A better future
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
October 29, 2023—Proper 25A
Deuteronomy 34:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46
In today’s reading from Deuteronomy, the Hebrew people have almost reached their goal. We’ve been following their journey for a while now. We’ve learned how a famine began their downslide into slavery, and how Moses became God’s instrument to liberate and lead them out. We’ve heard how they lost hope during the long years in the wilderness, and fought with the urge to find an easier way than freedom and responsibility. And now, finally, we see them on the brink of the Promised Land.
More accurately, as Juli noted last week, we see them on the brink of the conquest of the Land. We should keep that in mind as we continue in the story, and our own history as well: that one people’s foundation is so often another’s desolation. That a story about triumph and freedom in a new world is almost always shot through with tragedy, loss and exile, when we broaden the scope of our vision.
But for now, we’re standing on a hilltop with Moses. God has brought him up here to show him the Land that has been the goal of this long, long journey. Moses has led the people all this way; he has pleaded with Pharaoh and with God to spare them. He has helped feed them and keep them alive. He has put up with their endless whining and seemingly complete lack of gratitude. And now they’ve finally made it and the land is stretched out in front of him, and God announces: All of this, I will give to my people! But you … don’t get to go.
And the rabbis have argued, over the years, why Moses didn’t get to enter the Promised Land. Some have argued that G-d was punishing Moses, and wondered whether it was because of the Egyptian he killed, way back when. Others, that it was his insistence on using the staff to strike the rock, rather than just commanding the water to come forth as G-d had instructed.
But I have to say I’m not super compelled by the idea that it’s a punishment. For me, it’s enough that the story reminds us that we do not always get to enjoy, or even see, the results of our work. Even if we are Moses, the arc of history is long, and human lives are complex, and we will only ever see a small portion of it. And to be honest, the portion we do see will be something of a mixed bag.
How do we keep going in the face of that? Is there something that can not only keep us pointed in the right direction but also sustain us as we go, trusting that what we do is making a better future, even if all we can see is glimmers at this point?
Just this: Love God, love neighbor, love self. It’s right there in the gospel (and Jesus is quoting directly from Jewish tradition). Love God, love neighbor, love self. That’s all you need to guide and sustain you, trusting that those will be healthy seeds to sow. So you should sow them generously.
It sounds both too small and too huge to be true. It will also often feel foolish. I heard a conversation recently between the journalist Mary Louise Kelly and a female politician from Ukraine, who talked about the time just days before the Russian tanks began rolling in. And the stakes surrounding her and her family obviously could not have been higher. And her task as a leader of her country demanded things of her that she could hardly even begin to describe. And also, there was the deathly serious matter of her daughter’s guinea pig: This was a beloved, much-anticipated pet who had only just been brought into the family. Which meant that, as the nation prepared for invasion, and people were scrambling to evacuate their families to safety, this mother was also running about, trying to find a way to bring her child’s guinea pig and all of its stuff along too. So that her child’s heart could rest easier. So that her own heart, a parent’s heart, could be spared that one particular breaking.
The story is, she freely admits, completely mad. And the story is also utterly and completely relatable. Most of us can’t really imagine what it would be to face down Russian tanks. But many of us have gone to ridiculous lengths to avoid breaking a child’s heart.[1] So too, most of us have taken care of a small need for someone, in the middle of a big crisis, and made an out-sized difference by doing so.
Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. Do it foolishly, extravagantly. Do it even if it seems pointless or too unimportant a thing in a world that is full of extremely important things. An act of love will always be a seed and you cannot even begin to imagine what might grow. You might well not get to see it … but plant it anyway.
Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. I should actually have begun with the first of those. Because loving God (opening your heart to God) will open you up to the realization of the way in which God loves you, and that will open up your ability to love yourself. From that point, the love of God can flow through you toward your neighbors.
It just might crack your heart open a little wider. Might make it possible to expand what I’ve heard described as our Monkeysphere, which some of you might remember me talking about before. Basically the idea is that primates organize themselves into social groups of a size that corresponds to their brain size.[2] Chimpanzees, for instance, settle into groups of about 50, whereas humans are naturally capable of being in significant and functional relationship with about 150 people. Beyond that, it gets harder to take other people’s needs into account, harder to make their well-being a priority, harder to grieve their pain or even to celebrate their joy. We care more about those people closest to us. We just do. Which is why the death of our best friend will hit us harder than the death of millions from disease in Africa. Or even why 75 people dying in a tornado in the Midwest might strike us more forcefully than tens of thousands in a tsunami in Japan.
It’s our monkey brain, these scientists would argue, prioritizing things according to our monkeysphere. And even if you have a sense that they’re oversimplifying the situation, there’s certainly something there that rings true. That is, even when we manage to care about people who are further away from our center, it’s not in the same way we care about those inside our sphere. It’s hard for us even to see them as individuals. Because there are so many of them, it is easier to group them together and treat them as one being who all share the same characteristics. Stereotyping helps bring the numbers down so it feels more manageable. Because we can’t deal past 150. At least, the scientists would argue, it will take a LOT more effort.
“Try harder” isn’t the message of the gospel, though. What Jesus says is different. Jesus reminds us that our ability to love our neighbors (which definitely includes people beyond our Monkeysphere) is inextricably linked to our love of God, which fills us with God’s love for us, which helps to heal and make right our love for ourself, which will help clear the channel for our ability to love others.
Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. The point is that you can’t do one of those without also doing the others. Love God. Love self. Love neighbor. These are the seeds we are called to plant, even if they seem too small to make a difference. This is the work we can do, and trust that they will bring about a better future, even if we won’t be around to see everything that grows. These three things. May it be so, Amen.
[1] Kate Bowler “Everything Happens” podcast, “Mary Louise Kelly: No More Do Overs” S10 E8
[2] David Wong, “What is the Monkeysphere?” posted September 30, 2007 on http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere_p2.html#ixzz1Ot5DuUTb