“Surprised By Love”

Matthew 22:23-46

October 23, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

Some of you know that I spent several of my summers at Camp Tanako as the volunteer dean of the senior high camp. Along with either Kissa Hamilton or Barb McCreight, who helped me be in charge of the week, and a host of volunteer counselors who wrestled the hormones for the better part of five days we planned activities and games and lessons and worship for the fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen year olds who came to the camp. Camp Tanako is where I met some of the folks in this church for the first time, including Diane and Michelle Drilling and Rachel Cruce.

Months went into the planning of the week long camp. We thought about a theme and a t-shirt that might go along with that. We planned for things like progressive games. And by progressive, I mean that you move from one game to another. There were usually six or seven games. Points were awarded for both winning the game and having the most spirit. Cheering the loudest went further with the judges than did winning the game. The following night there were water games. These games took place in the camp’s swimming pool. Points were awarded in these games, too, for the most spirit. Of course there was a dance, but never on the last night. We did not want the dance to be the last thing that they thought of. The job of the counselors on dance night was to make sure that no one danced too close or too dirty. And to occupy our time, sometimes we would go around and find cameras lying around, unattended. The adult counselors would all gather around, and take a picture of ourselves. Can you imagine the surprise of the campers when their film was developed. I think that I was only caught once in those six years, of taking a picture with someone else’s camera.

Scattered in with the fun things were serious things. Small group times and what we came to call morning and afternoon electives also happened. In these electives, a third of the camp did one thing. A third of the camp did a second thing. And a third of the camp did a third thing. The campers rotated among these three things. I am not sure whose bright idea it was, or why we did it more than once but one of those electives was called God Questions. Here is how it worked. When everyone was in the room and somewhat settled down, they were given index cards and these instructions, they were to write down any question that they had about God, life, or the church. We hoped that the questions would be serious. Some of the questions were silly. Most of them were serious. One of the things that I realized by doing youth ministry, specially in a retreat setting, is that teenagers will let their guards down if they know that they are in a safe place. I also learned that teenagers have a lot of questions, usually unanswered; many of their questions have to do with God.

So on index cards, teenagers wrote down these questions. We gathered them up. The God Questions elective lasted an hour, which seemed like way to long. There to answer the questions were the volunteer counselors, many of whom were also pastors. I cannot tell you what many of those questions were. Some of them, as I said, were silly. One guess asked what the prodigal son’s name. Another wanted to know who shot JFK. But most of the questions were both serious and searching. One guy wanted to know why God took his mama. She had been sick and had recently died. The funeral had just happened. He said, “My mother was good. She loved life. I don’t much like God right now.” There was another girl who wanted to know the same kind of thing. She had some of her friends who had just been in an awful car wreck, two of them had died, short of their senior year in high school. She, too, wanted to know why.

What I can remember are the beads of sweat that appeared on my forehead as I flipped through the questions. I remember the anxiety. I think that my blood pressure got a little high. I saw the same thing in my fellow volunteers as the cards were passed and as we flipped through them. Why do bad things happen to good people? Harold Kushner tried to answer that question in his book by the same title. He wrote the book in response to the death of his son. If I ever get around to it, I would like to write a similar book on why good things happen to bad people.

I cannot remember many of the questions that were asked in those rooms at Camp Tanako, and so I can’t remember many of my answers, but I found myself thinking, if not saying, “I don’t really know!”

Something like God Questions was happening in Jerusalem in our scripture lesson for this morning. I would like to remind you of the setting of our lesson. Jesus and the disciples are in Jerusalem. It is near the end of Jesus’ life. He has ridden into the city on a donkey, turned off the tables in the temple charging the money changers with making the temple a den of robbers instead of a place of prayer. All the while, the Pharisees and the leaders are looking on in fear. He tells parables, stories against them, really. The shortest of which is about a man who had two sons, one who said, when asked, that he would go out into the vineyard to work; the other who, when asked the same question said that he would not go, but ended up going anyway. And there is Jesus’ question, “Which one did the will of His father?” Jesus’ point, I think, is that you cannot just say that you are going to do something. You have to do something. Because of these stories and ones like it, the Pharisees know that something has to be done.

So the banter begins, a series of questions whose main purpose was to trap Jesus. The first question is about authority. The Pharisees ask, “By what authority are you doing the things that you are doing? Who gave you this authority?” Jesus quickly fires back with a question of his own. Round two is about paying taxes to the emperor. The Pharisees ask, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” It is a loaded question. If Jesus answers no, then they have him trapped. Jesus knows that. He asks for a coin. Looking at it, he asks a question of his own, “Whose image is on this coin?” The Pharisees give the right answer. The emperor’s image was on the coin. And Jesus says, “Give to the emperor what is the emperor’s. Give to God what is God’s. That is a stewardship sermon for another day. Round three is about a woman, a widow, and whose wife she will be in the resurrection. They ask, “Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, she died. In the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be, for she married all of them.” I understand the question. My question might be why these brother kept marrying her. I understand the first and the second, but after the third died, I’d get a little suspicious of her.

The Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus. It is a banter that goes back and forth like a great volley at a tennis match. The Pharisees want to be sure and win. So, for their fourth and final challenge, they bring in a ringer, a lawyer. In the days of Jesus, this lawyer would have been not an attorney, but an expert in the laws of God. He knew the laws like the back of his hand. He had studied them over and over again. He asks Jesus, “Of all the laws of God, of all His commandments, which one is the greatest one?” By the way, there were six hundred and thirteen commandments. The lawyer wanted to know which one stood head and shoulders above the rest. Jesus’ answer was the standard one. He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Devout Jews would have known these words by heart. They would have said the words several times a day. And who could argue loving your neighbors? Karl Barth, the great theologian, was once asked, “What is the most important truth that you have learned in your studies?” It is said that Barth answered, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

Now, let us think about this. Jesus loves us, this we know. But do we love God? And what, really, does loving God mean? I think that we all know what it means to love someone else. Among other things, loving someone else means putting their needs on an even plane with our own. How do you do that with God? What does loving God really mean?

We know, I think, what it means to trust God; that is, to give God our futures. I think that I know what it means to be angry with God. I have not had a reason to be mad at God, but I have known people who have been angry with the Almighty and who have shaken their fists toward the heavens. I think that I know what it means to trust God, to rely on God, to be angry with God. But what does it mean to love God, to put God’s well being on the same plane with my own?

Well, this may sound a little elementary. It may sound simple. I want you to ask yourself what it means to love God, but for me, today, it simply means that what is important to God must be important to me. Loving god means that the things that are important to God must become important to me. I must dedicate my life to those things. I must use my heart, my soul, and my mind to help those things to happen.

And what is important to God? The best answer that I can come up with is that people are important to God. I believe that the ministry is all about relationships. People are important to God. That is why Jesus quickly says that beyond loving him, we must love our neighbors. You will remember that when Jesus was asked who a neighbor was, he told a rip roaring tale about a good Jew who was attacked on his way to Jericho. The man was in trouble. Who stopped to help him? Help did not come from his pastor. It did not come from someone who worked for the church. In that story, help came from a stranger who was his enemy. Jesus did not care who you were. He loved everyone. He did not care if you had leprosy. He did not care if you went to the well at the wrong time of day. He did not care if you needed help on a day that was supposed to be sacred. None of that mattered. What mattered was people.

The quicker that we realize that, the more fulfilled we will be. You might say that our whole lives move toward that realization. Let me close with a story that made its way to my desk this week. It is the story of Jenny Todd, a seventeen year old who found fault with everything about the church. She resented her parents making her go to Sunday School and worship. She would sit in her class with her arms folded across her chest; she slumped in her chair. Everything about her said, “I don’t want to be here!” She refused to make friends at the church or to participate in anything. One night, Jennie came home to the sight of her house on fire. Her parents were in the driveway in their bathrobes. The house was engulfed in flames. There was little that anyone could do. The fire fighters fought the flames, but it was an entire loss. It was an image Jenny would never forget. There was another image she wouldn’t forget. It struck her as a surprise. Some of the girls from her Sunday School class came to see her. They heard about the fire and had come. One of them handed her an envelope. Jennie tentatively opened it. Inside of it was money, cash. One of the girls said, “We didn’t know what to do, so we did something religious. We took up an offering. The money won’t replace your things, but maybe it will help.” Jenny was overwhelmed. What they did changed her life. The love that she had been shown helped her to see why Sunday School and worship were important. She said, “I received much more than money that night.”

Yes, a blanket of love, with heart, and soul, and mind, surrounded her and it even made her love herself a little more. Maybe that is what it means to love God. Let us pray.