Pentecost 15 (NL 4) John B. Valentine
Exodus 20:1-2, 12-17 September 6, 2026

“LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF”

Any of you ever seen a murmuration of starlings?

You know what starlings are ... I take it.

They’re those ubiquitous mid-sized black-colored birds that seem equally at home in city apartment complexes, suburban backyards and rural byways.

“Blackbirds” ... kids call them ... even though they’re not formally “blackbirds”.

But a “murmuration” of starlings is where you see a flock of starlings flying as a cloud ... a shifting, shape-sifting cloud ...

A living, breathing wave ... of thousands ... tens-of-thousands ... sometimes literally hundreds-of-thousands of birds.

• To those of you who’ve actually seen a murmuration of starlings ... I suspect that no explanation is necessary ...

• To those of you who haven’t seen a murmuration of starlings ... I’m not sure any explanation is possible ...

A cloud of birds ... flying as one ... silhouetted against the sky ... impeccably choreographed ... poetry in motion.

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Now the reason I bring up starlings ... and a murmuration of starlings ... is because ... once you get past the raw wonder of just seeing that wave of shadows against the sky ...

You probably find yourself wondering ... “How do they DO that?”

• They all move as one ...
• They obviously execute these amazingly tight turns ...
• They never run into one another ... and
• They seem to do it with such ease.

The flock ... the cloud ... forms and splits and re-forms in such a way that seems to require telepathy.

In fact ... for the longest time ... scientists actually DID think that it required telepathy ... that the birds were able to communicate with one another in ways that couldn’t be heard nor seen.

But within the past half-century ... they’ve discovered it’s NOT telepathy at all ... it’s just math!

Every starling follows three simple rules:

• Fly in the same direction and at the same speed as your neighbors ...
• Stay close to them ... and
• Don’t crash into them.

That’s it!

• Alignment ....
• Cohesion ...
• Separation.

Each bird tracks exactly seven of its nearest neighbors .... not the whole flock .... just seven of its .... and adjusts accordingly.

When one bird moves .... the change ripples outward ... and the entire murmuration transforms in milliseconds.

No central command. No hierarchy. No one bird deciding where the flock goes.

Just neighborly awareness .... propagated across hundreds of thousands of individuals .... producing breathtaking complexity from almost nothing.

When we humans look at coordination problems ... we immediately ask “Who’s in charge?”

• We build org charts ...
• We appoint CEOs ....
• We elect presidents.

We assume that large-scale action requires a centralized authority.

Meanwhile ... starlings just look out for their neighbors.

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You see ... today’s scripture lesson was that bit from Exodus ... chapter twenty ... was the second table of the Ten Commandments.

If the first part ... Commandments One through Three ... was focused on how we treat the things of God .... and

And Commandment Four ...”Honor your father and your mother” ... was focused on how we live within the family ...

Then today’s part ... Commandments Five through Ten ... focus in on how we treat our neighbors ...

• You shall not murder.
• You shall not commit adultery.
• You shall not steal.
• You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
• You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
• You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

There’s the vertical part ... the up-down part ... One, Two and Three ... our relationship with God per se ...

There’s the center point ... Commandment Four ... relationships with those within our family ... and

There’s the horizontal part ... our relationships with others.

It’s the sign of the cross!

And though these commandments are formally “don’t, don’t ... don’t, don’t ... don’t, don’t” ...

As countless numbers of my Confirmation students over the years would attest ...

They could just as easily be a list of “do”s.

• Do respect your neighbors’ life ...
• Do respect your neighbors’ sexuality and relationships...
• Do respect your neighbors’ money and property ...
• Do respect your neighbors’ reputation ...
• Do respect your neighbors’ possessions ... and
• Do respect your neighbors’ relationships with those who are part of their life-network.

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Actually what is it that ALL of those Commandments which we’re looking at today have in common?

Isn’t it that word ... that theme ... of “neighbor”?

They’re all about ... ALL about ... taking care of and watching out for our neighbors.

Just as that murmuration of starlings was all about them taking care of and watching out for their neighbors!

In fact ... you might well say that these commandments aren’t about us ... per se ... at all!

