10/19
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| Central Park Reservoir |
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| Halloween window..Central Park West |
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| first fall colors |
I decide to make an intentional search for colorful fall leaves. Surely even in the city….so I head to the Central Park Reservoir. But no bright leaves to see. I do note that the Reservoir track is finally open again. It had been closed for months to keep runners from running too close together. …I do see my first real Halloween window. With peace sign, thank you very much…and there finally.my first colored leaves. There are not many trees down here in the city.
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| Serena's story |
I am reading a story on the window of Lido, one of my favorite Harlem restaurants. About their chef, Serena Bass. And I hear a voice behind me say, “I see you are reading my story” and I turn to see a spry and feisty octogenarian with white hair and smiling eyes looking at me. And it is Serena. From London through her self-named bar in the Chelsea Hotel, catering for all the pop glitterati, tv, books…a celebrity on her own rite…right here in Harlem…I love stories like this.
Tonight we are studying Matthew 22:34-46, also found in Mark 12: 28-34 and Luke 20: 41-44. Pharisees out to trick Jesus again. And question him as to what is the most important commandment? He answers with Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.
7 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and [a]foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus then turns the tables on them by asking a question about David and his relationship to the Messiah which leads to bit of a brain teaser of rhetorical argument and logic.
On first response, Marsha says "Jesus kind of sums it all up.” As for the second, more problematic part of the pericope, she says it reminds her of men in the Bible always trying to best each other. When I ask about “…loving God with all your soul…”she says it has to do with intention. To be clear on purpose and let that guide through.
When we talk about soul, Russ of course goes to soul music, that music made famous by Aretha, born in the church and taken to the clubs and the street. Soul music. Soul Train, etc.
Marsha sees that Jesus must go to the cross, If he just hung around the focus would be on him and the point is we have to care for each other. Loving each other is the whole deal. Amber Lee responds with a story of her own discovery of what “neighbor” means in a recent interaction with someone that had surprising results. She had discovered the mutuality of loving neighbor.
Jesus’ response is classic. He quotes the shema, the single most basic prayer of Judaism, prayed every day and every night, “… the Lord is one..” Prayed every morning and night and publicly on shabbat. And we spend some time on his saying that the second is “like unto it. ” Which in the end means that loving God and loving neighbor are inextricably bound together. Jesus’ answer is straight from the heart of tradition.
In Jesus’ table turning question as to relationship of David and the Messiah, Jesus is revealing that for the Pharisees, outcomes outweigh relationships. Everything is transactional, not relational or even experiential. It comes down to the question who is Lord?
There are revealing statistics. In the last (2016) Presidential election:
81% of evangelical Christians voted for Trump
61% of Mormons
60% of Hispanic Catholics
58% of all Protestants
On the other hand….
24% of Jews
20% of unaffiliated
29% of all other religions
Large numbers of Christians were willing to set aside all the personal immorality of Trump in pursuit of banning abortion and gay marriage. (“On these two hang all the law and the prophets?”) The bottom lime os inescapable: Christian Americans were responsible for the election of Trump.
We ,let that sink in awhile. There are two weeks to go. Work to be done.
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