listening openly to the word of the Lord. It means trying to look for the ways of God in
everything.
Jesus’ second great commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. For many of us
this is where the rubber meets the road in Jesus’ teaching of the Great Commandments.
How can we love our neighbor the same way that we love ourselves?
I don’t have all the answers to that question. In fact, I predict that next week I will be
sitting out in the pews just like you are this week…
In the meantime, I have some ideas.
We are always hungry, thus it must be important to ensure that our neighbors all
over the world are fed (both physically and spiritually)!
We enjoy our shelter, thus it must be important to ensure that all of our Christian
brothers and sisters have shelter.
We enjoy our freedom to worship our Lord, thus it must be important to allow
men and women around the world to worship God.
We like to be healthy and have reasonably accessible health care; thus is must be
important to provide affordable and accessible health care to every human being.
We all love to be included and considered useful, thus it must be important to
include our neighbors around us and make them feel useful.
If I go with many more examples I will be accused of being overly political on Sunday
morning!....Also, if I give many more examples my fellow PNC members will rate my
sermon a “3” saying that I am too “preachy”.
There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak.
Since we are in an election year I will assume that this is a time to speak. Not about
politics. God does not care whether you are a Democrat, or a Republican, a Libertarian
or an Independent……..God does not care if you live in Greece, or in China or in South
Africa or in the United States of America. God has taught us the two Great
Commandments in which we learn in the book of Luke that if we follow these two
commandments, we will inherit eternal life. On this point, God does not care if you are
rich or if you are poor. God does not care if you ride the train into the city or drive into
work…God wants you to love your neighbor.
There is a time to tear apart and a time to sew together.
We live in world that seems divided and very torn apart at times. We live in a country
that seems very divided between Republicans and Demorcats…Rich and
Poor…..Easterns and Westerners.
My dream today is that we will follow God’s Great Commandments and became unified
in our love of God.
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