Sermon 5.25.25 Loving YOU Above All Things

Sermon Begins @ 23:07

One of my favorite lines from a children’s book is from the book Going on a Bear Hunt. 

The story is about little child, who faces obstacles on their way to do something scary.

And each time the child hits an obstacle, they say, “I’m not scared, what a beautiful day, Oh look… (name the obstacle), can’t go over it, can’t go under it, can’t do around it, got to go through it.”

I’m moved to preach to you this morning, Love God in all things, Love God above all things.

I don’t know if you noticed this, but there are multiple references to gates in our readings for today. 

Gates are one of the ultimate examples of something that you can’t go over, you can’t go under, you can’t go around, you got to go through.

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles has St. Paul and his friends Silas and Timothy meeting a merchant of purple dyes named Lydia near the gates of Philippi at the river.

They were there, because they had a cultural understanding that bodies of water near cities were often a place of prayer.

This is the ancient equivalent of getting out into nature to experience God in the natural world, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

This is the first gate.

In our Gospel reading, we are told about the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem.

The Sheep Gate of Jerusalem, where the pools of Beth-zatha were, were the closest gate in the ancient city to the Temple.

The reason that it is called the Sheep gate, we speculate, is because this is the gate through which the sacrificial sheep would be brought to the sheep market at the Temple.

This of course makes practical sense; no need to take your sheep through the whole city, when you could go through a special gate straight to the market.

From an economic perspective, the Temple authorities could check each sheep as it came through, make sure that each was suitable to the religious requirements, and take a tax levy from those who wanted to sell at the holy of holies.

The gate allowed them to make money on both ends; the shepherds pay at the beginning for entry, the worshippers pay at the end for the religious rite.

It is often speculated that Jesus entered the city through this gate on Palm Sunday, because in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the cleansing of the Temple market happens immediately after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

On theological grounds, biblical commentaries have often accepted Jesus’ entry through the Sheep Gate on the grounds that it makes sense for the Lamb of God, the one who sacrifices himself as both priest and victim, would come through the gate for the sacrificial animals.

This gate is also the closest gate to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where Jesus crucifixion happened.

We notice that near this gate is also a place of prayer and healing like we saw in Philippi.

The pool of Beth-zatha is right there, and its porticoes are full of the people who are either too unclean, too poor, or too sick to take part in the system that the religious authorities have set up to make sure that people can only access God through them.

Because this is the function of a gate isn’t it? to keep some people out and to keep some people in.

Having a gate means that there is a wall and that entry into a certain place is restricted.

A gate is a funnel, where access can be controlled.

A gate is a thing that can be closed at night or during times of invasion to keep everyone inside the wall protected and safe, and all of the evil bogeymen and thieves outside of the city.

This was true in ancient times, and we can see it in the rhetoric of our national leaders today.

So, what do gates have to do with loving God in all things and above all things?

I would suggest to you that – as a metaphor – gates can be a stopper of love.

In the negative sense that I just laid out, gates restrict access to God.

The problem that some people have with religion is that they see it as this type of gate.

But, do you know what else restricts access to God? Not letting love abide in your heart, not having compassion for those who suffer, not loving God in all things, all people, all situations.

In other words, as frustrating as it can be when others try to close you off from God, you can also be the one who closes yourself off from the Holy one.

I can remember the first time that I preached about this man who was ill for 38 years.

And, if I’m honest, I put a gate up in my heart toward him.  38 years? You were sick for 38 years at the same place and all you have are excuses for why you can’t be made well?

I mean, I still marvel at this fact, but I had to let a little love for him come into my heart.

I’ve known people who have been ill for years.

I’ve known people who suffer from addiction, who have chronic pain, whose hearts have been hardened to suffering by the constant flow online media.

I had a beloved parishioner in the first congregation that I served after seminary in St. Louis.

Her name was Esther.

Esther was the sweetest.

My recollection of Esther is that she had come to the US from Mexico in her younger years to find opportunity.

