Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them, take our minds and think with them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

When thinking about writing this sermon a story about Archbishop Desmond Tutu came to mind.  It was in the darkest days of the fight to end apartheid in South Africa.  Archbishop Tutu had risen to international prominence as a spokesperson calling for end to the system of political and social injustice in his country.  Well, during this time, Archbishop Tutu was visiting America and was scheduled to preach in church in a large east coast city. 

People from all over had come to the church to hear his sermon.  The church was packed to the gills—people flooded out into the streets around the church.  The media was there in abundance.  Everyone wanted to hear of the plight of Black South Africans and more importantly what they could do to help—to be a part of the international coalition of compassionate people who wanted to see Apartheid end.  Well the moment arrived and the great bishop, who, in fact, is a little man but with a huge heart, a huger personality, and an even huger smile stepped into the pulpit.  The crowd fell silent, focused on the Bishop, and settled in to absorb and be inspired by his profound words.  Archbishop Tutu looked out over the congregation—dramatically pausing before speaking.  Then he said only this, “Pray,” and stepped out of the pulpit.  The sermon was over.

Now, a one word sermon might sound pretty good to some you sitting in the pews at the moment.  I certainly have known some preachers in my life, present company excluded of course, that I wish might follow the Archbishop’s lead. 
Well today’s gospel lesson lends itself to, if not a one word, a short explication.  We have all heard Jesus’ “Great Commandment” many times over.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  The message is simple enough to understand and, yet, it defines the Christian life in its entirety.  And so my temptation, on some level, was to stand up before you today, look out over the congregation—pause dramatically before speaking—then say only this: Love God…love your neighbor.  Love God…love your neighbor—and step out of the pulpit (return to my seat).  The sermon would be over.  But no luck—I have more to say.

Jesus’ simple and, in the same breath, unfathomably profound words have been echoed—repeated—by many and not only by preachers and theologians.  I believe it was the Beatles who said memorably, “All you need is love.”  And Bob Marley sang, “One love, one heart, let’s get together and be alright.”  One of my personal favorite pop singers, Lenny Kravitz, wrote the hit, “Let love rule.”  And (as I am sure you know) the Black Eyed Peas, a fairly new hip-hop group, recently released a hit titled, “Where’s the Luv.”  I think they actually spell love, luv. 

Anyway, my point is that in both the realms of the secular and the sacred we all talk about love.  Love is undoubtedly central to the human experience.  In fact, it is the nourishment that every human soul needs and craves.  Love is the object of our hearts’ desire.  Empowered by love a person is capable of accomplishing more than she or he could possibly think or imagine.  On the other hand, the absence of love in any a person’s life means certain death—certain death.  And I assure you that when I speak of love in terms of life and death I am not over emphasizing the power, possibility, and promise of love.  Therefore, I think it is well worth our time now and always to consider the height, the depth, and the breadth of the love we experience and share with God and our neighbor.  In fact, I would say, it is our obligation to consider again and again Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor and its centrality to the Christian life.              

In an article in the “Yale Alumni Magazine,” Professor Robert Sternberg points out that IQs are rising worldwide (that might come as a surprise to some), in fact, as much as three points per decade on average. “We’re getting smarter,” he says in the article, “but that doesn’t mean we’re becoming better people.” A rise in IQs is not linked to a rise in our capacity to love.  In the 36,525 days of the 20th century, between 100 million and 160 million civilians lost their lives in massacres.  That’s an average of more than 3,000 innocent deaths per day, and the pace has not slackened in the 21st century.  Statistically speaking, September 11th was an ordinary day.  The fact is the world is full of hate.  Sternberg argues, “No problem facing psychologists [and I would add Christian leaders and every single one of us for that matter] no problem facing us today is of more importance.”

You see I think love is not just a feeling, but instead a permanent attitude—a way of life—that produces committed acts on behalf of God and other people.  The love that Jesus commands us to embrace as a permanent attitude is rooted deeply in Jesus’ passion.  In the way Jesus willingly gave of himself in extraordinary ways for others—even you—even me.  Jesus did not choose to suffer death on the cross for his on self-serving glory but to free us from our bondage to sin and death.  The beauty of Jesus’ violent death on the cross is that God turned an instrument of hate and torture—something so prevalent in human life as I noted—God transformed a crucifixion into an act of self-giving love that offers life in abundance.  Like our Lord we are to turn the tide of cruelty and hate that we experience, in sometimes subtle ways, by living lives of love that produce life in the people around us.  Like Archbishop Tutu and so many people, including many who are among us right now, we are to make love a permanent attitude that calls us into action.   

Dr. Courtney Cowart, who teaches Christian Spirituality at New York’s General Theological Seminary, was on the street a block south of the north tower when it collapsed on September 11th.  She was one of the first people to return to nearby St. Paul’s Chapel to try to help.  St. Paul’s soon became the center of a vast relief effort involving 5,000 volunteers, who tended to workers during the nine months of recovering bodies and clearing away the destroyed buildings.  The helping began spontaneously, with people showing up to cook hot dogs and hamburgers for recovery workers, and the church opening its doors to anyone who needed to rest and turn their eyes away from the horror.  For the entire nine months, starting September 15th, volunteers were in the chapel around the clock to provide food, fresh clothing, and anything else the recovery workers might need.  Massage therapists set up tables, musicians played for the crowd, podiatrists tended to the feet of recovery workers whose boots had started to melt in the hot rubble.  These and thousands of other people gave up their ordinary lives to help others. 

Dr. Cowart interviewed many hundreds of volunteers and recovery workers until the end of the cleanup effort. “My challenge has been to develop a framework for the data,” she says. “I needed to develop categories that would be understood both by social scientists who study human behavior and theologians who are interested in speaking about how God works through people in the world.”  And what have the interviews told her thus far? One of the great surprises is that the interviewees most frequently used the word “love” to describe their experience in the chapel.  Dr Cowart continues, “Over and over again, people say they experienced an overwhelming love in St. Paul’s chapel that transformed them.  The vast majority describe this experience as something beyond anything they’ve ever experienced before or since.”

Love is a permanent attitude that leads to committed acts on behalf of God and others.  The volunteers in St. Paul’s Chapel incarnated Jesus’ Great Commandment.  They loved even strangers deeply and it transformed their lives and the lives of those they touched.  Even now we are hearing countless stories that echo the St. Paul’s experience in the aftermath of the hurricanes that have devastated much of the Gulf Coast.  Certainly disaster and tragedy offers us the opportunity to follow Jesus’ command love.  Perhaps our challenge is to learn to live lives of love in what seems to be the ordinary and the everyday.  Undoubtedly, there is no better way to reach up and touch God than to reach down and touch the fallen, or to reach over and pull the alienated to ourselves, or to reach around and embrace someone who’s alone in the world.  There are people who need our love around us at all time and in all places.
[In a moment, we will have the privilege of participating in the Baptism of Kris Hasselbach.  In the sacrament of Baptism, we claim that we die to ourselves by sharing in Christ’s death and we are reborn to a new life as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  In other words, we die to a life of self-service and self-absorption and are reborn to a life of self-giving love—a life that works to make love a permanent attitude—an attitude that infuses all that we do and all that we are.]            

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