Sunday, October 23, 2005 Readings: Exodus 22:21-27; Psalm 1; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46.   The Rev. Dr. Hilary B. Smith Loving God Again, a person sought to test him by asking, which is the greatest commandment. Jesus answered the question put to him with great clarity. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." That sounds good-beautiful language the rolls off the tongue. What does it mean? What can it mean for you and me? Love is more than a feeling, right? A person can say he or she loves you, while acting in unloving ways. So to love God means acting in ways that make our love real-real for God and for us. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." What do you think of when you hear those words? God has created each one of us to be God's own special person, so it makes sense that we have different ways of loving God. When we live our lives being true to the person God created us to be we are loving God. Spiritual depth comes through truth. As you and I grow more and more into the truth of who God has created us to be, we discover more ways that we are called to love God. As we grow in our understanding and experience of our life in Christ and in Christian community, our love for God engages our hearts, s minds. How do you love God? If that question makes you and I wonder where to start unfolding the mystery of loving God, we can look to our faith for direction. All the great spiritual guides remind us that we can love God because God loved us first. So, it helps to ask, how has God loved us? As creator of all the earth, God loved us through creation. When we care for animals, plants, and the environment, we are loving God. We are acknowledging God's plan for us-a plan of mutual dependence. We are acknowledging God's glory in creation and our part in it. When we are stewards of creation rather then masters over it, we are part of the divine plan. How has God loved us? God has created individuals to be companions for each other. God has given us to each other to God's glory and the well-being of our world. When we make a commitment to another person, we are loving God. When we make a commitment to each other through our church we are loving God. When we make commitments to our community by serving through volunteer organizations or the political process, we are loving God. As we consider the many ways God has loved us, we start to see that loving God is not so hard or mysterious. There are many, many ways to love God based on who you are, not on what some one else might tell you is the way. Of course you can love God while praying and reading the Bible, but it seems at times that people love God in that way and miss the chance to love God in all the other ways. When we consider the ways in which God loves us, we begin to see the numerous ways that we can respond with love. You remember, the smart lawyer asked Jesus for just one commandment. But Jesus could not stop with one because the commandment to love God was bound up with loving one's neighbor. Jesus tells us: "the second is like unto the first"-meaning the second commandment to love our neighbors is equally important and linked to loving God. Love your neighbor as yourself. How do you love yourself? Some people need to work on loving themselves before than can love anyone else. It might be a useful exercise to take some quiet time and consider how you love yourself, and consider how you can bring that into the lives of others. When we care for others, as we know Jesus did-the lonely, the poor, the sick, those captive physically and figuratively,-we are loving God. So, sometimes this high calling to love God with all of our heart and soul and mind is as easy as remembering that God is in all and through all-that as we move through our day, God is with us. All that we see has either been created by God or is the focus of God's desire to redeem, and therefore in all that we do, we have an opportunity to love God-to be on God's side for the good of all. If you have been coming to the Episcopal Church or the Roman Catholic over the years, you have probably experienced the priest facing away from you during the consecration of the bread and wine. This emphasizes what we call the transcendence of God-the idea that God is above us and beyond us. That is a valid theological understanding of God, and a way in which we sometimes experience God. However, much more common in the Episcopal Church of today, is the emphasis on the imminence of God-the idea that God is with us. That is why, most of the time, you will see the priest facing you during the celebration. When we face each other during such a holy time, we emphasize that God is known among us. God is known among people, both inside and outside of the church. May our time together today be a time of loving God and experiencing God's love for us. Amen.