30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 25, 2020
Readings:
Exodus 22, 20-26, You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves
Psalm 18, I love you, Lord, my strength
Thessalonians 1, 5-10, You know what sort of people we were among you.
Matthew 22, 34-40, Which commandment is the greatest.
Thanks to the Team
Music, Ben & Shonda's
Readers, Mary Jane & John & Buddy, the candle blesser
Gospel, Deacon Mike
Homily, John Cade
Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade
The Magic Zoom makers, Richard & Hue
Final Blessing, Rosemary
For hosting us at Legacy, Becky
Homily by John Cade
10/25/20: Most often the first reading each Sunday is chosen for its connection to the Gospel reading and its teaching. Today is no exception. I have 3 points based primarily on the Gospel and first reading: First, on Jesus and the first and greatest Commandment of the Law; Second, on the new Great commandment of Jesus; and Third, the story of the Good Samaritan, and the story of the King who equates being a neighbor with loving God?
First, the Greatest Commandment. The Jewish people gave credibility to the Book of Deuteronomy by framing it as the addresses of Moses, their most revered leader and prophet. In his second address of Deuteronomy, right after he lists the Ten Commandments, Moses repeats the Greatest Commandment: “Hear, O Israel! God, our God! Is the one and only God! Therefore, you shall love God with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength. This passage became known as the ‘Shema,’ or ‘Shema yisra’el,’ the first words of the passage in Hebrew.
When Jesus was asked by the Pharisee Rabbi what was the most important commandment, Jesus gave the well-known ‘Shema’ straight from the Law in Deuteronomy—to love God with your whole being (heart, soul and mind), calling it the “most important” and the “first on any list.”
My second point—Jesus upgraded and completed the greatest commandment. I learned from Wikipedia that the number of commands in the Law of Moses is 613. (And we thought 10 were plenty!) Why so many? Because they covered every aspect of Jewish life—how to worship God, what and how to cook, what and how to eat, what to wear, rules about all the many things considered ‘unclean’, everything to do with family relations, with business dealings, and so on.
Morning Tranquility.
In today’s Gospel Jesus picks one of those 613 commands in the Law of Moses (Leviticus, Ch. 19), and says, “If you add this other command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” then, you have the “whole Law and the Prophets.” And, by the time the Gospel of Luke was written, 20 or so years later, these two commandments were considered as one—the greatest commandment.
Luke, in Ch. 10, has a scholar of the Law, test Jesus by asking, “‘Teacher, what do I need to do to have eternal life?’ He answered: ‘What’s written in God’s Law?’ The scholar said, ‘You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” So, by then the most important commandment has two inseparable parts, the love of God and the love of neighbor.
My Third Point: Guess what Luke follows-up with and writes immediately after that passage?—the Good Samaritan story about who is a neighbor. The ‘Good Samaritan’ is the one who treats the robbed and beat up person with first aid, and the one who makes sure the person will be taken care of. In the story, being a neighbor is not defined by who the other person is; it is defined by how one responds to the other. When you respond to another with mercy and kindness, you are being the neighbor.
John Cade sharing the Good News.
Matthew’s gospel also gives us the sure way to know if we are keeping the great command. In Matt. (Ch. 25), this teaching tells how the twofold great command is totally interrelated. When you are a neighbor to another, you are loving God. This is the story of the King who said, ‘Enter the kingdom. I was hungry and you fed me, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me, and so on.’
And then how the saints entering the kingdom asked, ‘When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or see you sick or in prison and visit you?, and so on.’ And the King said, ‘Whenever you did one of these things to another, especially to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’
When I look at this community, I see good neighbors. You remember others in prayer, privately and in our prayer of the faithful; you visit the sick—in the pandemic you email, telephone or text them—giving the encouragement and hope of someone to lean on; you reach out and care for others in countless other ways, e.g., many of you have given of yourselves to kids who are poor or disadvantaged or disabled at the ‘Love for Kids’ events (of course, with Bill Hammond’s leadership), some of you traveled with Bill and Bona Responds to help people in other areas of Texas and Oklahoma suffering from devastating storms, and right here helping John and Rosemary restore some order to their tornado-damaged home and destroyed trees.
A few years ago, a number of you helped with the counting of homeless people in Plano to provide data on their actual existence; I have seen you and heard about you, keeping up with and giving care for others in our community who suffer any kind of adversity. You generously contribute, as you can, to keep this community in existence, over fifteen years now, and to help with our ability to do outreach. These don’t even take into account how you welcome community members and visitors, (even virtually) with total acceptance. For me, you are for our time Good Samaritans, living out the great commandment to love God and showing your love of God by being a true neighbor. Amen.
Please Remember these special people:
For Alan Stryker; For John Doherty with an operation this week for his back pain; For David Dismore's bad shoulder from a biking accident; For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas, and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery; For Mary & Dave Hall's g-daughter Allison Keller working at St. Lukes, The Woodlands, For Loretta's aunt Alicia; For Sir Charlie & Jan; Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & Leo & all of Shonda's dear family;
For Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn; For both Jean & Cliff Wright; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free; For John O'Donnell; For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health; For Anthony & Sabrina; For a young man who is suffering from depression; John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini, plus John's daughter, Joey, with cancer, For the students, teachers, and coaches in our public & private schools.
White Rock Lake at sunrise.
Birthdays: Zoe (& Samantha), Patricia AA 22nd, Rob 68,
Anniversary: Bill & Zaile, 11th
A rose is a rose is a rose . . . .
Community Finances, October 18, 2020
Expenses: $775.00
Outreach $ (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)
Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.
Rosemary's Blessing: