Like many Episcopal Churches, the church where I serve has
an early service that uses Rite I and a later service that uses Rite II. Those
things never vary. I’ve been in other churches where the later service is
sometimes Rite I and sometimes Rite II (my personal preference), but I’ve never
been in a church where the early service alternates. It’s always the beautiful
and anachronistic language of our Anglican heritage: “…we acknowledge and
bewail our manifold sins and wickedness…”
Some people cannot stand the traditional, often more
penitential language of our Rite I worship. Others adore it (and by “adore” I
mean “cross the line from liking something to worshiping something”). Whatever
your persuasion, I hope you can hear the wonderful beauty and simplicity of the
“Summary of the Law” that is delivered right after the Collect for Purity and
right before the Kyrie/Gloria/Trisagion/Hymn-of-Praise: “Here what our Lord
Jesus Christ saith: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart…” It’s
a two-fold approach to all that God has asked of his people that still
resonates today.
This Sunday, our gospel lesson (Matt. 22:34-46) is that beautiful thing that
our Lord Jesus Christ saith, but this week we get it in context, and, because it’s
the gospel reading, we get it at all three services—Rite I and Rite II and the
EOW service at 5pm. What will the preacher say?
I could say that it’s a wonderful summary of the two “tablets”
of the Decalogue—the Ten Commandments. #1-4 are all about our relationship with
God (No other gods, no graven image, name in vain, sabbath) and #5-10 are about
our relationship with each other (father and mother, no killing, no adultery,
etc.). Surely Jesus wasn’t the first rabbi to make this connection. The Ten
Commandments themselves were a summary of the law—the distillation of
generations of societal boundaries discovered and wrought in a theocratic
context. But looking back doesn’t really excite me. Sure, it’s interesting to
someone who went to seminary where these laws and Jesus’ summary of them came
from, but what will that give those of us who come to worship this Sunday?
I want to look forward, and, for me, that feels like an
exploration of why we still speak Jesus’ summary of the law each and every
week. Even if we’ve omitted it from the Rite II service, it is at least
preserved in the Rite I service, but why? Although it’s a beautiful summary, I
think it actually gets in the way of a message of grace. Jesus’ summary is itself
a looking back. The Pharisees come to him and test him by asking which
commandment is greatest, and he offers this summary in reply. This is about the
law—the Law of Moses, not the grace of the cross and empty tomb.
I have a parishioner who is as committed to the gospel as
any man I have ever met. He doesn’t volunteer for everything, nor does he live
out his faith in some constant quest for affirmation. He’s a mostly quiet
fellow who, as I perceive him, wakes up every morning wrestling with what it
means to be a disciple of Jesus. His questions, his comments, his insights are
all powerful, but one subject that he confesses continues to trip him up is
grace. Often, when we talk about what grace really is, he will point to this summary
of the law. “Jesus tells us to love God and love our neighbor, and that’s what
it means to be a Christian. That’s what we’re supposed to do.” But is it?
Maybe it’s appropriate that, in the Rite I service, the Summary
of the Law is immediately followed by the Kyrie or the Gloria. Jesus delivers
to us the distillation of God’s expectations, and then, in light of our
complete and utter inability to meet those expectations, we cry out, “Lord have
mercy upon us” or, in the Easter season, proclaim “Glory be to God on high…”
for that is our only hope.
This week, I’m looking for a sermon on the Summary of the Law
that doesn’t put boundaries on my faith—what I should and shouldn’t do. I’m
looking for a sermon that proclaims the gracious response to God in light of my
failure even to love him or my neighbor. What could be more basic that loving
God and loving each other? Well, the fact that I can’t do that on my own. Jesus
is God’s response to the greatest commandment. Maybe all the law hangs on those
two sentences, but it also hangs on the cross. That’s where I’m headed this
week. What about you?
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