Revelation is All Our Help
Over the past two years, sad to say, I suspect you’ve heard me conclude the Prayers of the People often enough with this prayer that you might have memorized it: O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne.
But I wonder if someone with no prior faith in the God of Abraham who walked into our worship service would question if this prayer to a specific God is in fact an obstacle to the harmony for which we fervently pray: Why this God in whose name many have acted with “arrogance and hatred?” That’s a fair question and I’ll come back to it. And today when we have heard twice the second Great Commandment, some might question why this particular articulation of the “Golden Rule” should be more privileged than the many others in the history of the human family. To answer that question, we need to reclaim the word, “revelation.”
That prayer for the Human Family is a confession of our need for God’s help. So, “How did God first help us?” it is asked in in the Catechism. “God first helped us by revealing himself and his will, through nature and history, through many seers and saints, and especially through the prophets of Israel.” We are not deists who claim that God just wound up the world like a clock and walked away. We insist that God revealed God’s self and God’s will. But having created a world of places and times means that this revelation was bound to be perceived differently by many seers and saints in different natures and histories. The Episcopal Church does not teach that God spoke exclusively to Israel. But The Episcopal Church does profess that there is something “special” or unique about God’s revelation to Israel, “especially” in today’s readings.
There have been many articulations of the Golden Rule. The Hindu Mahabharata says, “One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self.” Confucius was asked what one word could serve as a principle for right conduct, to which he answered, “shu” — reciprocity — Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. Socrates is quoted as saying — Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others. The Roman philosopher Seneca said — Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors. Of course the Romans would find a way to make it about hierarchy.
These expressions of the Golden Rule representing most of the great ancient civilizations are negative. Don’t do something to others you don’t want done to yourself; leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. That’s not what Jesus or Moses command us. What they command is a positive action to love our neighbors, to act preemptively for their well-being. And it’s the same love that is commanded of us in Leviticus and in the Gospel. In Jesus’ time, the Old Testament that most Jews would have read was the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Septuagint. And the Greek word for love in that version is the same as the Greek word that Jesus uses for love — agape — or in Latin caritas from which we get “charity.” Not the love of erotic passion or obligation of blood, but the love that is deliberately chosen without compulsion. Jesus’ revelation of God’s great commandments of love, love of God and love of neighbor, is the same revelation in which God started with one man and woman whom we call Abraham and Sarah, to whom God promised that all the families of the earth would be blessed in God. Not a revelation exclusive of others but special.
Aside from Jesus, this special revelation has been taken up by others. The Prophet Muhammad, who led the Arab peoples to the worship of the one God of Abraham, said, “None of you has faith until he loves for his neighbor what he loves for himself.” And the words attributed to Chief Seattle, “Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth,” reflect a reverence for the Creator that is found in many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. And they expand the revelation of neighborly love to all of our fellow creatures.
I end where I began, with the whole human family needing help. The help of all the human family is in the one God who has revealed Godself in nature and history, through many seers and saints. And that God has especially revealed themself as love through the prophets of Israel and the Word made flesh Jesus the Christ. That Christ’s church has frequently misinterpreted that revelation as exclusion is something of which the Church should repent and ask pardon. But we should not be embarrassed about that special revelation. For in that revelation is the help of the human family. Thanks be to God.
October 25th, 2026
22nd Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 25, Year A
The Rev. David P. Kendrick