• God doesn’t give you these commandments make you a better “you” ...

• God doesn’t give me these commandments to make me a better version of “me”.

What was it that Jesus said in the second of this morning’s Scripture readings???

One of the scribes comes up and hears Jesus and some of the teachers of the Law disputing with one another ... and seeing that Jesus answered them well ... he asks "Which commandment is the first of all?"

And Jesus answers,

"The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have duly noted that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other'; and ‘to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength' and ‘to love one's neighbor as oneself' — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

To which Jesus replies: "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

God does not give you and me the Law in order to help US have our best life now ....

No ... if anything ... God gives us the Law so that our neighbor can have their best life now.

• Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor.

• Don’t covet your neighbor’s house.

• Don’t covet your neighbor’s spouse.

• Heck ... when it’s the day of rest ... make sure that your neighbors ... ALL of your neighbors ... from your sons and daughters ... to the folks who live next door ... to the folks who live on the poor side of town ... all the way down to your sheep and goats and oxen .... that they get to rest just like you!

I KNOW that it sounds like I’ve been harping on this theme a whole lot lately ... betwixt our walk through the text of First Corinthians in June and July to now this walk through the Ten Commandments here in the days before Labor Day ...

But this ethic of “care for the neighbor” really IS at the heart of biblical Christianity.

For ... as Paul says in his letter to the church in Galatia ... “The whole of the law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Not that we should have warm, fuzzy feelings about our neighbors ...

But that we should do what is right by our neighbors ... not for our sakes ... but for theirs.

And that is good news. Good news for my neighbor.

Because God loves them so much that God tells me not to kill, steal, commit adultery, and otherwise do wrong by them.

And good news for me.

Because God loves me so much that God tells my neighbor not to kill, steal, and otherwise do wrong by me!

It’s about creating community that watches out for one another.

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You know ... it had to be a number of years ago now ... a NUMBER of years ago ... that I took a couple of dozen youth group kids to a national youth convention in the city of New Orleans.

It was fascinating ... and made for fascinating ‘people watching’ ... seeing forty-thousand high-school-kids from all over the country thrown together in a ginormous mass gathering.

Anyhow ... the first night of that event ... they’d cordoned off the whole of River Walk Park just for the kids from the convention.

And there were food vendors ... and paddle-wheelers ... and a fire-works shooting tug-boat ... and lots and lots of kids ... just milling around and having a good time.

But the thing that caught my eye ... actually my ear mostly ... was the music.

They’d brought together half a dozen local bands and music groups ... a gospel choir ... a full-blown jazz ensemble ... a Cajun band ... a Zydeco band ... a Reggae band ... a Creole band ... all cranking away at a bunch of different venues.

There were all these different sorts of sounds ... different kinds of music ... mostly of the sort that those kids hadn’t much heard before.

Now I happened to be at the stage where the Zydeco band was playing ... because secretly I LOVE Zydeco music and this band was REALLY good! ...

But in front of me was this horde of high schoolers ... listening to the music ... enjoying the music ... but not having any clue about how to dance to said music.

Kids from all over the country ... loving the music ... but:

• not knowing the songs per se ...
• not knowing the beat ... and
• most definitely not knowing how to dance to those tunes!

And you could almost feel the agonizing question fill the air: "How are we supposed to dance to a song we just don't know?"

Because it's hard to dance to the music when don’t know the steps.

Let’s be honest ... folks. It IS hard to dance to the music when you don’t know the steps!

• It was hard for the Israelites out there in the desert.
• It was hard for Jesus’ first friends and followers on the city streets of Jerusalem.
• It’s hard enough here in Lamorinda in the 21st century even!

The tune is “the Shemah” ... Scripture tells us:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength and all your mind."

That’s the music God calls us to dance to ... sure enough!

But how do we dance to that tune?

"Love you neighbor ... love your neighbor as yourself."

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You got that?

The song at the top of the charts is the Shemah ...

And the words to that song are simple enough .... "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength and all your mind" ...

And how do we dance to that tune?

"Love you neighbor ... love your neighbor as yourself."