The
Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews
Proper
25, A; Pentecost +21
St.
Joseph-St. John, Lakewood
29
October 2017
Matthew
22.34-46
If
you want to do magic,
you need to practice.
Yesterday
as I drove home from convention,
I was nestled in to my podcasts,
like I am driving to and
from the church during the week.
One
of my weekly podcasts
is a show I used to listen to on
public radio
when I was in high
school on the way to church.
The
show is called To the Best of Our
Knowledge
and it’s a show where long-form
interviews
help fuel deep insights into our world.
Keeping
up with the release of Stranger Things
Season 2 on Netflix
this week’s episode was called “Even
Stranger Things.”
It
was, it is,
an investigation into the
paranormal.
One
of the interviews
was with an anthropologist at
Stanford
who has specialized in
religion.
When
Tanya Luhrrman was in grad school
she spent time with some English
pagans.
In
her study of them,
she joined them:
casting spells,
familiarizing herself with Tarot,
and getting to know their experience of reality
not as rational as we might experience.
In
the podcast interview she reflects on an unexplained experience
and says that among the magicking
community,
it’s well known:
if you wanted to do
magic,
you had to
practice.
In
today’s gospel text,
the Pharisees want to know
how good of a Jew Jesus
is.
“Which
commandment in the law is the greatest?”
they ask.
“You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Obvi.
It
came first.
Jesus
adds to his answer
something the Pharisees don’t ask
something that’s not verbatim
in the Hebrew Scriptures:
And a second
is like it:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
But.
But.
“On
these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Everything
contained in
the Law —
how Jews are supposed
to treat one another and foreigners —
and the Prophets —
God’s directions for
what to do
when being
punished for not keeping the law —
boils down
to,
“Love
God. Love your neighbor.”
Love
God. Love your neighbor.
The
Diocese of Ohio
ran an ad campaign,
“Love God. Love your
neighbor. Change the world.”
If
you want to do magic,
you need to practice.
I’ll
be preaching on the beatitudes next week.
Spoiler
alert:
they're not a list of ways to behave
so that you get
something back.
They’re
promises of what has been done
because of God becoming flesh.
They
are reality that we don’t always see,
but reality nonetheless.
We
may look naïve as Christians
saying that peacemakers are children of God.
Or
we may look callous
and unloving when peaceful proctors
are mowed down by cars
or unarmed folk
are killed by police
and say that
peacemakers are the children of God.
But
we’re not naïve nor callous.
The
gospel and resurrection aren’t magic,
but they are not the world as we
expect
or experience it.
Because
of the Resurrection,
we live in a world of what
might be, what really is
—
even though we can’t see it. Yet
If
you want to do magic,
you need to practice.
When
we gather to hear of
Jesus, him crucified, and
resurrected,
we practice
doing what
seems magic.
Gathering
each week in faith
is rehearsing — it’s practicing —
the
world we want to see.
You
might have noticed I don’t spend a lot of time
shaking hands at the peace.
I
don’t need to shake every hand here
to long for the day when we’re all
at peace with one another
while practicing it with
those closest to me.
When
we pray to be sent out
to do the work we’ve been given to
do
we go having been fed by
Jesus
who told us
to love God and love our neighbors.
When
we sing “For everyone born, a place at the table” and
we make room for everyone at this
Holy Table
and
the tables on Wednesday night
we’re
practicing the heavenly banquet at the end of time.
When
we sing “And God will delight when we are creators of justice”
we prepare to change the world
by loving God and loving
our neighbor.
Those
lyrics are practicing the day
when all has been made well
and
all people have been restored
to unity with God and one another
in
Jesus.
If
you want to do magic,
you need to practice.
Our
Gospel text today
is after Jesus has been up on the mountain
with Moses — the
embodiment of the Law,
and Elijah — the
embodiment of the Prophets.
Matthew’s
gospel is getting closer and closer to the crucifixion.
And
when put to the test again,
Jesus says to love God
and love neighbor.
He
doesn’t just roll over.
He
goes toe to toe with those who accuse him.
Jesus
loves God and loves his neighbor,
which doesn’t just mean being nice.
And
he changes the world.
Matthew’s
gospel is getting closer and closer to the crucifixion
and after it the Resurrection.
Because
of the Resurrection,
death has been defeated
and reality has been
changed —
whether we
see or experience it or not.
When
we sing,
“Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again,”
we state as faithful
fact
that there’s
more to life than we see.
Believing
that
and working for it,
striving to make it
real, what we see and know
may seem naïve
or it may seem like
magic.
It’s
not magic,
it's hoping that at the last days
we experience the joy of
God’s eternal kingdom.
It
may seem like magic.
If
you want to do magic,
you need to practice.
That’s
what we do at this Table —
and at those.
