Homily 659 – 17 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
October 5, 2025
Epistle:  (182-ctr) 2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1
Gospel:  (26) Luke 6:31-36

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

Sometimes, we hear the first line of today’s gospel reading and we just stop for a moment.  Such a pithy, meaty statement.  We recognize it immediately – the Golden Rule.  And yes, it is so important for us to internalize that.  I think what the Church is doing for us, though, is to explain that statement, so that we don’t have to think too much about it.

After stating the Golden Rule, the Lord elaborates.  So as not to be misunderstood, He says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?”  So, if you think the idea is to envision how you are treated, and treat others the same, that is completely missing the point.

We do that often.  We treat others they way they treat us.  If they treat us nicely, we’re nice in return.  If they treat us in a demeaning way, we will perhaps demean them.  If they are understanding with us, we will be more understanding with them.

In other words, we act like the sinners.  Like the world.  Like everybody else.  By the world’s standards, we are normal.  And He goes on – if you lend, expecting to be paid back.  What good is that?  Yet, that is normal, right?  If we lend, we expect to be repaid.  Our whole economy, our society, is built around that idea.

But not the Kingdom of God.  That isn’t the way of Christ.  Nor is it the way of Christians – those who follow Christ.  Because we aren’t transactional.  We do things for a different reason.  We do things out of love, not out of what’s in it for us.

We act the way we do, give the way we do, help the way we do, not out of anticipation about what’s in it for us.  We do things based on what Christ did for us.

Think about that for a moment.  Does Christ get anything from us for what He has done?  Does God get anything from us?  The whole idea is absurd.  God created and owns everything.  What unique thing can we give to God?

Especially what thing that would compensate Him for leaving heaven, becoming one of us, having nothing, dying – all for what?

We do have one thing that we can give God that God doesn’t already have.  We can give Him our love.  We can give Him our very selves.  That’s what God wants of us.  He wants us. Not our stuff, not our money, not our attention – He wants us.  Just as He freely gives Himself for us, He wants us to freely give ourselves to Him.

It really turns the equation on its head.  You know, even then, even freely giving God ourselves, we are only giving to Him what He first gave to us.  Our life.  That life that humanity took by our free will in the Garden of Eden.  We stole ourselves from God.  We wanted to keep it for ourselves.  Tragically, we decided that control, which we could never have, was worth more that God’s love.

God’s love which included not just His care for us.  But included all of God, in abundance.  We can’t control anything.  Ever.  That was the lie that the evil one through the serpent offered to Eve and to Adam.

The lie was “You don’t need God!”  The lie was “You can be self-sufficient.”  The lie was “You can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and create a successful life for yourself.”  Lies.  All lies.  We can do none of that.

What we can do is love.  And brothers and sisters, that is all we can do.  Christ clarifies things specifically here.  We can’t just love those who love us.  We love as He loves.  As God loves.

Everybody.  And whenever anyone says, “well what about …?”  We can say, with absolute confidence, yes.  Even them.  Maybe especially them.  Because if we don’t love them, God can’t deliver love through us to them, who will love them?

Everybody.  Not just those who believe as we do.  Everybody.  Not just those who look like us.  Everybody.  Not just those who talk like us.  Or agree with us.  Or act like us.  Everybody.

This is such a radical idea.  To be the delivery mechanism of God’s love and God’s provision.  I had this thought a few weeks ago, that God promises us He will provide for us.  In other words, there is such abundance in the world.  Our needs are so few.

But the corollary to that thought is this:  If God is to provide for us, then we are the delivery mechanism for God’s provision.  We, the ones who seek after God, have to be the ones to share, without concern or even the expectation of having something returned.  This is what it means to deny our self.  It is to place the needs of others before our own.  It is to offer the love of God to others – from the abundance which we have been given is sufficient.

Brothers and sisters, we have to – dare I say it?  Share.  To those who labor for us, we have to give to them not based on what they do for us, but based on what God wants for them.

The biggest symptom of the selfishness of our time is arguably income inequality.  Those who are poor, and those who are beyond wealthy.  Those who cannot uses the resources they have stored up in generations.  In hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  And I’m here to state that nothing will do anything about that problem until we, who are Christians, face that fact that we are called by God to share with one another.

To give wages not based on what we receive in return, but in demonstration of the abundance that God has given us, and in honor of the love God wants to give to them.  Will others take advantage of us?  Yes.  Will others see us as inferior?  Yes.  Will others demean and degrade us and call us failures and stupid?  Yes.

And that’s OK.  It is what we should expect.  Don’t the beatitudes that we sing each liturgy speak to that?  Blessed are you when men revile and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.  For My sake.  Meaning, because you are acting like God wants you to act.

And great is your reward in Heaven, in the Kingdom of God.  Because as Christ tells us:  Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for He is kind even to the ungrateful and evil.

Therefore, be merciful, even as your Father is also merciful.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ!