Our Collect today petitions the spirit of God to "Increase in us the gift of faith, hope, and charity; make us love what you command." The three gifts we pray for are part of the seven Theological Virtues. The others - prudence, justice, temperance, and courage, but Faith, Hope, and Charity – are spiritual gifts that support us to be patient in affliction, love one another, live in justice, and stand up for what we believe. We need that in these challenging and confusing times.
The Episcopal Church encourages us to use the three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason as our guide to examine what we hear, whether in scripture, politics, or world history. Each leg of the three-legged stool, and the whole, is like the carpenter's tool, which helps shape or balance our beliefs while guarding against the many questions that may interrupt what the Spirit of God is teaching us.
Likewise, the three virtues (faith, hope, and charity) have many unique characteristics.Your parents most likely passed on their Christian faith to you. And, you have no doubt kept the faith, but neither what you heard nor learned will automatically remain alive in the mind and heart unless you feed it consistently with scriptures with honest arguments so you don't drift. Charity causes us to manage what we have learned with boundaries that allow us to grow gracefully. Without charity, the pursuit of love becomes a show - something Apostle Paul describes as love without basis. (Gal 5:22-23). Paul's principle is that we show by the fruits we yield if we love God.
Love – naturally, always has enough for others. And love creates miracles. Charity and love work together to create a community of God's children who decide to work hand in hand, creating something magnificent. By faith, they achieve more than they imagined. Our challenge in our church community is to express the gift of faith, hope, and charity. We can reach our goal if we approach it prayerfully. But let's face facts – exercising the three gifts of faith, hope, and love/charity is hard and even harder without letting go of many things, including our petty egos, which sometimes seek the self rather than the good of the other and make us want to control the word of God.
This ego shows itself in the gospel story where two religious leaders – one more politically inclined than the other but both with the same mindset and ego. Their shared interest was to do away with Jesus. He was getting too popular and must go. Before we condemn their actions, I want to play the devil's advocate and say that the Pharisees may have genuinely desired to protect the Oral Law, and the Sadducees, conservative and politically inclined as they were, wanted to prevent Jesus from provoking the Romans. But their actions and questions tell us otherwise.
In this incident, they enlisted a lawyer – someone they trusted could beat Jesus with doctrinal matters. The Lawyer's tricky question is one of the 613 expanded commandments of the Torah. 'What is the greatest Commandment? ' the Lawyer asked. They expected an elaborate answer to that one single question. But Jesus responded to the point: 'Love God.' But, there's a second Commandment, which is part of the first, Jesus added - love your neighbor as you love yourself. In other words, love is about God and your neighbor – something they probably knew from studying the Torah but forgot because they were into themselves.
Laying down our egos – our long-nurtured grudges and resentments - is crucial. Loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength comes with humility; it is the center of the rule of love and the rule of law. Love of God, Love of neighbor, is straightforward as can be. In all situations, you must hold these two up as a yardstick to questionable interpretations and ask: "Is this scriptural interpretation (or civil law) consistent with God's Law?" Does it genuinely reflect the meaning of the greatest Commandment?
We can do nothing without loving God, loving ourselves, and loving our neighbors. As we petition the spirit to inspire our hearts to keep the law, may we also remember that faith, hope, and love have no meaning without the help of the same spirit. And, for the love of God, let us courageously call for justice for the oppressed and the marginalized. Amen.