Proper 9C God’s Truth Fuels God’s Dream. Through Us.

+This morning’s collect reads, in part:
“O God you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and your neighbor.”
Sounds simple, right?
But, as Jesus explains in today’s Gospel and as he explained in last week’s, following Jesus, being his disciple, isn’t easy.
Because being a follower of Jesus, being his disciple, proclaiming him as our Lord and our God makes us lambs in the midst of wolves.
It makes us bait.
It makes us targets.
It makes us vulnerable….because love challenges fear, love defeats hate and love, when spread throughout the world, shakes up the status quo.
The Love of God, the loving actions commanded by Jesus— this Love—makes a lot of people really uncomfortable.
    Loving God and Loving our Neighbor is not only being nice and polite and considerate.  Sometimes it’s not any of that!
Loving God and Loving our Neighbor sometimes---oftentimes----means ticking off our neighbor, our family, our fellow parishioners, our co-workers.
Loving God and Loving our neighbor means we have to stand up, speak out and say no to injustice. Why? Because it’s what Jesus did.
Loving God and loving our neighbor means we have to stand up, speak out and say no to hate and intolerance.
Loving God and Loving our Neighbor means standing up to those who would exclude and belittle others because of the color of their skin, the gender of their beloved or the name of their God. Why? Because it’s what Jesus did.
Loving God and Loving our Neighbor means confronting those who spew hate speech and showering them with the Love speech of Christ---that is, disputing their hate, challenging their intolerance and refusing to accept that there are just some things (and some people) that cannot be changed.
Loving God and Loving our neighbor means welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry.
Loving God and Loving our Neighbor means seeking out that stranger and dismantling the systems that lead to people being hungry, naked, lonely and afraid.
Loving God and Loving our Neighbor means being afraid to say out loud that assault weapons are designed for one thing and one thing only: killing people, but saying it anyway.
 It means being afraid to say there are sensible immigration laws that don’t include, condone or accept imprisoning children as a strategy, and then saying it anyway.
Loving God and loving our neighbor means being afraid to say those things churning in our heart,  but SAYING THEM ANYWAY.
Loving God and Loving our neighbors isn’t easy, but it is absolutely, positively our job as followers of Jesus, as proclaimers of the Good News, as Christians.
     Loving God and Loving our neighbor is God’s truth, it is God’s dream,
it’s God’s goal.
     And the only way it can be reached, the only way God’s dream can come true is through us.
Here and Now.
    We are God’s foot soldiers. Just as Jesus sent out the seventy, two by two, God, through our baptism,  sends us out, one by one, two by two, three by three, congregation by congregation: to Love everyone as we ourselves are loved by God. No exceptions. No exclusions, No “yes buts” everyone, everywhere, always.
       We do this by respecting the dignity of every single human being.  And when we witness someone NOT being treated with dignity, we do something about it.
Every. Single. Time.
     Loving God and loving our neighbor isn’t comfortable, it isn’t easy, it isn’t safe.
But it is what God wants for and expects from us. This dream, this goal, this commandment is what this country was founded on. It may seem we have lost our way, but our readings today tell us—- no matter how lost we feel, God has the pathway back. We just need to follow it.
     It’s tempting to say, “no, this is too hard. This is too big. I can’t do anything to stop this. All I can do is pray, pray that someone smarter, someone bigger, someone stronger can come and fix it.”
    But, as Jesus repeatedly tells us, as the prophets repeatedly show us, as God continually expects of us, it’s the least among us, the most unlikely among us, the regular folk-- you know, you and me-- to change the world.
One act of loving our neighbor at a time.
One act of Loving our God at a time.
    So as we settle into the heart of a glorious Western New York summer, as we gather with friends and family to celebrate this amazing country of ours, as we slow down a bit to rest and rejuvenate, I challenge you…I challenge me….to make this dream of God a reality by standing up, by speaking out and making sure that God’s truth will make Gods dream come true, through us and by us, thanks be to God.
Amen.