Matthew 22: 34-46 (links validated 9/7/23)

Ian is not, by his own admission, one of the most upstanding citizens of the country. He has never in his life held down a job and he has devoted the great majority of his life, between the ages of 14 and 49 largely to being a street homeless injecting drug user. But, for him, life began at 50. Ian met and teamed up with a woman I shall call Maria. It was not a relationship based on anything other than mutual self-interest. Putting it as delicately as I can, she earned the money for both of them; he bought the drugs for both and he performed the injections for both. He’s good at injecting; she is not. The only thing that truly held them together with their shared interest in crack and heroin. Ian naturally expected that this would be the latest in a long line of such relationships, which never lasted long or ended well. So it came as an immense shock to him when one day, having injected her as usual, she suddenly collapsed to the ground apparently unconscious, manifestly unwell, with the whole right side of her body completely rigid. He was terrified and did not know what to do, so he did nothing for several minutes. She didn’t seem to be coming out of it and he wanted to call an ambulance. But he knew that with ambulances come police officers and he worried about what would happen to him. He avoided calling the ambulance for several minutes more, but he could see that it was becoming inevitable, so he called and wondered whether, while they were coming, he could quietly slip away. But somehow - he cannot explain this itself - he chose to remain and meet the ambulance and the police. And give them a complete unvarnished account of exactly what had happened. Maria was immediately taken to hospital, apparently having suffered a stroke. Police went too and brought Ian along. They told him cheerfully that if Maria died, he would probably go down for the murder or manslaughter and all of a sudden, Ian found himself praying for the first time in his life to anyone who might be there and in a position to help. And he tried to make a deal with whoever that was – if Maria was allowed to live, he would look after her for the rest of her life. But as he waited with the police in the emergency room, he noticed that something had changed in him. He discovered that if Maria did die, he didn’t actually care what happened to him. More, that he found himself caring more that she should live than that he should live. She had been good and kind to him in ways that no one ever had in his adult life. And he realised that, without ever knowing it, he had begun to love her...

("How do you love your neighbor? You make them welcome, even if 2500 unexpected guests suddenly show up. That's what happened to the city of Gander in Newfoundland on that terrible day of September 11. You may recall that all air traffic was grounded for several days. What about transatlantic flights? People heading to the United States from all over Europe were diverted to this city of Gander..." and several other illustrations)

("An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia. His parents explained to him that she needed a blood transfusion and that his blood was probably compatible. They asked if they could test his blood. Sure, he said. The results showed that his blood would be a good match..." and several other illustrations)

"There is a story about a gentile who went to a rabbi and told him that he would convert to Judaism if the rabbi could teach him the whole Torah while he was standing on one foot. The rabbi angrily threw him out, because he could not briefly sum up the whole law. The same man went to another rabbi and asked him the same question..."

"I used to hate myself. But for God's love, I might have been self-destructive. I did not love myself so I could not love anyone else, but I didn't realize that. I was a victim of racism. I was ten years old when Pearl Harbor was invaded..." and another illustration

("In our nation's archives there is an account of two ladies from Tennessee who came before President Abraham Lincoln at the conclusion of the Civil War. They were asking for the release of their confederate husbands held as prisoners of war at Johnson's Island. Lincoln put them off until Friday, when they came again. Again the President put them off until Saturday..." and several others)

It was Hillsborough. What happened at Hillsborough was that there were too many people in one place at one time. They got crushed together, so crushed that 96 people were crushed to death. Half of them were teenagers. The oldest of them was 67. The youngest was just 10. It was a terrible, terrible accident. People argue to this day about just whose fault it was. But at the time, people weren’t arguing about that. We were all just numb with the grief of so many young deaths. One week after the accident, there was a memorial service for the dead at Anfield. You can still see the pictures of it on the internet. And when you look at those pictures, the first thing you notice is that the entire pitch is covered with flowers, football scarves and football shirts. But if you look more closely, the second thing you notice is that about half of the flowers are red, but half of them are blue. The blue ones are from Everton. That day they made a rope out of Liverpool and Everton football scarves that stretched all the way from Goodison to Anfield. The entire city of Liverpool was united in its grief. And if you look still more closely, you will see that some of the blue scarves and shirts are from Manchester City and some of the red ones are from Manchester United. An entire nation was united in our club’s grief. I’ll tell you a secret: since that day I have still always loved it when we win, but I can now bear it when we lose, even, as we did recently, to Manchester United, because I know that we have not lost to an enemy, but to a neighbour. Loving the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength means recognizing the presence and goodness of God in the other people God has created and placed alongside ourselves in His World. Loving your neighbour as yourself means that no matter what divides us, there is something more, much more, which unites us. As Christians, we call that the Presence of God. I never thought I would say this, and certainly never in public, but I love Manchester United as I love my own team. God Bless Football! And God bless us all.

