When European Christians began building their great cathedrals, and then began to paint the ceilings, they encountered a unique problem, that is it’s hard to project true geometry onto vaults and domes. Because the space starts large at the beginning, but then pulls into a point at the top, the sense of perspective gets totally off. If you were, for example, to be painting the image of a saint in the dome, the saint’s feet would be really large, but then the body would have to get consistently narrower until they ended up with a really small head. So, artists had to create a new way of showing perspective, but even then, sometimes it would be a little off depending on where you stood, that is in some churches there is an ideal viewing location. When he was painting a soaring trompe l’oeil dome, that is a fake dome, on the ceiling of the church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in Rome, the artist Andrea Pozzo had an even more unique problem. Because not only did the perspective need to be done correctly, but because the entire thing was fake, and there was no true vanishing point in the center, he inserted a marble disk in the pavement of the church to indicate where people should stand to be able to witness his masterpiece. There is only one place to stand to have proper perspective on the painting, and the farther you get from that, then it stops being effective.
When I read of that a few months ago in a book on the trial of Galileo by the Inquisition, I thought it was the perfect metaphor for what’s going on in the world today. That for a long time, most people were standing on the marble disk and so the world looked okay, it looked like they expected it to look, and certainly how they wanted it to look, and how others said it was supposed to look. But now, we have moved off of the marble disk and everything seems weird, the image to some people is now distorted and they are searching desperately for the marble disk, so they can go back and stand on it and the world will make sense again. Except that we can’t go back to the marble disk for the very reason that the disk isn’t even there anymore and the image itself is changing anyways, so even if we could find the spot where it used to be the image still wouldn’t be the same. As much as this strikes anxiety and outright fear into some people, and celebration into others, this I not all that unusual in the history of humanity and its true in the church as much as it is in politics.
On Tuesday, we will recognize the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the doors of the church in Wittenberg, Germany which is seen as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Now the truth is, we don’t actually know the date of when he nailed the theses to the door of the church, but the 31st is the date in which he sent a copy of them to the Archbishop of Mainz. If he did nail them to the doors of the church, and we have a copy on our doors this morning, it was not as dramatic an event as it sounds to us today, but was simply following standards of the university where Luther taught of calling for a public debate around the issues that were being posted. Luther did not expect what happened to happen, and he didn’t think that his views were divergent from those of the church. Additionally, the theses were written in Latin, so this was not a debate in which the general population were called to participate. But, while the ideas that Luther presented were not new, what made this event as big as it became was that it took place after the invention of the printing press by Johan Guttenberg, and so his theses were quickly translated, printed and distributed.
The disputation that Luther wanted never took place because the pope at the time had too much riding on the selling of indulgences, mainly the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and after refusing to recant his position, or other new positions that Luther was promulgating, he was tried in abstentia at the diet of Worms in 1521, excommunicated and a death warrant issued for him, but he was protected by the prince of his province. Later Diet’s continued condemnation of Luther and the other groups forming, and in 1529, at the second Diet of Speyer, the church ordered that every province that was part of the Holy Roman Empire, must practice Catholicism. The Lutheran princes at the diet formally opposed that decision, and made an appeal entitled a Protestatio, and the movement had a name, Protestantism. That’s a semester in 1 ½ pages
The Right Reverend Mark Dyer, an Anglican Bishop, says that these disruptions occur around every 500 years, although what he actually says is that the church has a garage sale every 500 years and disposes of things that no longer work. Before the protestant reformation was the great schism in 1054 in which the churches in the east and west mutually excommunicated each other, and thus we have the orthodox church, and then before that was the fall of the Roman Empire and its aftermath and the major changes instituted by Gregory the Great. 500 before that was Jesus, and if we keep going back, there was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile, starting in 587, and 500 years before that was the foundation of the Davidic Dynasty.
Now if you push Dyer’s anecdote too far, it begins to fall apart, because it cannot be stipulated for the entirety of the church, but as Phyllis Tickle relates in her book The Great Emergence, it is relatively true for the western church, and more specifically for the European and American churches. But, these upheavals don’t just happen at exactly 500 years. Instead there is a period, roughly 100 years leading up to it, and 100 years leading out of it until things settle down again. What we are witnessing in the church today, as part of this 500-year garage sale has been going on for a while, but we still don’t have an answer for what is yet going to happen, of what this emerging Christianity will fully look like, but here is what we do know. The old marble disk that gave perspective is no longer there, and we have to admit that it’s not there and create a new way to look at the world, a way that may make us a little dizzy and disoriented for a while, but a way that will not only make the world better, but allow more of God’s children to participate in it and be seen as valuable.
That includes knowing that religious attendance from the 50’s and 60’s, the time that so many people want to harken back to, is the anomaly in American church history. Worship attendance, as a percentage of the population, is the same today as it was in 1940. That means that what we are witnessing is nothing new, or a massive decline in the religiosity in America. There were lots of reasons why the church did well in the 50s and 60s, but they were unique to that time, and just because people went to church did not mean they were actually religious, or even spiritual. And so, what we have seen in the church in recent years in attendance loss, is, in many cases, but not all, of cultural Christians, that is people who went to church simply because that is what you were supposed to do. You went there for socialization, and connections, to see and be seen, and everyone else was there. That is no longer the case. Now, in the words of Marcus Borg, we are working with intentional Christians. People who are coming to church, especially among younger generations, because they want to be in church. Additionally, with the rising numbers of people who claim none as their religious affiliation, we are not seeing an outright rejection of God. Nearly 90% of millennials say they believe in God, or a supreme being of some sort, but what they have rejected is the traditional way that church has been done and the way that church has been seen and the way that God has been used to push one particular position, often at the expense of abusing others. That church seems more about power than about faith and love. That is part of the garage sale that is taking place as we begin to think about and look at and claim new ways of being and doing church.
