Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

Flying Right-Side Up In An Upside Down World.
St. Matthew 22:34-40

Recently a pilot was practicing high speed maneuvers in a jet fighter. She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent - and flew straight into the ground. She was unaware that she had been flying upside down.

While this is a parable of human existence in our times - not exactly that everyone is crashing, though there is enough of that - but most of us as individuals, and world society as a whole, live at high speed, and often with no clue to whether we are flying upside down or right-side up. Indeed, we are haunted by a strong suspicion that there may be no difference.

I commented to someone the other day how glad I will be when my children get old enough to drive themselves where they need to be. Of course I am also reminded that it will be ten years before the oldest can do that!

In our house the schedule is Monday nights Paige has dance. Tuesday nights Seth has dance. Wednesday nights we all have church. Thursday nights both Paige and Seth have gymnastics. It never lets up either! Sometimes I truly don’t know if I am flying right-side up or upside down!

Today’s Gospel lesson is about priorities. It’s about knowing that there is suppose to be an order to all this madness we call life. It’s about taking our lives and ordering our lives in the right way. It’s about sifting through the mountains of things to do and getting the really important stuff sorted out from the less important stuff.

Today we see Jesus being challenged by a group of self-righteous know-it-alls called "Pharisees." They had heard that Jesus had answered the concerns of the Saducees in such a manner that it silenced them. I can just hear the Pharisees murmuring among themselves, "Those gullible Saducees! They are nothing but a bunch of ‘plain Janes!’ They aren’t as knowledgeable about the Torah as WE are! We’ll trick this Jesus. He’s no match for us! We are far closer to God than they or He ever shall be! Let the world stand back and watch as we destroy His Public image before Yahweh and the world!"

I’m serious people! That the way those people thought. That was their mentality. They were higher and mightier than anyone else. In their minds they elevated themselves above the rest of the world. Make no mistake about it they were indeed knowledgeable about the Scriptures. They had the laws memorized and even added a few of their own. But the faith of the Pharisees was a very thin faith. It was for them a "feel good - look good" faith. They did the things they did not out of a love for God or neighbor but rather because it made them feel good about themselves and it made them look good in the public’s eye.

The Pharisees were flying upside down in a right-side up world. Jesus wanted the Pharisees to understand what the greatest thing in life was and is - Love. Dr. Vestal spoke about love last Sunday. The Gospel passage forces us to continue the theme of love. Jesus, I think was saying to the Pharisaic community - you are so wrapped up in your show that you have forgotten the most important aspect of life - love.

They thought that they would "trap" Jesus by asking Him a question which had as its roots the Torah which they cherished.

"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"

He quoted straight out of the book of Moses "Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." This Jesus says is the first commandment.

In the priorities of our lives the first priority ought to be our relationship with God. We ought to love Him with all our heart, soul, and might. Our love for God must come before anything else in our life.

Then Jesus adds a twist: "And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Love towards God. Love toward your neighbor. Love for yourself. True Christianity cannot exist in the absence of love. Not a proud love but a dedicated, humble yet bold love.

I read somewhere:

Love delights in giving attention rather than attracting it.
Love finds the element of good and builds on it.
Love does not magnify defects.
Love is a flame that warms but never burns.
Love knows how to disagree without becoming disagreeable.
Love rejoices at the success of others instead of being envious.

Jesus was a threat to the Pharisaic community. He threatened them because He challenged them to put actions to their words. He would challenge them to get out of the limelight of religiosity and to truly prove their commitment to God by showing Him their love and by sharing that love with others. Not in a "look at me" way nor in a way which attracts attention to ourselves, but instead in a "look to God" way that brings attention to God.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus calls us out of our inertia, out of our do-nothingness, out of the devil's corner and into His Kingdom of Radical Love in which we serve not for a day, not for a year, not for five years or even for ninety-five years, but for life.

Toward the middle of his Letter to the Ephesians, a supremely confident St. Paul says, "When you read what I have said, you will realize that I know what I am talking about" (Eph. 3:4). What Paul has been talking about is, in his words, "God's Secret Plan" which is revealed to the world in Jesus Christ. What Paul has been talking about is his answer to the one big question we begin to ask ourselves at a very tender age and continue to ask as long as we live: "Why did God make me?" "Why did God make us?"

"I know what I am talking about," St. Paul answers: God made you to "be imitators of God as His dear children" (Eph. 5:1); to "try to discern the Will of the Lord" (Eph. 5:17); "to be reconciled to God in one body through the Cross" (Eph.2:16); to be "one under Christ's headship" (Eph. 2:19).

Do I hear someone say, "Well and good for St. Paul and the Ephesians. But I need a concrete answer. Why wasn't Paul more specific?" The answer is, "He was!" He summed it all up with utmost clarity in five little words. In clear, plain, unambiguous, down-to-earth language, Paul said that God made us "to be full of love" (Eph. 1:4).

To be full of love. This has been called the most radical thought that has ever entered the mind of man. When you look around and see all the people who are searching for meaning in life, all the vain attempts to find identity in this fickle world, all the desperate struggles to possess enduring love and acceptance, you are seeing people who have never really heard the truth of these five words.

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem ...

It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble; how hopeless that outlook; how muddled the tangle; how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all; If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.

I don’t know about you but I don’t like flying upside down in a right-up side world. I want to fly right-side up in a right-side up world.

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