00:00:12.240 - 00:00:28.250

So how do we say goodbye? I mean this kind of goodbye in our almost wholly puzzling about how to do this, how to do this. Well , one thing we typically do is remember and tell

00:00:28.250 - 00:00:42.890

stories, so I get to tell a couple of stories too. Yeah, Mhm bob and I were playing golf with some people. It was, I was only in my second year and I was playing

00:00:42.890 - 00:00:59.250

well by the way, don't you know that bob the longtime teacher preaching would just love me starting this sermon with a golf story. Mhm. If you don't know, bob that's known as sarcasm. And

00:01:00.740 - 00:01:11.450

anyway, bob, we were playing golf and um it was near the end of the round and I had a short little putt to close out the round the match and I was very competent, I was

00:01:11.450 - 00:01:26.960

going to win and even better, the Dean was going to lose as I was waiting my turn, bob came up and stood next to me. I need to add at this point that that things were

00:01:26.960 - 00:01:46.010

not going well for me at the seminary. We had gotten off to a poor start. I blame the seminary. Of course they had not yet learned that I am the exception to every rule and my

00:01:46.010 - 00:02:06.510

review was coming up and it was not going to go well. So bob leans over and says alloy , it's time for your first review. I think we need to schedule it real soon. No,

00:02:06.510 - 00:02:20.530

I did not make that cut. Uh, yes , my around kind of fell apart after that. And let me tell you bob knew exactly what he was doing. But I did learn something bob.

00:02:20.530 - 00:02:38.930

Shelton is a formidable opponent. Some of you might add your own stories here and silently do it silently . Second story. I've been teaching 10 years or so. This young woman, a student came into

00:02:38.930 - 00:02:49.530

my office. I did not know her name. I don't think I've ever spoken to her that I could recall. She sat down and said, I just want you to know that I do not hate

00:02:49.540 - 00:03:10.000

you anymore. And I'm thinking first, who are you? And and second of the many reasons there are for hating me. Which one or ones are yours? She continued, I've been praying about it

00:03:10.010 - 00:03:23.250

and praying about it. But my feelings about you are so intense that my prayers were not working. Finally, I want to see Dean Shelton and told him how I felt and how intensely I felt this

00:03:23.250 - 00:03:40.150

way. And no matter how much I prayed it did not help. And he told me that I needed to go home and pray some more. Mhm . As I listened to her, I realized what

00:03:40.150 - 00:03:53.840

an amazing person she was to go through all of this in that way, who would work so hard on something like this? And I realized bob was not being flippant. Oh yes, he was protecting

00:03:53.840 - 00:04:11.750

me. But he was also figuring out who she was and what she needed to hear. He could do that, he knew what he was doing and it worked bob Shelton. It was also a formidable

00:04:11.750 - 00:04:31.250

ally again. You might silently add your own stories here. Bob Shelton love this seminary. He did . He loved the seminary And I suspect one reason he loved it is that he really loved the church

00:04:31.940 - 00:04:45.970

. And when I arrived here, the grand christian narratives were still kind of in place. We could almost tell our story. Um uh and how we told that story mattered a lot to a lot of

00:04:45.980 - 00:05:00.890

people. We would echo God's wonderful plan of salvation in the story of the church, in the story of the seminary and the seminary to bob had a good moment in that plan. And we made rules

00:05:00.890 - 00:05:13.570

and promises for ourselves, faculty manuals, student handbooks , and so on. Where and we we we named ourselves. This is who we are and what we expect from each other. We will do this

00:05:13.580 - 00:05:25.560

or not, do this. And this is what will happen when you do and don't. Uh, there isn't all that naming and promising and sorting this sense that we don't just belong to ourselves. This

00:05:25.560 - 00:05:39.760

moment is not the only moment we belonged to people before us and the people who follow us were held by the past and future. We will be true to who we are. So the seminary will be

