July 13: The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Do this and you will live.

Today we hear again one of the most famous stories in scripture. A lawyer approaches Jesus and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life.

“What is written in the law?” Jesus asks him, and the lawyer recites perfectly- “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

And Jesus tells him, yes, “do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to get a bit more into the weeds, wanting to make sure he had the “right” belief, even wanting to know if there were folks justifiably outside of this law’s reach, the lawyer asks, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus doesn’t answer his question. He refuses to accept the premise of the question. Because the question seeks to create a neat and orderly precedent for demarcating who is worthy, and who is not worthy of God’s, and our, love and mercy.

Can you imagine asking Jesus, to his face, who you don’t have to love? I know we’ve all wondered it silently in our hearts, or not so silently at times… them? The Yankees? Them Lord, do I really have to love them?

But Jesus doesn’t have time for this sort of question. What must you do to inherit eternal life? Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do this, and you will live.

We Episcopalians love to think. We love books. Our main source of worship material that binds us together as a denomination is a thousand-page book that includes a section of historical documents. And because that wasn’t enough, we’ve sanctioned many more books with even more nuance, more poetry, and more rubrics on what to do, what to say, and what to think on such and such a day or such and such an occasion. Our books of common prayer show us what we believe about God, and our beliefs about God continue to shape and form the new liturgies added to supplemental documents. Our books order our life together, and I’m so thankful for this beautiful work of the Church, its wrestling with what and how we should believe and pray and worship.

And because of the words we find in Scripture and in these books, we know, we know we should love folks who root for the Yankees, we know the right answer, but we must get out of our heads sometimes. That’s why we do liturgical calisthenics, to remind us that we aren’t just minds that think and souls that pray but bodies who go out into the world proclaiming the love of Jesus. Jesus’ command forces us to trust that the Holy Spirit is working in this world, working in and through and among us, pushing us to go and do. Do this and you will live.

Soon we will commission some of our students, staff, and other volunteers who will be going on mission trips over the next few weeks. These folks have said yes to the call to go and do, and they will step fully into the parable of the Good Samaritan. They will embody the teaching of this parable, which is more about how to be a neighbor than who to count as a neighbor. They will go from here with the mandate to give love to those they meet, to show mercy to those they serve. And I bet that many go, when they return, they will feel like they received more than they gave. For all who go on mission, or for all who join in the work of serving the poor, the widow, and the orphan, as scripture often tells us, you’ve felt this.

You’ve gone to serve and to give, and you come back changed and filled. That is no coincidence.

The lawyer asks, “What must I do to have eternal life?” His question is focused on the future. “What must I do now to get eternal life later?”

Jesus asks him what Scripture teaches, and Jesus tells him, “Okay, do this and you will live.” Jesus’s answer is focused not on the future, but on the now. Do this- love God with all your heart, your soul, your strength, your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do this, and you will bind yourself to eternal life now. Do this and you will pull heaven closer. Do this and you will touch its hem. Do this and you will, as Bishop Curry preaches, know a “world that reflects less our nightmare and more God’s dream where there’s plenty good room for all God’s children.”¹

When we go and do, we live into the dream of our God, which is our truest identity, our truest existence, in which we know life, as life is meant to be.

¹ https://www.episcopalchurch.org/publicaffairs/presiding-bishop-curry-easter-2021-message/

Love God. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Do this, and you will live. Amen.

The Rev. Daniel Reeves