31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Matthew 12:28b-34

When in our Gospel reading a scribe comes to Jesus

and asks him which of the commandments is the greatest

Jesus’s answer is in one sense not surprising:

he replies by quoting from the book of Deuteronomy

a passage that is to the Jewish people

perhaps the most familiar passage in all of Scripture:

Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.

But Jesus does not stop there.

This first and greatest commandment

seems to immediately imply a second commandment,

this one taken from the book of Leviticus:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

What is notable about Jesus’s answer to the scribe’s question

is not so much the two passages of Scripture that he cites

but rather the way in which he joins them together:

love of God and love of neighbor go hand in hand.

Indeed, we might say that love of God and love of neighbor

are but a single love.

The great 17^th-century saint, Francis de Sales,

said that love is like the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream,

stretching between heaven and earth,

upon which the angels ascended and descended:

love is a ladder,

“raising us even to spiritual union with God,

and bringing us back to loving companionship

with our neighbors” (Treatise on Perfection Bk. 10 ch. 11).

On this weekend, when we celebrate our relationship

with our Sister Parish of St. John the Baptist 

in Sepalau, Guatemala,

it is good to remind ourselves of this single love

upon which we are raised up to God

and journey back to our neighbor.

We have had a relationship with the people of Sepalau,

a remote mountain village of about 800 people, 

for twenty years;

we have helped finance a school building, a church,

and most recently a community chicken coop.

We have sent delegations from our parish down 

every couple of years 

and, as many of you remember, 

a delegation from Sepalau

came to visit us here in Baltimore in 2008.

Maintaining this relationship has required much effort,

not only because of the physical distance of some 3000 miles,

but also because of the distance 

of language and culture and experience.

Those of us who have not been there 

cannot really imagine

the daily lives of the people of Sepalau:

the great beauty of the land and culture of Guatemala,

but also the every-day struggles of this particular village.

For example, I am sorry to say that the chicken coop project

has gotten off to a rocky start

due in part to the logistical difficulties 

of setting up a community bank account

but also due to disagreements within the village itself,

community dynamics that are themselves 

difficult for us to understand:

why can't they do things the way that we do them?

The people of Sepalau are good people, 

but they are not perfect people.

And maybe it is in this that they are most like us.

We too seek to be good – 

to love God and love our neighbor –

but we too are imperfect in that love.

While we as a parish want to show our love 

to the people of Sepalau,

the distances of time and culture 

make maintaining this relationship a challenge

and all too easy to put out of our minds

or to leave to someone else.

Perhaps this is the way 

in which love of God and love of neighbor

most resemble each other:

if it is difficult to love the neighbor whom we can see

how much more difficult is it 

to love the God whom we cannot see?

If our love of neighbor is imperfect,

how much more do we fail 

in our attempts to love God 

with all our heart,

all our soul, 

all our strength?

So while love is the ladder 

upon which we rise up to God

and which brings us back to our neighbor,

it all proves to be a pretty complicated and difficult affair.

Our faltering human love 

can seem like a pretty shaky ladder.

But thanks be to God 

that the twofold commandment

to love God and neighbor

is enfolded within the promise of God’s love for us.

In the love we show to our neighbors –

whether distant neighbors in Sepalau,

or near neighbors in Baltimore,

or the nearest neighbors of all: our friends and family –

we are simply handing on 

the love that God has shown to us:

in the end it is God’s love that is the ladder

that brings us close to God’s kingdom;

it is God’s love along which we journey 

to our neighbors near and far,

and it is God’s love that unites us together with them

to the God who is love.