00:05:39.760 - 00:05:55.800

here for those who follow us. We will not squander it all. This afternoon, we will be , we will be the elder child and the parable . We will preserve labor to maintain so that when

00:05:55.800 - 00:06:10.400

the product will turns, there is actually a home waiting for him with a bad and good things to eat. We had this almost wholly sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves. two people we did

00:06:10.400 - 00:06:26.140

not even know two moments. Not yet imagined, bob believed in that. And he believed in the ongoing labor to make this work. We all did more or less. We love the mantra, reformed

00:06:26.140 - 00:06:38.850

and always being reformed. Let us keep searching for who we are and abide by what we decide. Let us be faithful to ourselves. We must live by our own rules and change them when we must

00:06:40.640 - 00:06:59.330

. Yes, bob loved the seminary. Mhm. He also loved some of us. Yeah, he did at this point. Life gets trickier. The rules and standards of the seminary important. And part

00:06:59.330 - 00:07:13.790

of why the important is the people they include and exclude. Which people are blessed in which are not which people do we admit, in which people do . We asked to leave writing. Who we are

00:07:13.790 - 00:07:34.660

is also writing, who we are not. And then there is always this moment right now. We have our rules and before us is the person to whom the rules apply. Sometimes it is a person

00:07:34.660 - 00:07:58.460

who the rules exclude the rules. Our rules. Ask us to ask that person to leave to do so creates pain. Often a sense of betrayal. No, always a sense of betrayal. We love

00:07:58.460 - 00:08:18.450

our rules more than we do. You. Okay , bob in these moments. I really like the word. Ordinarily, I don't remember this. Somebody who was remember those times into our narratives about ourselves

00:08:18.450 - 00:08:37.790

and our rules and demands and consequences, bob like to insert the word or narrowing, We will do this and demand this and decide in this way. Ordinarily, yeah, meaning sometimes we won't, sometimes

00:08:37.790 - 00:08:58.030

we will betray our great narrative of ourselves and seed place to this person right here and this moment becomes the only moment. I think the word ordinarily just named a space. It is always here. We

00:08:58.030 - 00:09:18.740

will decide this way, except when we won't. Sometimes our hearts won't let us and we will choose you. There's something almost wholly about the pain of having to choose, called caught in this pain of

00:09:18.740 - 00:09:35.790

how to decide whom and what to choose whom and what to betray. I think of the parable parents use me in the Prodigal son at the end of the parable to which child does he belong in this

00:09:35.790 - 00:09:50.760

moment when there is no space which holds them both , which does he choose? I think the lawyer in luke's passage, we read today, the path to life according to scripture to the lawyer into jesus

00:09:50.760 - 00:10:05.880

is to love God and love your neighbor. And he asked, I think the right question who then is my neighbor? I mean not in theory, I mean right now, who is my neighbor right

00:10:05.880 - 00:10:24.090

now? That's the question, isn't it? We have to choose to whom do I belong in this moment? And how in the world do we decide ? Yeah. I have stood in this space of

00:10:24.090 - 00:10:46.170

deciding with bob and with many of you here today , sometimes we have chosen to enforce the rules whatever their cruelty. Sometimes we have ignored the rules, ignored our promises to ourselves and said we choose you

00:10:46.180 - 00:11:05.860

. You are the exception and whatever choice we made . There was a betrayal of some kind. Yeah . Have you ever, Yeah. Have you ever encountered someone later? Someone against whom you enforce the

00:11:05.860 - 00:11:26.940

rules? A person you forced from the community Even many years later, when you do you immediately know your explanations are empty. All that is present is betrayal. It is real and it seems to never

00:11:26.950 - 00:11:48.060

end. Jesus seems to live much of his life in the pain of choosing the sabbath or this person here, Jerusalem or Samari or the gentiles, or all these incompatible narratives which should jesus choose. I

