m+I love today’s “prayer of the day,” Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.
But then I loved it even more after I read the lesson from the prophet Jeremiah… in this reading the grafting of love takes on a new dimension, here God is bereft. God’s sad and a little angry---“why did your ancestors abandon me? Why do you love these gods of human composition more than you love me---the source of all love, the creator of all things, the maker of humankind? Why don’t you love me?”
Now a more cynical person may wonder why God gives a rat’s patoot about us, after all we’ve done little to bring God joy over the past millennia. But God persists...always striving for us to enter the fullness of creation; that is to be joined, wholly and completely with God.
How is God’s love grafted upon our hearts? How is our love grafted upon God’s?
By being one.
By joining in that crazy dance with God that began on the first day, at the first light, with that first breath. A dance that humanity repeatedly steps out of, much to God’s heartbreak.
It’s a miracle that God has hung in with us this long.
[I guess that’s why God is God and we are…not. ]
Which brings us to today’s Gospel reading about where we should sit at a dinner party…which then leads us to merging onto a highway, what to do with your shopping cart in the Wegmans’ parking lot, and how to live into who it is God want SJG to be! [Yes I’m serious]
Let’s review—Jesus berates those who sat in the places of honor at the dinner party. He’s pretty blunt: “all who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Remember, being humble doesn’t mean being “less than.” It means making sure that your good fortune is not at the expense of another. It means making sure that every human being is respected and that their dignity is intact.
And that’s where merging onto the 33 and where to put your grocery cart comes into play.
Don’t you get frustrated when you’re trying to merge onto the 33 and the cars in the right hand lane won’t let you in? It’s infuriating! Now consider when you’re trying to exit a parking lot onto a busy street, or are again trying to merge onto a highway and a car slows to make sure you can slip into traffic. Nice. It may seem silly, but these are examples of hubris vs. humility…of entitlement—where I need to go in my car is far more important than where you need to go, so I’m going to move along, oblivious of you and your needs----vs--- realizing that we’re all in this together and where you need to go is as important to you as where I need to go …of working with one another vs. working against one another. Of being in community rather than in competition.
OK so what about that grocery cart? There was a meme going around FB this week showing a picture of a grocery cart. The caption read: I don’t know a single successful person that leaves their shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot.
I agree—who’s so important that they don’t have the time to take their shopping cart to the corral? The people who don’t are at best, lazy, or at worst, entitled. Returning your shopping cart so that others aren’t inconvenienced (or their cars aren’t damaged) is an act of common human decency. It’s of being in community rather than being above or beyond community.
The golden rule is clear—we do unto others as we wish done unto us. We’re in this together folks. We get nowhere if we place ourselves before others.
That brings me to SJG. I know you’re trying to find your way, trying to define just who you are. I know there has been some upheaval and some disagreement. I know that some of you are worried. But--and I’m fairly certain Judy has been preaching this for awhile now---your success isn’t about how many people are sitting here each Sunday, it isn’t about how many baptisms or confirmations or even pledging units you have compared to other churches. You’re not in competition with them, nor should you focus on bringing people through these doors. No YOUR success is in how you, as a community of faith, bring that Love of God--- you know that which God longs to have grafted on our hearts, that which makes your heart sing, that thing that you do, collectively here at SJG that brings you, as a community of faith, closer to God. That thing you do that grafts you unto God and God unto you----bring that to the world around you, to this community of the Elmwood Village.
What is it that makes you, as a congregation, sing God’s praises the loudest? That’s the thing, that’s the thing that you need to focus on, for when you do the thing that makes your hearts sing, then God’s love is forever grafted upon your hearts and all matter of things shall be well. Amen.
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