God is big – real big. You can never wrap your arms around God. There are probably as many ways to encounter God as all the human beings who ever have been or ever will be. Encountering God has many expressions, many traditions, many religions, many denominations. But it is possible to group the ways people encounter God in general categories that are present in every religious context. There are, for example, some people who practice what we might call mindful faith. They learn the catechism or the creeds. They might learn how to read the sacred texts. They practice meditation or perhaps make public confessions of belief. For those with mindful faith coming to understand, having some awareness, acquiring knowledge is how they encounter God. Then there are practitioners of an embodied faith. They observe the times and seasons. They attend the prayers and worship. They celebrate rituals and customary feasts. They obey the commandments. They share in works of charity and mercy. An embodied faith is recognized by concrete actions. Another kind of believer possesses a heart-felt faith. They are attentive to their relationships – relationships with God and with other people. They desire to make connections, to create solidarity. They are attentive to the need to forgive and be forgiven. They work at forming community, of practicing fellowship. A heart-felt faith is all about connections.
Each of these kinds of faith can be found in every religious tradition: Moslem and Jew, Hindu and Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant all contain mindful, embodied and heartfelt religious practice. St. Paul suggests that, for Christians at least, a heartfelt religion possesses a pride of place. Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another. For the Apostle, it is love, relationship, connection that characterizes the faith of a follower of Jesus. In saying this he reflects, of course, the Great Commandment named by Jesus: love God with your whole heart, soul and strength and love you neighbor as yourself. Since, as St. John puts it, “God is love” what better way to encounter God but with and through love. Christians even describe God as a Trinity to highlight that loving relationship constitutes the very nature of God. As the great African bishop, St. Augustine, put it: “Love and do what you will. Human actions can only be understood by their root in love.”
In our age where people are drifting away from religious practice (in 2000 70% of Americans attending church regularly, now its 47% — almost one quarter decline in one generation) placing the emphasis on loving one another seems like a good starting point on the way to God. Love is something everyone is made for and using that as the royal road to God would seem to make sense. However, where does that leave the Church? How does church fit into the Pauline admonition to “owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” And church was not an important theme for Jesus. In fact, the word Church only occurs on his lips twice in the four gospels. A few weeks ago we heard Jesus tell Peter “upon this rock I will build my Church.” In today’s gospel we read: “If your brother refuses to listen to the witnesses, tell the Church.” In this context church is the place where reconciliation, where healing, where wholeness happens. With that as our clue we can say that the Church serves as a school where we learn what it means to love one another.
Church is a school where we learn who to love. Our normal tendency is to love those who we agree with, who attract us, who think and act as we do, our tribe, If we are going to love one another we must expand our horizon on who those “one anothers” are. Just look around at the people of St. James. We are young and old, saint and sinner, rich and poor, black and white and brown and yellow. We are from this place and from dozens of other places. We are homebodies and world travelers. We are Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, vegetarians and carnivores, gay and straight . We have advanced degrees and G.E.D.s. We like Masterpiece Theater and Judge Judy. We root for the Sox and that other not-to-be-named team up from up North. We speak English and Creole and Spanish and Tamil and Tagalog and German and Hindi and Mandarin and Vietnamese and…. We’re from large families and small. We’re healthy and sick. We sing like angels and croak like frogs. We’re happy and sad, worried and content, lonely and beloved, repressed and depressed and impressed. Being Church teaches us that we are called to love the entire spectrum of humanity.
In addition, Church is a school where we learn why we love. We don’t love because the other has somehow earned it or deserves it because of the wonderful things they have done. We love not because what someone does but because of who they are. Every person is made in the image and likeness of God, in their very self, precious in God’s sight, bearing a family resemblance to Jesus. We love one another since they are part of our “we.”
Church is also a school where we learn how to love. In Church we experience ourselves as forgiven by God, so we can forgiven in return. We find ourselves as the recipients of God’s manifold blessings so we can be generous in response. We feel God’s patience and tenderness in dealing with the likes of us so we can share compassion with others. Since Church is the place where all are welcomed, we learn to have a spirit of hospitality. In a world divided by politics, by race, by economics, by ethnicity in Church we find that differences do not divide but enrich. Church is, at our best moments, the place where no matter how much love you give away, you end up having more because our God is really big.
