love ourselves? The more I think about this business of loving our neighbors, the more important it seems to think about what it means to love our neighbors the way we love ourselves. I know some people who, quite frankly, hate themselves; and if they were to take literally the commandment to love their neighbors in the same way they love themselves, I personally would not want to be their neighbor. Then, on the other hand, I know other people who love themselves with all their hearts and all their minds and all their strength; I find it somehow unlikely that they can find room in their souls to love their neighbors as they love themselves, for they love themselves with an all-consuming love that allows for competing loves. It’s tempting to think that Jesus was a sort of first century Dr. Phil, and he’s implying that we have to love ourselves in a psychologically healthy way. It’s a sort of Goldilocks way to love yourself: not too much, and not too little, but just right.

    We ask that one question, “In what way are we supposed to love ourselves?” which leads us to another question: if the people of Israel were commanded to love their God with all their hearts and all their souls and all their minds and all their strength, how does that leave any love left over to love yourself, or for that matter to love your neighbor? This does not make sense; and suddenly we find ourselves in a realm of mythic and poetical thinking. This story from the Bible is not offering logical, linear checklists for your behavior: number one, love God, check; number two, love self appropriately but not too much, check; number three, love neighbor as love self, check; checklist completed, I must be a good person. That’s not the way this story works; the Bible is a book of stories that do not necessarily make logical sense, because they are written in the mythic poetical vein.

    Instead of asking logical, rational questions of this story, let’s retell the story and see what we can get out of it:

    The story goes like this: that itinerant rabbi and teacher named Jesus of Nazareth has bee traveling all through the countryside around Jerusalem. At last, he decides to go into Jerusalem itself, Jerusalem the seat of Roman power in Judea, Jerusalem of the great Temple the seat of religious power for the land of Judea. Jesus goes to the Temple, and finds himself debating with representatives of the religiously powerful: Pharisees, Herodians, Sadduccees, and so on. As Jesus is debating, a scribe, that is, someone who is part of the religious hierarchy, overhears them disputing with one another. The scribe is impressed with the answers Jesus gives, and so asks Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?” What an interesting question to ask! because you could answer in one of two ways: you could cite the ten commandments of Moses and say there is not one commandment there are ten we must follow; or you could understand the question to really mean, what lies at the very heart of the religion shared by Jesus and the scribe. What an interesting question to ask, as we witness legalistic debates in our own day about what Jesus’s teachings mean, and about whether it is legal to engrave the Ten Commandments in stone and place them in an Alabama courtroom.

    Jesus does not give a legalistic answer to this question. Jesus gives a religious answer, citing the Hebrew Bible: “The first commandment is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one”; that is the first part of Jesus’s answer. Jesus continues his citation of the Hebrew Bible: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Then, still citing the Hebrew Bible, Jesus says there’s a second commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

    While the other powerful religious personages had not liked Jesus’s answers, this anonymous scribe does like Jesus’s answers, replying, “You are right, Teacher [note that he acknowledges Jesus as a Teacher]; you have truly said that our shared God is one, and besides him there is no other’; you have truly said that we are ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and finally you have truly said that we are ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself.” Then the scribe makes one last comment that is really quite radical: these things, that God is one, to love God, to love one’s neighbor, “this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices”; that is, these things are more important than doing the conventionally religious actions of that time, of offering animal sacrifices at the Temple.

    To close out this funny little story, Jesus makes one last remark that reminds me of something a Zen master might say. You know how Zen masters are delighted when someone comes along who is just as enlightened as they are? In our story, Jesus is delighted that this scribe is just as enlightened as he, Jesus, is. Jesus answers the scribe as one equal addressing another, saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God”; saying, The two of us, we are not far from the Kingdom of God, we are both enlightened about the true nature of religion.

    This story still speaks to us today. It speaks to us in spite of the fact that too many people want to make it into a legalistic, linear, non-poetical story. Too many people today focus on one little facet of the story, and those people say to us: You have to believe in God with all your heart and mind and soul. What they really mean, of course, it: You have to believe in our God, the way we define God, with all your heart and soul, and maybe you should leave your mind out of the equation so you don’t start asking difficult questions.

    Heretic that I am, I’m going to ask a difficult question: when we hear this story, how are we to understand God? Are we to understand God as a being that requires animal sacrifices in the Temple at Jerusalem? –in other words, are we going to get a literal, logicalistic answer to this question? No, of course not. This is a mythic, poetical story. “God” in this story functions as a way for us to understand how we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. God represents that which is good, that which is best in the universe; God represents the essential oneness of the universe; God represents the love that ties our universe together. Jesus offers a statement that is like a Zen koan, that is, a statement that cannot be understood through regular logical thought. Jesus says, the universe is one; you are to love it with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength until there is nothing left of you for you are not separate from the universe, you are a part of it; you are a part of your neighbors and so you love them too with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength. Jesus is not making a rational argument here; instead, like so many of the great religious teachers, Jesus presents us with a mythic poetical truth; you have to know it in your body not understand just it in your mind.

    I have to admit, I am not particularly comfortable with the mythic, poetical truth that Jesus throws at us. At the most basic level, I’m not sure I want to love all my neighbors; there are one or two people in this world for whom I harbor a certain amount of resentment and I’m not sure I want to let go of that resentment. And what about this notion that God is one, and I’m supposed to love this God notion with all my heart, et cetera, et cetera? Personally, I find that a little creepy, mostly because I have no interest in turning into a Jesus freak who puts bumper stickers on my car like, “God loves you,” and “Honk if you love Jesus.” Yech.

    And therefore, I like to take the easy way out. I like to say: hey, Dr. King said we should love our neighbors like ourselves. I’m fine with that statement. I know part of that statement was addressed to me as a white guy, and Dr. King was telling me that I have to love all persons regardless of their skin color. OK, I can do that, I can stand up against racism, I can recognize the racism in my own heart and I am committed to eradicating it. So I’ll just understand “God” [in quotes] as a metaphor for the oneness of all people regardless of skin color. I’ll just understand loving my neighbor very abstractly and very narrowly, as treating everyone the same regardless of their skin color. That’s relatively easy; I can do that.

    But that avoids the wholeness of poetical truth of this story. In the best Zen master fashion, Jesus has thrown something that cannot be encompassed by rational linear thought processes; Jesus has thrown something at us that stops me dead, something that I find impossible.

    But as I think that it’s impossible, I realize that maybe nothing less is possible. As much as I’d like to cling to my resentment, to my hatred, I know there’s something bigger than me out there. That “something bigger” is what Jesus identifies with the God of the Israelites. Now if I were thinking linearly, I might think that I should take Jesus literally, and that I should start worshipping the God of the Israelites; but I cannot do that literally in the way that Jesus did; I cannot go to the great Temple in Jerusalem and offer animal sacrifices; I cannot think literally in that way.

    When I hear those two commandments, in my heart I think of them in this way: to love the world in all its interconnected relationships with all my heart, mind, and soul; to see it as one interconnected wholeness of being; and to realize that in that interconnected wholeness of being somehow I must learn to love everything for everything is a oneness.

    These two commandments are not two, but one great commandment for life, telling me, telling all of us, how to live in relationship through love. Love your friends and loved ones, yes. Love your neighbors, no matter what their skin color, no matter whether they are lying broken and bleeding in the gutter at the side of the road, yes. Love all living things, for that matter, the way you love yourself, yes.

    Martin Luther King taught us about these two great commandments, just as prophets down through the ages have taught us the same thing. It’s up to us to live these commandments. And you know what? –if we manage to do that, we just might bring about a kind of heaven on earth.