Love Thy Neighbor
Announcements
Maggie: Good morning. Good morning. It's so good to be together with all of you. My name is Maggie and I'm part of The Table team. Hey folks, I do encourage you to make use of the name tags that are in your pew. We think it's important to know each other and that starts with names so please you are invited to put your name, your pronouns and then stick around for the block party afterwards and we'll get to know each other.
Hey, I wanted to first of all celebrate. We're experiencing just tremendous growth in our table kids and youth programs and as Marta, yeah, we can woo for that. Absolutely. As our youth pastor Marta begins to focus more of her time in growing that youth group, the middle school program, we're so excited to welcome a new teacher for third to fifth grade so I'm going to invite Briel to come up here with me. We are so thrilled to welcome Brielle to the Table Kids staff. Briel and her fiancé Mitchell have been coming to The Table for nigh on a year now, right? Are we getting close to a year? Past a year! So they have been part of this community, they are beloved and we're just so thrilled to welcome Briel. She brings just a wealth of experience both in church contexts and beyond so we're excited to have someone who loves kids and loves Jesus be with our third to fifth graders. So I'm going to release you all now. So third to fifth graders, you can go with Marta and Brielle and we will see you back here for communion friends. See you in a bit.
All right, this is the part of the service where if Marta were doing announcements she would say get out your phones people because it's time to put things on the calendar. It's time to scan some QR codes. I'd like to tell you about some ways to get involved and get connected here at the table and the first thing right away is we're launching something new. We're calling it Connection Circles. It's a series of five Wednesdays. They're not all right in a row, but there's two in September, two in October. We'd like for you to learn more about Connection Circle. This is for you if you're new or newer to the community and you're looking for ways to get involved. So we kick off this Wednesday. It's not too late to sign up. So feel free to grab me afterwards if you have any questions on that or scan the QR code to get more information there.
We are also on Thursday evening. We're going to be having our first QTs of the season. That's our gathering for queer and trans folks in our community. If you'd like to learn more about that, you can scan this QR code and I would love to send you the address of that meeting. It will be in a home in South Minneapolis.
Likewise, Thursday morning, we are kicking off a new book study. This is for ladies. It's with Twyla Beyers and Tami Moberg. They're leading a study of the book, Inspired. There it is. You don't have to have read the book to come on Thursday. We would just love to see you and get to know each other. But again, if you'd like that address, I'd love to send it to you. You can sign up or RSVP rather at that QR code.
This is an incredibly generous community. I have been the recipient of that generosity, both giving of people, people giving of their time. But this is also a financially generous community. A lot of our giving happens online, but we also have a box in the back if that is more your jam or you can learn all the ways to give at that QR code right there.
And likewise, I've said a lot of things this morning. And if you're like, there's no way I can remember all that. Boy, are you in luck because you can sign up for text messages and I will remind you only about the most important things. So you can do that at that number. Just text the word table to that number right there. Lastly, we'd love to get connected with you. And there's a few ways to do it. If you are more of a digital person, you can fill out the form at this QR code. Man, there's a lot of QR codes this morning. Okay, sorry. Anyways, or if you're more of an analog person, we've got the cards in the back at the welcome table that you can fill out. We'd love to know how we can pray for you. And if you'd like to meet with a pastor, those kinds of things. And now it's my pleasure to welcome up Justin for the message. Come on up, Justin.
Sermon
Justin: Good morning. My name is Justin. If we haven't had the pleasure of meeting and welcome back to church. I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. I saw tons of Instagram posts from the state fair. And so if you ate your way through the fair like I did, I hope you had a fantastic time doing it. And you picked a great Sunday to come to church because it's fall kickoff, which means, yeah, which means we've got pizza and we've got sides and desserts that you all brought and there's going to be a bounce house and games outside. So it's a good day to be together.
And in preparation for this Sunday, I just want to say a quick thank you to everyone who got this space ready. We're so thankful for this building. And it is a work in progress. And so it's so good to have people in the community that are ready to breathe a little life into this space. And so we had people outside landscaping and bringing flowers. We had Abby Ahlberg came and redid the floor down front. We've got a TV mounted on the wall by and Ben and Sara. So, I mean, it was just an entire crew of people. I can't even remember all the names. But if you had a part in getting this space ready for this morning, thank you so much. Let's give everyone a round of applause.
So as we get back in the swing of things, we are kicking the fall off with a sermon series that we're calling Woven. And for the next seven weeks, we are going to be talking about what it looks like to live out our faith in this country and in this community. One of our convictions at the table is that loving God and loving neighbor are inseparable. And what we're going to see today is that that truth weaves us together with every single person.
We hold that conviction because it was so core to who Jesus was and the message that he spoke. In Mark chapter 12, a teacher of the law appears to Jesus and says, "What is the greatest commandment?" And Jesus says, "Well, the first one is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second one is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself." Those two realities are woven together. In 1963, Dr. King was leading some nonviolent action down in Birmingham, Alabama that landed him in jail. And while he was in jail, he was handed a newspaper that had an article in it called "A Call to Unity" and it was from white clergy who were saying, "This isn't the time or the place to cause a ruckus. Black folks need to be patient and just let this all work out in the courts. Don't take this stuff to the streets." And Dr. King responded with one of his most famous correspondence that ended up being called "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and he says this,
"I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. And justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."
