Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,

given by Rev. Stuart A. Schlegel/October 28, 2007

  The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share

Christ's love in the world.  We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to other

There is a joke I heard years ago, which I remember clearly. Someone asked Confucius to state his fundamental philosophy in four words or less. He replied:  “Buy cheap; sell dear.” The reason I remember the silly little joke is not because I think it is a very good joke – I don’t – or even a joke that tells a truth – it doesn’t. No, I remember it because it caused me to sit down one day and try to do that assignment myself: to state my fundamental philosophy is four words. I couldn’t do it, but I did get it into 10 words.

Stripped down to the minimum, I decided that I believed the following: The world is beautiful; life is hard; love is real. And that is what I want to share with you this morning. My fundamental philosophy in ten words.

First, the world is beautiful. I think this is just plain obvious. There is so much beauty all around us. I have traveled in much of the world and so have many of you. And what cannot be missed is that the world is a beautiful place. The granite cliffs and peaks of Zion National Park;  sunsets over the south Pacific ocean; the majestic, cathedral-like glory of a tropical rain forest; the great savannahs of Africa; the corn fields of Iowa; the beaches, hills, and big trees of Santa Cruz. And just as strikingly gorgeous are the fish of the sea; the thousands of differently colored birds; people of all skin colors, all genders, all ages. The world is beautiful to behold. Music; art; baseball, that ballet of sports; a well-turned sentence; a poem that haunts our memory; a novel of deep insight; a moment of solemn recollection. Matthew Fox, the Creation Spirituality theologian, said once that there is so much beauty and loveliness around us on all sides that we should all fall in love with something new every day.

All my life, at least since I have been old enough to know a thing or two, I have never doubted that the world is beautiful. And so I have tried to live with awe and wonder.

Second, life is hard. I am afraid that this is obvious too. There are so many parts of life, as the years go by, that are just plain hard. So many people in the world are poor; are powerless; are oppressed. One thinks of the people of Darfur and Palestine; the gay men and women afraid to come out of their closets; the homeless in our cities; the veterans of our wars struggling with post-traumatic-stress syndrome. Marriage is tough to pull off successfully. Our labor is tiring, and for many folks numbingly boring and dull. Meaning has to be sought and found in life; it isn’t handed us on a platter. Friends and family die: my wife and I have buried both of our children, one son because of cancer and the other took his own life in an alcoholic binge. Life is hard. If all of us sitting in this church right now knew the total life stories of all of the others of us, we would be staggered by the amount of pain and anquish there is mixed in with the joys and delights.  I have often said that it is hard not to appreciate another person if we know her or his story, because we have all been through a lot. Life is very, very hard.

All my life, at least since I have been old enough to know a thing or two, I have never doubted that life is hard. And so I have tried to live with compassion for others and for myself.

Third, love is real. This is the bedrock of all that I believe. Again, we need only look around with, as Jesus said, “eyes to see.” In the midst of the worst that  life can offer, there is love. People loving other people. If I may refer again to my own marriage, Audrey and I have been married for over 49 years, and it has been one long series of triumphs of love over a million obstacles. And I am sure that this is true for all whose marriages take and last. And when a marriage fails, it is lost love that hurts the most. This congregation is a beacon of loving kindness for each other and for the world around us. If we scan our lives and the lives around us for love, we see it everywhere. The song in the show, Cabaret, is wrong: it is love, not money, that makes the world go around.

I have been a priest for a long time, over 45 years, and my theology is a very simple one. I believe that God is love and that love is God in the most straightforward and simple way. When do we encounter God in our lives? Whenever we encounter love in our lives. When do we act as a channel of God’s grace? Whenever we love someone or some part of the world. When do we know ourselves to be loved by God? When we know ourselves to be loved by another person. It was always obvious to me that God didn’t give my son, Len, cancer. Because God doesn’t do anything love doesn’t do, and love doesn’t give anyone cancer. I long ago gave up trying to understand and think in terms of fancy theology: you know, incarnation and the Holy Trinity and the creeds. I just look for love and I see God at work. And love is all around us; love is very, very real.

All my life, at least since I have been old enough to know a thing or two, I have  never doubted that love is real. And so I have tried my best to live a life of love and a life of gratitude.

That’s it! Ten words: the world is beautiful; life is hard; and love is real. I commend this little philosophy to you all. The world is beautiful, so live in awe and wonder. Life is hard, so live with compassion. And, love is real, so live lives of love and of gratitude.

Amen.