Does that mean the old ways will go away? No. What Phyllis Tickle points out is that in the midst of these transitions that not only does a new, vital form of Christianity emerge, but that the older systems which are being overcome, also shake off their structures, become “less ossified” in her words, and become more vital. The garage sale does not abolish the old system, it revitalizes it, so that in the end the faith grows through multiple ways of being church and worshipping God. So, while I don’t have any idea what the future will hold, I do have some educated guesses from what I see and hear as well as what I believe, much of that change has to do with the passage we heard from Matthew this morning.
But before we dig into it a little further, there is a story that I think helps illustrate the passage and where the church is and where it can and will go. In Judaism, there is a story of a famous Hassidic master who was walking down the street when he heard the cry of a baby coming from the home of one of his students – a cry that pierced the night. He rushed into the house and saw his student enraptured in prayer, swaying in pious devotion. The rabbi walked to the baby, took her in his arms, sat down and rocked her back to sleep. When the student emerged from prayers, he was shocked and embarrassed to find his master in his house. “Master” he said, “what are you doing here?” “I was walking in the street and heard the baby crying,” he responded, “and so I followed it and found her alone.” “Master” the student replied, “I was so engrossed in my prayers that I did not hear her.” The master replied, “My dear students, if praying makes one deaf to the cries of a child, there is something flawed in the prayer.” The same could be said of Christianity; if in our devotion we are deaf to the cries of the world, then there is something flawed in our faith.
And so, the Pharisees are again trying to trap Jesus. This is the last time this will happen in Matthew as he finally silences them all after this exchange, and a lawyer asks Jesus which is the greatest commandment. There are 613 commandments, or mitzvot, in Judaism; 248 positive injunctions, such as to honor the old and the wise, and 365 prohibitions, like not to wear clothing of mixed fibers. Over time these had been broken into greater and lesser commands, or light and heavy, which Jesus even makes reference to in the sermon on the mount, that even the lesser laws need to be followed, as part of his statement that he came neither to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. And so, for Jesus to answer that any of these was the greatest would seem to indicate that others then would be lesser, or perhaps all of them. Another nice little trap. But Jesus once again escapes by using the same rules against his interlocuters that they seek to use against him.
First, he quotes what is known as the Shema, coming from Deuteronomy 6:5-6: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This is the prayer that Jews are called to pray when they wake up and before they go to sleep. It is what is found in the phylacteries they bind on their arms and foreheads and in the mezuzahs which are placed on their doorposts. This is the most important prayer in the tradition, but then Jesus adds another which he says is like it, which comes from Leviticus 19:18 “you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” On these, Jesus says, hang all the law and the prophets.
Love of God and love of neighbor are not the same thing. If they were, Jesus would not have had to give both. Instead, as Jesus says, they are like each other, so we should see them as sort of the opposite side of the same coin. Which means that both are also necessary, they are what the law and the prophets aim us toward, or where we should be orienting our life, and that is toward God and others. That we cannot truly love God without also loving the things that God loves, which is the whole world and everyone in it, even those people we don’t like, even our enemies. Which is why in Luke’s telling of this story, Jesus includes the parable of the Good Samaritan, and we have to remember that Samaritans and Jews hated each other, so it was not just some nice story of someone helping another person. That loving our neighbor means loving everyone, even the ones we can’t stand, and when we love people like that then we also learn to love God, and when we learn to truly love God then we begin to learn to love everyone. Loving God does not automatically mean that we love others, and loving others does not automatically mean we love God. We must work at doing both.
Our culture pushes the individual as reigning supreme, and so we talk about my rights and my needs and my desires, but these commands, are about relationship. We are called to love God, we are called to love our neighbor and we are also called to love our self. Instead of calling us to love by just one rule, instead Jesus gives us the motivation behind all the rules: love. And indeed, Jesus says that we will be known as his disciples not by what we say or what we believe, what building we worship in or what preacher we listen to, we will be known as his disciples by the love that we show to the world.
As the church struggles and strains and fights and transforms, I truly believe that is going to become a significant part of what comes out, that the church is going to take these passages to heart, and I already see it happening across the spectrum. Those who draw a circle of inclusion bigger than what has come before, win. That the church of the future, or at least a portion of it, will be as welcoming, or try to be as welcoming, as Jesus calls was. That the church will be diversity oriented, not just as lip-service, but as a way of intentionally seeking it out. That when we come to church, or wherever the church is gathering, that those who gather there will truly look like the Kingdom of God. They will be from the wide spectrum of the way the world looks, and that all will be welcome. But, that church will take a lot of work to be church, because loving is hard and we are not called just to love those we like, but to even love and pray for our enemies. That is why loving is hard, but the opposite of love is not hatred, it is fear. But, as scripture says, perfect love casts our fear. And true love and true faith means hearing the cries of the needy.
As we look forward to the next 500 years, I don’t know what that will look like, but here is what I do know. First is that the world is not strong enough to overcome God, and so while church might look different, the church will still be there because God will still be there. And second that we will continue to live into the proclamation that the Kingdom of God has come near, that we will continue to pray and to work that the God’s Kingdom will come, and God’s will will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. And third that we will continue to move towards that glorious day when every tongue will confess and every knew will bow down in love for each other and in love for God and the call of Christ’s name. So, fear not, and let us love as God has called us to love. To love God with all of our hearts and minds and soul and strength and to love our neighbor, with that being understood as broadly as it can be, and that we will indeed be known by the love that we show to the world. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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