Lectionary Readings: Year A, Proper 25

In 1962, the Swiss theologian Karl Barth was on a lecture tour of the United States. Barth was one of the most influential theologians of the last century, and had written a lot of books. One of his major works was called Church Dogmatics, a series of 13 books about the doctrines of the church. At a lecture in the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, one of the people in the audience asked him if he could summarize this massive work. Summarize it for those with neither the time, nor the understanding to read all 13 of these books.

He spent a brief moment in thought, and then responded that yes, he could summarize it, “in the words of a song I learned at my mother’s knee: ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’”

Thirteen books, with well over ten thousand words in most English translations. All summed up with a children’s song: “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

There’s not much difference between Barth’s answer and Jesus’ answer from the Gospel today. When the lawyer asked him to tell him what the most important law was, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, which reads, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” 

All of the law and the prophets summed up neatly in a prayer that Jewish children commit to memory, and is usually one of the first things these kids memorize. Because devotion to God is the most important thing for anyone still on this side of eternity. Loving to God is the beginning of all wisdom and joy.

There’s a reason that Jesus said that if we want to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven that we need to change, and become like little children (Matt 18:3). Little children know that their parents – either those that had them, or those that chose them – love them because of a relationship of trust that has been built up over time. They know that their parents want what’s best for them, even when sometimes the parents don’t let them do things that they really want to do. Or when their parents discipline them. It’s a trust that is built out of years of loving care, wanting the child to learn what they need in order to not only survive in a world that is often full of evil and destruction, but to learn to thrive – even when the world doesn’t give them what they want.

This is the type of relationship that each of us is to have with God. That we believe, like little children, that God will provide and care for us. Even when things seem difficult, and everything seems to be going against us. 

“Jesus loves me, this I know.” It’s the second part of that lyric that is more important. Everyone of us could finish the verse that says that “God so loved the world, that he sent his only son, and that whoever believes in him…” (John 3:16). We know that God loves the world. What’s missing for a lot of people is that they don’t seem to know that Jesus loves them. Perhaps a better way to say it is that they know it in theory, but don’t feel it. That knowledge can’t just stay in our heads, it has to burrow deep into our bones and marrow. Because without feeling God’s love, people cannot live into the reality of what that means – both for them, and for the world around them.

“And the second is like it,” Jesus answered, “Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:39, quoting Lev. 19:18).

Love your neighbor. As yourself. 

If we do not get to the point where we know and feel the love God has for each of us, then our ability to love our neighbors is limited. Archbishop Fulton Sheen put it this way: “Love of self without love of God is selfishness; love of neighbor without love of God embraces only those who are pleasing to us, not those who are hateful” (Sheen, Life of Christ). But Christ said, “If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you?” (Luke 6:32). In other words, if you only love those who love you, how are you any different from the rest of the world? And Jesus also said, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). And that can only be done when we know, deep in our bones and marrow, that God loves us.

These verses about loving our neighbor and praying for our enemies are things we could all probably recite, just along with the Summary of the Law that Jesus gave. But they are really difficult to do in practice – especially when we don’t know that Christ lives in us and loves us. Because Christ living in us is our promise to be transformed in glory to be just like him (Col 1:27).

There’s a story about a man named Peer Holm, who lived in Norway at the turn of the last century. Peer was an engineer that wanted to become rich (The Great Hunger, Johan Bojer). And he does. But life takes its twists and turns, and he loses his fortune. Peer’s neighbor is an anti-social, angry man, who has put a fence around his yard to keep people away and protect what’s his. He also had a large dog that patrols the fields, and one day, Peer’s little daughter climbs under the fence in order to pet the dog. But this vicious animal attacks her, and rips out her throat, killing her. 

The community is angry. They ostracize this anti-social neighbor. They refuse to speak with him. The store clerks in the town refuse to wait on him or sell him anything. When a severe frost hits the town, people’s crops die, and the townspeople have to buy extra grain and seed in order to survive. But no one, no one will sell to this angry and anti-social neighbor of theirs. He cannot grow food. And without food, he and his family will starve.

Then, one day, he looks out, and sees Peer Holm sowing seed in his field. Peer, the father of the little girl that was killed by his own dog. And this angry, anti-social neighbor stands in the shadows, weeping, overcome by the grace of Peer’s actions. No one in town knew what Peer had done, but in the spring when the crops started to grow, they saw that this man had crops, and half of Peer’s own fields were empty. And then they all knew the compassion that Peer had shown this man. Later, Peer told a friend of his that “I felt a vast responsibility. [Humanity] must arrive, and be better than the blind powers that order its ways; in the midst of its sorrows it must take heed that the god-like does not die. The spark of eternity was once more aglow in me, and said: Let there be light. … Therefore I went out and sowed the corn in my enemy’s field, [so] that God might exist.”  Or, stated more clearly, humanity would suffer, and Peer himself would suffer, if he allowed humanity to be no better than the heartless, unfeeling universe. Because if humanity became unfeeling, then goodness, kindness, and the spark of God would die. And Peer knew that he had to keep God alive in himself.

“Jesus loves me, this I know.”

Seems like Peer knew that Jesus loved him. While the rest of the community found reason to hate this crotchety and vile man, Peer Holm looked to the fact that God loved him, and that he was supposed to love his neighbor as himself. He knew that this man would not be able to feed his family, and Peer had empathy for him, despite the pain and suffering this man had brought.

And Peer did it to keep God alive in himself. Because without empathy, without love for neighbor, he knew that God – and the love of God – would slowly die in him. And if God was dead in him, then it would only be a matter of time before Peer himself became angry, evil, and anti-social, just like this neighbor whose dog had killed his daughter. 

Paul tells us that Christ lives in us. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Jesus embodied kindness, compassion, and empathy. If Christ lives in us, then we have a promise to be transformed into being like Christ. And Peer Holm kept Christ alive in himself by being transformed by God’s love. When no one else would, Peer Holm had compassion, he showed kindness, and he had empathy for this neighbor.

Hannah Arendt, the Jewish philosopher who wrote a book shortly after World War II about how people like Hitler and Mussolini and other dictators came to power, famously said, “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” In a world where people proudly proclaim that empathy is a weakness, we must ever more remember that “when we are weak, then we are strong” (2 Cor 12:10). Because it is not we ourselves that find the power to show compassion and empathy, but it is Christ who lives in us that empowers us for all things (Gal 2:20) – including showing compassion, kindness, and empathy for our neighbors, for those who are hateful, and even our enemies. If we feel none of those emotions, then God is already dead in us. And we are the ones who killed Him.

We cannot love our neighbors without loving God, and we cannot love God without understanding – that is, feeling in our bones – how much love God has for us. Because when we feel that love, that is when God is alive in us. And when God is alive in us, then we cannot help but be transformed by that love.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

These two commandments are simple to remember. But they are much more difficult to actually do. Keeping these commandments is often painful. Keeping them often feels like weakness. It can feel like we are dying, trying to love someone who has nothing but contempt for us and for all God’s children. 

It’s simple to memorize the words, but so much more difficult to do what they say.

But if we are ever confronted with the strain of loving our neighbor, especially one of those truly difficult sorts. If we are confronted with hatred for our neighbor, rather than the love of God, then we can remind ourselves that with God living in us, we can, in fact, love these people. And we can remind ourselves by singing a little children’s song:

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak, but God is strong.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on October 25 2026.]