00:11:48.070 - 00:12:01.280

discovered in recent days, working on this sermon that I can read most of the jesus stories this way , all of them carved out in this space of impossible choosing who is our neighbor right now? Is

00:12:01.280 - 00:12:18.070

it those who have been and will be blessed by this holy time of rest? Or is it this person here who needs us to break the sabbath, who is a real neighbor right now? It feels

00:12:18.070 - 00:12:39.080

like Holy question three. And so this, in this way this sermon unfolded, I could keep going on this, I suppose I got lost in that hard puzzle of the word ordinarily, and how hard

00:12:39.080 - 00:12:52.920

it is to belong to the long narratives of the seminary, our obligations to tomorrow. The demand to be the elder son, to preserve this place, for those who follow and at the same time to

00:12:52.930 - 00:13:18.450

belong to all these fragile and holy people who are here right now. And it is a exhausting place . But the jesus stories kept bothering me. This reading of them seemed of key. They're not really

00:13:18.450 - 00:13:37.860

about this pain, even if this narrative is about Holy pain is true in the end, this is not the core story, not for jesus and not for us. So a different, I think,

00:13:39.640 - 00:13:54.440

a better reading, the lawyer to jesus. I know, I know I'm supposed to love my neighbor , but this is exhausting. I can hardly manage the people in my house and by the time I

00:13:54.440 - 00:14:09.390

get out the door to the family across the street , I am beyond myself. The truth is I can't even love one person very well, Much less my current list of 10. And God forbid there

00:14:09.390 - 00:14:33.460

be 11. You have to help me here. I cannot love this many people and jesus tell me about it boy, do I know this problem? You have too many people to love, but I

00:14:33.460 - 00:14:54.960

actually know what to do. I have figured this out. Go forth and add to your list. Go forth and find neighbors everywhere. Maybe just just become a neighbor yourself and your list will become gloriously

00:14:56.340 - 00:15:18.170

endless. There are people to love everywhere, Go forth and exhaust yourself. It's an amazing response. You who have too many people to love do the opposite of your instinct. Don't sort your list multiply

00:15:18.170 - 00:15:35.960

it find neighbors everywhere everywhere, everyone. It's almost as if Jesus is telling us to love with such abandoned that we end up loving our enemy almost of their he's saying love your enemy and to do so

00:15:35.970 - 00:16:00.720

is and and to do so is not pain in tarot. It is, well, maybe not quite joy, but let's say, celebration, I get to love even you and I am already helpless in

00:16:00.720 - 00:16:17.650

these stories when jesus is greeted by the hardness of heart, of those critiquing for healing someone on the sabbath. What he's grieving is that they are missing out, don't you see, he says, what

00:16:17.650 - 00:16:33.080

a wonder it is to love both your narratives of the Sabbath and all the people blessed and cursed by it. What a privilege it is to love both the grand destiny of Austin Presbyterian Seminary and all the

00:16:33.080 - 00:16:57.240

non conforming, inadequate people who pass through here, what could be better than this? Don't you feel the miracle of it? I think I finally understand what the parent in the story of the Prodigal is

00:16:57.240 - 00:17:12.560

really thinking, really feeling I've always imagined such a parent is overwhelmed by the pain and the impossibility of choosing between two Children. That's probably true. But I also believe that any such parent in the end

00:17:14.240 - 00:17:40.370

at the core is sneaking this, wow, I have to weird and difficult and almost impossible Children and I am so lucky because I get to love them both so bob know that there are people here who

00:17:40.370 - 00:17:59.660

still love this place, love, It's calling love , It's tomorrow. Love the people who are not yet here and we will submit to this grand story . Except sometimes we will love this very moment.

00:18:00.140 - 00:18:26.790

Too much, this very person, this one and then we won't. And it is all wonderful. Here is the blessing for the day. May you have too many people to love? May you be

00:18:26.790 - 00:18:38.270

exhausted by your list of loved ones of neighbors? And may that list grow and grow and grow. May you always have too many people to love?