Dr. King understood Jesus's message on a very personal level. And while so many around him were attempting to separate love of God and love of neighbor, he knew that that was not possible. His understanding of the good news meant that we were all woven together. What happens to me should matter to you. What happens to you should matter to me. And so we're looking at a passage from Matthew 25 today that speaks to this and helps us frame what Dr. King calls the network of mutuality. Understanding that the call of Jesus is not a call to self-preservation, but a call to the common good and to move towards justice. As people of faith, Jesus would have us see that our own flourishing cannot be separated from the flourishing of our neighbors. So Matthew 25:31-40 says this:
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will put the sheep at His right hand and the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at His right hand, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer Him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?" And the King will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me."
So in this passage, Jesus is speaking to the disciples in parables about what's to come, and He gets to this final judgment of all the nations, and we hear this familiar language of separating the sheep from the goats. Now in a sermon that's all about being woven together, it seems kind of counterintuitive to preach a sermon where Jesus is separating people into groups. After all, I think we're very accustomed in this country and in the church to see people categorized and grouped into us versus them. This group is acceptable. This group is unacceptable. These people are deserving of our help. These people are undeserving of our help. And once we get all of that sorted out, it becomes easy to decide who our friends and our enemies are. And once we do that, we start to speak in generalizations and abstractions. And we do that because it's so much easier to hate a category or an idea than it is to hate a human being that is standing right in front of you.
And so many people in this room have been victim to those categorizations, whether it's the color of your skin, your orientation, your gender, socioeconomic status, citizenship status, your ability. When you hear Jesus begin his teaching by separating people into groups, that can be really hard to hear. It can be really hard to hear because you experience what happens when human beings decide who belongs and who doesn't. But if we take a closer look at what Jesus is doing in this passage, we don't discover a God who is reinforcing categories and abstractions. Instead, we discover a God who invites us to see people as neighbors, whose flourishing is dependent on our flourishing, that mutualness.
And so let's look at what's happening in this judgment scene. Everyone is gathered around the throne and it says that Jesus is there in all of his glory surrounded by the angels. That imagery is telling us that there is no one higher, no one greater, no one with more power. And Jesus singles out a group of people here that are being referred to as the sheep. And he says, "When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was sick, you took care of me." And the sheep are shocked at this. When did we do any of that? You are sitting on the throne. You have all of the power. When were you hungry or thirsty? I feel sure we would have recognized you and we would have taken care of you.” These people have no idea the impact that they had by caring for the most vulnerable among them. They weren't considering that caring for the need of another was what righteousness looked like. They just saw a need and met it. These sheep saw people as their neighbors.
And this is in contrast to the goats, who funny enough are just as shocked as the sheep that they don't recognize Jesus. But this time, Jesus tells them, "I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was a stranger and you didn't welcome me." And they are confused. What do you mean by that? You're sitting on the throne. You have all of the power. We want to be identified with that. So if we had seen you, of course, we would have given you something to eat or something to drink. You see, the goats had selfish motives. They clung to a superiority in Christ that could never possibly materialize as love for neighbor, because it was only love of self in the end.
And isn't it interesting how things that can be good, like money and power and authority and religion, can take a hold of us so easily and we forget what it means to love our neighbor, because we're so busy using these things to love ourselves. I was listening to a lady one time give her testimony about the poverty she experienced when she was younger. And she said, "I learned really quickly to not go to the rich when I had a problem where I was hungry. Instead, I would go to my poor friend and I knew that she would split a can of soup with me."
That's the difference between a sheep and a goat. That's what a neighbor looks like who is feeding Jesus and has no idea. A sheep is going to meet a need, not because it's convenient for them, not because it's a benefit to them, but because they can see the person that is right in front of them. And a goat can't do that because a goat can't see beyond the self. And I think that's what makes what Jesus is doing here so powerful. Jesus is the one with all the power and authority and because that's who he is, he is standing in solidarity with those who are considered the least. Jesus says, "When you cared for them, you cared for me." His solidarity is subverting the divisiveness that we're so accustomed to in this world, and it causes us to face a really tough reality. When we become goats, we become goats when we decide to mask our self-interest as solidarity. The vulnerable don't exist for your discipleship. Those on the margins aren't a growth opportunity for you. Jesus wants us to see people and love them.
How many of you have been to the Sistine Chapel? Okay, a good number of you. That's great. I really want to go. I've never been, but for $20, I did go to an abandoned warehouse one time. There's more than that.
I did go to an abandoned warehouse one time for the Traveling Michelangelo Sistine Chapel exhibit, and it was so cool. You go into this abandoned warehouse, and it's really dark, and there's candles lit, and there's like this Gregorian chant music. I thought it was amazing. When you go in, there are these really large renderings of all of the Sistine Chapel artwork, and it's in the same order that it is on the ceilings in the Sistine Chapel. In the very back of the warehouse is a huge rendering of the last judgment. You could stand there and just look up at it for hours and never take in all of the little details. As I was standing there looking up at this piece of art, I started to look out around me, and what I noticed were white families and black families, Hispanic families, Asian families. An elderly couple was next to me holding hands, and there was a young gay couple over here holding hands. There were a few ladies in her jobs over here. There were kids up on their dad's shoulders trying to take in the artwork, and I couldn't help but feel the holiness of that moment. Like there we all were standing under the last judgment scene. Jesus was centered there, and all around me were my neighbors. Some people with money, some with none, some with all the privilege in the world, and some at a disadvantage.
And to me, that image as a whole is what Jesus is inviting us into with this parable. It could be so easy to read a text like this and walk away thinking, "Okay, the next checkbox on my journey to righteousness is to serve the least of these," and that's really not the point. Jesus is showing us what solidarity actually looks like. He's teaching us to see people as neighbors, worthy of dignity and mercy and love. He's teaching us to notice where the power is located and how it's being leveraged, whether in selfish ways or selfless ways. And he's reminding us to examine our own hearts to determine if we're using what we have for our own sake or for the sake of our neighbor. This parable is less a story about God's judgment, and it's more a lesson on our ability to see our neighbors and love them, to decide that we matters more than me.
And that's not what we're taught in this world, is it? I feel like the loudest message seems to be that we should only look out for ourselves because no one else is going to protect what's yours, and that's what we're taught. We're taught to live life, but Jesus calls us to live a little differently and to think a little differently than that, to decide that my own flourishing isn't actually good news unless my neighbor is also flourishing too. That's why Dr. King could write the letter that he wrote from Birmingham. While black Americans suffered from discrimination and police brutality resources and the education that they needed, white clergymen were telling him that this just wasn't the right time or place to do any of this. That's really a convenient thing to say when the systems and the resources benefit you. And Dr. King's response is, "Aren't we all brothers and sisters? Aren't we all tied together in this single garment of destiny?" And for so many today, the answer is still no, but Jesus would ask us to reconsider that. We are woven together. We are one human family, and what you've done to the least of these, Jesus says, "You've done to me." So as we live our lives, I think a Christ-centered question that we could take with us into every aspect of our lives is this, "What is good not only for me, but for my neighbor?" When we start to ask a question like that, it de-centers us a bit, doesn't it? And it gets us thinking about how our own flourishing is related to our neighbor's flourishing. It asks us to actually see people as our neighbors and your family is your neighbor. So asking that question can hit pretty close to home. Maybe the most vulnerable person in the room is your daughter who needs to know that she's seen and loved. And after a really long day, you would really love to take a nap, but you know what's good in that moment is that you sit at a little table that's five times too small for you, and you pretend to drink tea while you chat with your kid about her day. The people in the pews around you are your neighbor. Are you willing to see the person who is sitting next to you and consider what their need is, what's actually good for them? Maybe it's a regular coffee for someone who is grieving and needs a friend. Maybe it's a motherly embrace for the queer person whose mother won't have anything to do with her. The offer of safe shelter away from the chaos when ICE is nearby.
We can even take this question all the way to the ballot box. When you show up to vote in November, what kind of policies will you decide to back? How do you plan to consider platforms and policies that aren't just good for you, but are good for your neighbor too? The people that we vote for are making very real decisions that impact people's livelihoods, not only here at home, but globally. We truly are woven together, so may we truly see our neighbor and may we care the way that Jesus did until we are all flourishing. Let's pray. Jesus, help us to see people as our neighbors.
In a world that so often prioritizes power and seeks to divide us, may your solidarity become our truth. Open our eyes to see the need around us and open our hearts to respond selflessly. You have woven us together in this network of mutuality, so use us, Lord, to love those around us however we can. We ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Words of Institution
Debbie: Thanks, Justin. When Justin and I were deciding on this sermon season, sermon series Woven, part of the spirit moving in that was that this is an important season in our country right now, in our lives, with so much division, a lot of hate. And as people of faith, our commitment, just as Jesus just has talked about, is to love God and love one another. The thing I love the most about this community is that we are always aspiring to do just that, not perfectly because we aren't, but with our eyes focused on Jesus continuing to try our best to love God and love one another.
One of our rhythms each and every Sunday is that we take part in communion together. And what I love about the way that we take part in communion with one another is that everyone is welcome to this table, that this table is a celebration of loving God and loving each other. This table reminds us that Jesus invites everyone to the table.
So we do that too here at the table. The night before Jesus died, he sat at a table with his disciples, his friends, and he took bread and he broke that bread. And he said, "This is my body broken for you, and when you eat this, remember me."
And likewise, he took the cup and after pouring wine into the cup, he said, "This is my bloodshed for you, the new covenant for everyone. And when you drink from this cup, remember me. Remember my call to love God and love your neighbor."
During the music, we invite you, if you are sitting in front of the pink line, you'll come down this aisle and you'll take communion here. The bread is gluten-free and it's juice in the cup and you can wind yourself back that way. If you are behind the line, the pink line, there'll be communion servers at the back of the church that can help you as well. If you're able, would you please stand as together we pray the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. “Our God…”