PROPER 27B – Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44 –
8 November 2009 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado
Faithful, Committed Love
INTRODUCTION – Other languages
I have a sister who has a gift for languages. I don’t have that gift. I can speak and understand a little bit of Spanish, after three years of high school Spanish and a few trips to Mexico and one to the Dominican Republic. I took one year of French in high school. In seminary, I learned a little Hebrew and a little Greek. Mostly, what I know is English, and sometimes I even botch that up. One thing I’ve learned though, in the limited time I’ve spent with other languages, is that sometimes you discover a word in another language that is so much richer than our comparable English word. You all probably know that the ancient Greeks had four different words for love, not just one. Shalom is a much richer word than our word “peace”, for it includes concepts of peace, wholeness, and overall well-being. The Greek metanoia is a much richer word than our word repentance, because it includes concepts of conversion, making a u-turn, and scales falling from your eyes.
CHESED
Another such word is the Hebrew word chesed. It’s a word that we all should know. It’s one of those Middle Eastern words that you say with a sound like the clearing of your throat; the “ch” is that kind of sound. This word chesed is sometimes translated in the Old Testament as “loving kindness” or as “mercy”. Probably the closest translation we read in the Bible is “steadfast love”, although, from what I’ve read, that doesn’t even fully capture what chesed means. Perhaps a better description would be “faithful love arising out of commitment”. You’ll notice that in that description, it takes six English words to approximate what this one Hebrew word means.
But think about this phrase for a moment – faithful love arising out of commitment. When God is described in the Old Testament, this word chesed is often the word used. And again, we often hear it translated as “steadfast love”. God is faithful and loving to his people, and that faithful love comes out of his everlasting commitment to his people. “I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” Everything God does comes out of that commitment, and no matter what we do, God will stay true to his character. And part of God’s character is chesed. God will be faithful, and God will be loving – no matter what. Because God has made that commitment to us, and God follows through on that commitment.
THE LESSONS TODAY
I would argue that all the lessons today have something to do with chesed – either the chesed that is between God and his people, or the chesed that can exist between people.
Let’s start with the lesson from Ruth. Ruth is one of the beautiful little books in the Old Testament. You might want to go home and read it today. It is only four chapters – about five pages in most Bibles. A man named Elimelech left Bethlehem during the time when Judah had judges as their leaders. He left because there was a famine in the land, and he took with him his wife, Naomi, and his two sons. They went to Moab, the region east of Judah (not west of Colorado). While in Moab, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi a widow. Naomi’s two sons married Moabite women, one of whom was named Ruth. After about ten years in Moab, both of Naomi’s sons died, so she had now lost her husband and her sons. When Naomi heard that there was no longer a famine in Judah, she decided to return home. In one of the most moving passages you’ll ever read in scripture, Ruth, her daughter-in-law, decides to go with Naomi, to a land where she will now be the foreigner.
The story unfolds from there, and chesed is leaking out all over the place. Ruth’s loyalty to and love for Naomi is matched by Naomi’s loyalty to and love for Ruth. And a man named Boaz, a relative of Elimelech, demonstrates great loyalty to Elimelech and Naomi by agreeing to marry Ruth, so that the family line can be carried on.
In the Psalm we are reminded that children are a gift from the Lord, that sleep is a gift from the Lord, that we should not lose perspective and think that we must work 16 hour days to make everything work out, because the Lord is ever-faithful and loving. This faithful love arises out of his eternal commitment to us. The chesed of God is not going anywhere.
When you talk about faithful love arising out of commitment, probably Jesus should come to mind. The author of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus, our great high priest, did not have to enter the Holy Place year after year with blood “that is not his own.” No. He entered into heaven, after appearing “once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself.” (Hebrews 9:26) Not only that, he will appear a second time “to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:28)
God the Son has the same trait going for him that his Heavenly Father has – chesed. He is faithful to the people of God and loves the people of God – no matter what. The faith and the love that are at the core of Jesus arise from his deep and everlasting commitment to each of us. His love and faithfulness is offered, and will always be offered. The only question is whether we will accept and receive Jesus’ chesed – or not.
And what about the woman putting in her last two copper coins, the equivalent of a penny, in the temple treasury? A great opportunity for a preacher to go crazy with this scripture on the Sunday before our Consecration Sunday, when all of us make our pledges to St. Ambrose for next year, right? I’ll resist that temptation. What I will say to you is this. Perhaps this scripture is not so much about money as it is about chesed. The words Jesus said are translated, “… she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” The literal Greek for “all she had to live on” is “her whole life”.
She put in her whole life. How do you do that? There is only one way you can do that. You have to have a deep, deep trust in the chesed of God. You have so much trust in God’s love, God’s faithfulness, the fact that God will be there for you today, tomorrow, and the next day, so much trust in God’s generosity… God’s provision… that you yourself live out a place of chesed – a faithful love arising out of your commitment to God, responding to the very same commitment that God has to you.
If you give just out of your abundance on the other hand, as Jesus saw some of the wealthy people do – those who admittedly put in large sums of money – that doesn’t necessarily mean you trust in God’s chesed, or even necessarily that you have a concept of God’s chesed.
A FEW WORDS ON COMMITMENT
Commitment is sort of a funny thing. By definition, you have to jump in. You can’t learn how to swim by sitting on the side of the pool or by reading books on swimming or by watching the Olympics every four years. You have to jump in the pool, and go from there. Similarly, you can’t learn about chesed just by reading your Bible or by listening to a priest talk about it, even though that’s what I’m doing today. You learn about chesed by standing at the altar and saying, “In the Name of God, I take you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to hold, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”
And then, day after day, no matter what comes, you recommit to that vow every morning, and you have your spouse and hold your spouse and talk to your spouse… when she is happy and when she is angry, when she is the picture of health and when she is fighting back from cancer or surgery, when money is flowing and when it’s not, when your wife doesn’t like you a whole lot and when she laughs at all your jokes, when things are going well with your children and when they’re not. You jump in the pool with each other, and you learn how to be faithful and loving to each other – no matter what – because yours is a faithful love arising out of commitment. It’s chesed all over again, and it’s not just a great Hebrew word anymore, it’s the way you are striving to live your life.
You can practice chesed with a friend or with a cause that you are deeply committed to. There’s certainly a lot of chesed involved in being a parent, and in being a part of a church community. For once you commit to your friend or to your company or to your children or to your church, then the fun begins, because you have opportunities and challenges out the wazoo that will test your commitment.
CONCLUSION
One thing’s for sure. God is the gold standard when it comes to chesed. Here’s a scripture you can put on your bathroom mirror or on your Blackberry. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23) Say what? “The chesed of the Lord never ceases, his chesed never comes to an end.”