St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by the Very Reverend Rowan Smith in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr on Dedication Sunday, 26 October 2008

“ you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind ...” Matthew 22 v 37

In the opening of the play Love! Valour! Compassion! Bobby is seen greeting the trees, the lake and the house in which they have come for the holiday weekend. Ramon, one of the guests is watching him and interrupts him: “ I thought you said something”

Bobby replies:

“ I was thanking God for all this.
the trees, the lake, the sweet, sweet air
for being here.
For all of us together in Gregory's house,
I am not crazy, l am happy” p. 41

What is fascinating about this is that Bobby is blind, yet each time they visit Gregory's house, he begins their holiday this way. “ I was thanking God for all this.” Today, we as the community of faith, who have made this cathedral our home, come to give thanks to God for all of life and in particular as those who are his in Christ Jesus. This past year we have in various ways, given expression to the 160^th years of our foundation, adding to the rich tapestry of the best we too can offer to God as and our forebears in the faith. Our prayers, especially in the Eucharist, have hallowed this place and here renewed through Christ's' Body and Blood, we have gone forth to be what we have received, His Body in the world. All this because we desire to respond with deep gratitude to the God who has created, redeemed and sanctified us through love and whose love is totally and utterly without condition. Today in our dedication we come by grace to respond to Jesus Christ who says:

“ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind ...”

This, says Jesus is the greatest commandment in the law emphasing that we are confronted with such immeasurable love that the only response is that of total self-giving – and it has to be total. Not just the good bits or the nice bits or the “spiritual bits” – no every part of my being. As one of our hymns puts it:

“ Just as l am poor, wretched, blind,
sight, riches, healing of the mind,
yea, all l need, in thee to find
O lamb of God, I come” (AMR 340)

And the God who loves unconditionally accepts that offering of ourselves so that we may through grace be transformed from one degree of glory to another. The accounts today from the book of Ruth presents with one whose sense of unworthiness was real, she was an alien, a gentile from Moab yet God's plan is to use her to be an ancestor of the great king David, of whose clan the Christ, the Messiah would later be born. God is always ahead of us in our journey, yet also alongside us to take our burdens when we grow tired. Ruth was gleaning not for herself alone but to provide for Naomi, her mother-in-law. So fulfilling the second commandment to love our neighbour. So Boaz bless her generous behaviour:

“ May the Lord reward you for your deeds. And may you have a full reward from the Lord, the God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge.” 2 v 12

Ruth here is sharing the load and so also finding a blessing. Together we today come to make our response as we offer to God, in a moment, our pledge cards, not as payment but in thanksgiving to God, yet knowing that we could never cease to thank God, Yet it is our desire through grace to:

“ love the Lord Our God with all (our) heart and with all (our) soul, and with all (our) mind ...”

Totally dedicated to God. We recognise that these are but the outward tokens of our desire for God, a longing that is expressed in prayer as we seek to give expression to our love each day. So also to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are indeed a Eucharistic community and as we are nourished through Christ's Body and Blood so too we find in God our love expressed in daily prayer. Together with our pledge let us also set aside time for God each day, just ten minutes, for prayer is love in search for a word. We can do this by lighting a candle or placing a postcard like that of our African Madonna to focus our desires. The love for our neighbour has a practical expression and can take many forms through our social and community interaction. Some assist in projects outside the Cathedral, so continuing to be each day Christ's Body in the world – God's power to heal finding expression through our self-offering, even though we are aware of our own need of grace. But all this we bring to God today as in faith we pray.

“Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let be let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee.” (AMR 205)

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