Like many people from Mexico, she had worked in factories before coming up to St. Louis.

By the time that I met Esther, she had to wear an oxygen machine and roll it with her everywhere she went.

Now, if I’m honest, at that point in my life, the only people that I had ever seen with an oxygen tank were people with emphysema; that lung disease that often affects people who have smoked for much of their lives.

Every commercial that I’d ever seen against smoking, every cultural reference to oxygen machines, they all assume that the reason people wear oxygen is because they brought it on themselves by smoking.

They should have known better.

They should have quit.

They should have sought healing sometime in the last 38 years.

What is their excuse?

And, unbidden by me, that was the first thought that entered my mind the first time that I met Esther.

I subconsciously thought of her the way I thought of this man at the pool of Beth-zatha.

What I found out was that Esther’s time in those factories had exposed her to air that had shredded her lungs over time.

She suffered not from emphysema, but from a lung disease caused by industrialism. In many ways, similar to all of the coal miners in Appalachia who suffered from black lung disease.

Unwittingly, by judging the ill-man of Beth-zatha, I had closed myself off to the love and compassion that I needed to love Esther more fully; the way she deserved.

I had cut myself off from the real lesson of Jesus’ healing in this story.

You see by focusing on the man and asking why he had taken so long, I was asking the wrong question, focusing on the wrong detail of the story.

Jesus, outside of the Sheep gate, was bursting the gateway to God wide open.

No longer do you have to pay for salvation and healing in the market place.

No longer can anyone restrict your access to healing or to God.

What Jesus does is he takes all of our closed gates - all of the negative valences - and turns the metaphor into a positive, into an access point that is always open.

In John 10:7, Jesus says “I am the gate for the sheep.”

And just as we talked about last week, when Jesus went down and broke open the gates of hell to set the prisoners free, and to release those who were in bondage,

Jesus opens wide the gates of heaven.

The vision of heaven in the Book of Revelation shows it.

“it’s gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night.”

There will never be a reason for God to close the gates, because no evil can ever enter in.

And so this opening in the walls becomes a gateway; and entrance point into something greater.

And this, I think, is where love comes in, because love is the thing that breaks thing open, if we are willing to love in the right way.

You see, in this life, we can love things, we can love people, we can love institutions, we can love safety, on Memorial Day we can remember how much we love our nation and the people who sacrificed everything to give it to us.

But God doesn’t put people in our lives, or religious institutions, or safety, or even our nation and its people as a closed gate.

In other words, love shouldn’t stop at these things.

But actually, we love them, because in them we can see the love of God for us, and how God is always providing for us.

This is what our collect meant when it said that we should Love God in all things and above all things.

You have to be ready to let your gates be broken wide open by love.

Revelation says there is no temple in heaven, because God has become the temple.

So, you can love God in your religion, but if you don’t love God above your religion, then finding a heaven with no temple will be confusing.

Revelation says there will be no nations,

So, you can love God in your country, but if you don’t love God above your country, then finding no nations in heaven will be a stumbling block,

because in heaven all of the nations will bring their glory to God and there will truly be “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Revelation says there will be nothing unclean, no abominations, and no falsehood,

So, you can think that you’re loving God in all of your judgements of others, in the things that distract you from God, people can think that they’re loving God by using false narratives to push agendas that hurt the poor and benefit the wealthy, that take away medical care and food from those in need, that turns our refugee system into a mockery,

But we all better be ready to give it all up and to love God above our grievances, because the gates of heaven are wide open, but they’re not unprotected from our evil.

My challenge for you this week is to say, its okay for you to love fiercely and deeply the things that you love.

It’s okay to put things on a pedastal; your stance on any given topic, your political leaning, your sense of what is right and what is wrong, the things that you can’t get over, the things that you can’t give up, the healing that you’ve been waiting for.

But don’t let your love be a closed gate.

Love God in all things, but also love God above all things.

Love is the gateway to God, you can’t go over it, you can’t go under it, you can’t go around it, you have to go through it.

Amen.