All That is Needed

Reverend Philip Stringer

Matthew 18:15-20

Romans 13:8-14

LET US PRAY: O merciful Father in Heaven: You give the knowledge of your saving help — a comfort to your people. Feed our hearts with your Holy Word, and make our hearts instruments of your glory, today and all days. AMEN

We have three hummingbird feeders at our house. They are beautiful and marvelous little creatures. It amazes me to think of how rapidly those tiny muscles must be constricting and releasing to make their wings beat so fast. When resting, their heart will beat about 300 times per minute. When flying, it beats more than 1,200 times per minute! In the time it takes you to blink your eyes, a hummingbird’s heart has beaten five times.

Consider that a hummingbird weighs about one tenth of one gram. It’s beak and feathers and bones, muscles and organs — all of them together weigh about as much as one penny.

Tiny little things — and yet, fierce! Around our feeders they will aggressively defend their territory from other birds.

Watch them watching out for others.

Chirping frantically at others.

“Crossing swords” and chasing away.

It is comical in one sense, to see something so tiny fight with the heart of a lion — over something I provided. They are defending “their” territory. But it is only there because I created the space they call theirs.

What makes it all the more ridiculous is that there are usually only two or three hummingbirds there at a time — at most I have counted 6 — but between our three feeders there are 12 flowers for them to drink from. Twice as many as are needed — but one will fight off the others. If only they could overcome their instinct to fight and defend; if only they could see the abundance before them. They could all have more than they can drink, if only they could see.

It occurs to me that in some ways we are not so different from hummingbirds. We have a hunger inside — a hunger beyond physical hunger — a hunger for peace and joy in our lives that we are desperate to satisfy — so much so that we fight and scratch to obtain it.

Today, God’s living Word comes to us through the scriptures to speak to our hunger — to give guidance and assurance — to declare to us that all that we need — and more — is provided to us by God — our creator who abides with us and loves us. If only we will believe.

God’s love abides with you — and the invitation to you is to trust the power of this love to give you the peace and joy for which you hunger.

Jesus has been traveling with his disciples in the mountainous region several day’s journey north of Jerusalem. It is after the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. He has told his disciples that he must follow his heavenly father’s will. He is a suffering servant — and this is something hard for his disciples to comprehend because their hearts and minds are steeped in a life-long experience of fighting for survival. They are Jews — a tribe of people whom adversaries had been trying to erase for centuries, but who have managed to survive. They are a people at odds with the tribes of people around them — and even with each other, with those from one region looking down their noses at those from other regions.

But their fight for survival is even more primal than this — like you and me, they have each been searching — probing and digging at life to carve out a sense of physical and emotional security.

And so, this talk by Jesus of suffering — and taking up a cross — and denying oneself — it is all counter to what makes sense to them.

They are trying to understand, though. They have been asking Jesus questions: Should we oppose governments and resist their authority? No.

They ask him about greatness in heaven and Jesus speaks to them about living in harmony with others. That is the context for our Gospel reading this morning.

His message to the disciples is a message for you and me, too. What he is saying to them — and to us — is that we encounter God — and we experience the fullness of life that comes through unity with God — through loving one another.

Our Gospel reading describes actions that unfold in response to a breaking of relationship — and the efforts that a loving heart will enact to heal and restore that relationship.

First, that person will go directly to the one whom they have lost and appeal to them to repair what they have lost in each other.

If they don’t see it — if they don’t respond, go with the strength of several loving hearts to try and heal the wound.

If even that does not work, let the whole Christian Church extend its arms to regain them.

And if even that doesn’t work — after such an overwhelming expression of love and concern for that person — if even this does not work, then you know that they do not understand; They are still walking in darkness; like a Gentile or a tax collector; someone who is looking for peace and joy in all the wrong places.

When that is the case, said Jesus, love them anyway — In fact, love them all the more intensely, even if they don’t understand it. Even if they work against you and persecute you. Love them and do everything in your power to help them see what a life of love can give to them.

Even when someone rejects you — YOU know that they are a child of God. By loving them you are loving God — your relationship with God expands — and if BOTH of you see this — if BOTH of you someday love each other — then you will both experience in a new way, the presence of God.

A folktale tells the story that one day, Saint Francis of Assisi and a companion, Brother Leo, were traveling together on foot to a monastery. They walked along in silence for a while, and then St. Francis blurted out, "Brother Leo, even if all the friars in every country lived in flawless integrity, with all holy demeanor, remember that perfect joy cannot be found in such."

Silence descended on the men for a few miles, until St. Francis spoke up again, "Brother Leo, even if a fellow friar were learned in all things, science and Scripture alike, and even if he had the gift of prophecy and could discern the minds of others, remember that perfect joy cannot be found in such."

Finally, Brother Leo had to ask, "Father," he said, "I beg you in God's name to tell me where perfect joy is."

St. Francis replied, "If we get to the monastery, and we are numbed by the cold and drenched by the storms, and worn to the bone, and wracked with pangs of hunger, and if then the porter at the monastery treats us roughly and calls us scoundrels and refuses us entry, and if he leaves us to face a night in the storm and in the cold and if we can respond with humility and kindness in our hearts towards that porter, then that is perfect joy!”

It is in loving one another — even those who hate you — it is in loving one another that we meet the God who loves us. Perhaps it is in loving our enemies that we most profoundly understand the love that God has for us. Because — for some reason — we just can’t seem to purge all of the hummingbird feistiness from our lives.

Don’t be afraid to admit that. In fact, recognizing it as a fact takes its power away.

In his letter of encouragement to the Christians in Rome, Paul wrote, “love is the fulfilling of the law.” In other words, all God wants from us — all God wants us to do is to love each other. So, Paul encourages them to stop chasing after other desires in an attempt to find happiness. “Let us… throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us walk decently as in the day.”

God’s love lives among us.

And God’s love waits for you out there — in a world so greatly shrouded in darkness — and with people struggling to find happiness— and often fighting with each other to get it — out there in that world of darkness, the love of God is already providing all that is needed — and it is waiting to be discovered. The love of God is waiting for you out there.

Go in peace to love…… and to serve the Lord.

AMEN