("A story is told about a man who had a huge boulder in his front yard. He grew tired of this big, ugly lump in the center of his lawn, so he decided to take advantage of it and turn it into an object of art. He went to work on it with hammer and chisel, and chipped away at the huge boulder until it became a beautiful stone elephant. When he finished, it was gorgeous, breath-taking...")

("Leonard Sweet tells about an article written by Michael Davis in the Baltimore Jewish Times. Davis is an author and editor, who also teaches religious education at his Reformed synagogue. In that capacity, he has sadly watched while the level of indifference to religious education continues to grow on the part of both his students and their parents...")

("When I worked in the Amazon in South America, I had a young patient called Jeffrey. When Jeffrey was ten, his mother died. Three months later, his father abandoned him and his two sisters and emigrated to a rich country. The three children were taken in by an uncle who worked as a teacher in a very poor village deep in the rain-forest...")

("I was discussing membership with a leader in my UMC church when she dropped this bombshell: "I don't feel worthy of being a disciple". In all honesty, I certainly feel that way a great deal of the time...")

("The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that "the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium"....")

("What’s the difference between a legalist and a lover? The legalist keeps the score, the lover makes no attempt at such calculations...")

"Just about everyone knows the story of Pinocchio - especially the Walt Disney version. Geppetto, the toymaker, makes a wooden marionette to keep him company, and wishes that his make-believe son were alive. His wish is granted..."

("Author Harley G. Rusch, tells the story of when his family first bought a cocker spaniel puppy named Dudley. On their way to grandma's house to show off the newest member of the family, they stop at an ice cream store...")

("We went to see the current play at the Community Playhouse on Friday evening Over the River and Through the Woods. It’s a wonderful study of two generations: Grandparents for whom family is everything, “tengo familia,” and a grandson for whom, like everyone else in his generation, family is just a part of everything...")

("She wandered out too far. She was unable to fight the big waves. She struggled wildly, then began to weaken. He saw her need, dived in and swam after her. By the time he got her to shore, she was unconscious. He used his life-saving training and gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation...")

("This point came home to me as I read about and watched the evening news concerning the devastating earthquake in Turkey. The initial death toll mounted too more than 12,000, with over 30,000 missing. Two days after the quake, in the city of Izmit, a man was chiseling through a cement wall that was once part of his apartment. Through a tiny hole he was able to make, he saw three wiggling fingers belonging to his 7-year old nephew...")

("Someone sent me one of those cute little emails that go round the other day: this one inviting a bit of fun in response to a listing of some of the kind of questions that children typically ask about God… a sampling of questions taken from and inspired by a book titled Children’s Letters to God...")

("When I was a child I would watch a close family member pick up the Bible and read it almost every day. He usually only read it for thirty seconds or a minute, but I knew that it was an important part of his life. The thing that confused me, though, was that this person was the most selfish and uncaring person in my family...")

("An old, retired professor of church history at Yale was on his death bed. Waiting relatives anxiously gathered around him. After a time of silence one man quietly said: ‘I think he’s gone.’ Another relative, standing at the end of the bed, felt the old man’s feet and said, ‘No, his feet are still warm. No one ever dies with warm feet...")

("Once, I trekked across a snow-covered field in southwestern Colorado at about 10,000 feet, just below Copper Lake. I knew the lake dumped into a creek that ran through the valley I was crossing, but the creek lay hidden beneath a solid blanket of snow...")