Proper 9C - July 8, 2007
Trinity V
All Saints' Church - Thomasville, GA
Isaiah 66:10-16
Psalm 66
Galatians 6:1-18
Luke 10:1-12; 16-20

Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum!

No, you have not taken a wrong turn and ended up in a Latin class this morning.

However, if there are any Latin scholars here this morning, I will graciously accept any corrections with my pronunciation.

I hope hearing a little Latin didn't conjure up any bad memories of high school Latin class for anyone!

Some of you may recognize that as the first verse of the 133rd Psalm.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

That verse is the motto of The University of the South, and the first three words - Ecce Quam Bonum - appear on a banner above two clasped hands on the university seal.

I can think of no better way to begin my first sermon in your midst than by expressing my sincerest gratitude to you all for your gracious hospitality and for allowing us to join the All Saints' family.

Robyn and Grace both join me in saying how wonderful you have been in making our transition from seminary to Thomasville as smooth as possible.

It truly feels good and pleasant for us to be here with you - dwelling together in unity.

But what does unity look like?

What actually unites us?

Is what actually unites us one in the same with what should unite us?

Hear again the Collect of the Day, and listen to the carefully chosen words:

O God, who hast taught us to keep all thy commandments by loving thee and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to thee with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection.

The collect keeps doubling back upon itself because all roads lead to one thing - the summary of the law!

The acknowledgement of the collect states that we will keep all of God's commandments by simply loving Him and our neighbor.

I wish it were that simple in reality.
 
Every time we hear the summary of the law in the communion service, the same words resound in our ears - we keep every part of the law of God when we love Him, and our neighbor as ourselves.

But our collect doesn't stop with the mere recognition of this fact.

The petition asks God for the grace and strength to be devoted to Him with all our heart.

Devotion to God is more than a simple belief, or statement.

It is a change in our identity forever. 

It calls for selfless affection and dedication to Him.

The twin commandment is to love our neighbor as our selves.

The collect asks that we might be "united to one another with pure affection."

This unity with one another is not uniformity.

Please do not hear this as a call to abandon our individuality so that we might become like a group of robots.

That is not what unity or discipleship for that matter looks like.

God has given us all unique gifts and talents - unity to one another does not mean abandoning those attributes.

It does however mean giving up our own way of doing many things, and turning to God for His direction and guidance.

When Jesus tells us to repent, and believe in Him, he is saying for us to give up our way doing things and trust him for his.

Unfortunately for some Jews during Jesus' lifetime, his way of doing things didn’t coincide with theirs.

They were hoping and praying for a Saviour who would free them from the oppression of the Romans.

Free them from the pagans who had infiltrated Palestine.

A Saviour who would defeat all the enemies of the people of Israel, and that God would reign supreme as King here on Earth.

The message that Jesus gave was something very different.

He told them to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.

When he sent out the 70, he gave them a very specific task - go with haste to the towns and villages ahead,

Take nothing with you

No staff, no bag, no purse

Don't even waste time with idle chit chat along the way

Then, when you enter a town or a village, don't rally the troops,

Don't gather up arms for war,

Don't roam from house to house looking for better provisions, or lodging

Instead, salute the one who opens the door to you, and pray that your peace will rest upon them.

If they reject you, they reject you

However, they do so at their own peril, for it will be more tolerable at the final judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for the town that rejects you and does not listen to your words.

This was the message of the Kingdom of God, and many were so blinded by their own agendas, their own impressions of how things ought to be they never saw it.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

There is that constant struggle in all of us to be willing and able to give everything over to God.

However, there always seems to be a few items that we believe that we can hang onto, and take care of them ourselves.

Jesus says, I want them all.

I want your hurts, your pains, your struggles, your temptations, your joys, your triumphs.

He tells each and every one of us that he wants to share equally in the joy, as in the pain.

Our unity with one another begins with our devotion to God.

Paul's entire letter to the Galatian Church is one in which he keeps telling them that they are losing that devotion to God by putting other things in the way.

In doing so, their unity as a body is in jeopardy.

They have made becoming a good Jew a prerequisite to becoming a good Christian.

Paul tells them that they have it all wrong.

As a matter of fact, he even slaps their hand a bit because he reminds them that they aren't even behaving like good Jews themselves, how on Earth could they expect others to follow their lead!

When we are devoted to God, then we are able to do what Paul tells the Galatian Christians when he asks them to bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

He reminds them that this is the embodiment of the summary of the law - love God, and love your neighbor by helping bear their burdens.

Here at All Saints' we have the same mandate to live up to.

We are to be devoted to God with our whole heart, and remain united to one another in pure affection.

As hard as it seems at times, we are to abandon our selves and our wills, and submit to the will of God in our lives.

When we look back, and recognize that this is in fact being done we boast not in ourselves, but rather in the cross of Christ
 
We are in fact pleasing God, in the keeping of His commandments

And also, we can embrace the fact that it truly is good and pleasant for us dwell together in unity.

Ecce Quam Bonum!

Amen.