When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, {35} and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. {36} "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" {37} He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' {38} This is the greatest and first commandment. {39} And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' {40} On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
I do not preach from a manuscript. In fact, I typically do not have any notes in front of me. However, I am happy to share some of the background material that gave shape to the sermon today.
Year A
October 23-29
October 26, 2014
Cross~Wind UMC
October 28, 1990
Plainfield UMC
Title: Christianity: Could it be that Simple?
The Article I wrote that formed the basis of the introduction.
I read a book by Richard Bach, Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, New York: Dell Publishing, 1977 sometime in 1990. It is the story of a student on a spiritual quest who discovers a spiritual master. The master instructs the student on many things throughout the book. In one chapter, the two are walking along a sidewalk. The student said, "You know, even in my most brilliant moments, I have not figured out the answer to this question: Why am I here? What is the answer?" The master did not respond immediately. Instead, he just kept walking until they came to a movie theater. The picture that was showing happened to be the favorite of the student, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." They went in. The student was very involved in the movie, and now it was toward the end. Finally, the master said, "Why are you here?" At first, the student does not catch the connection, and just wants to be left alone as the movie ends. After a long discussion, the master finally draws this answer from the student: The movie makes him happy, and he just might learn something. For the master, that is why we are here. To be happy and to learn.
That answer may or may not satisfy you, but my point is this. For the student, he had a big question which seemed like it deserved a long answer, maybe even a dissertation. The master brought him back to something very simple. Be happy and learn.
Pastors, I think, have a tendency to make religion very complex. Think about it. Right now, Christians all over this town are meeting in separate buildings. To a large degree, we do so because there are legitimate differences between us. There are different styles of worship, There are different styles when it comes to the music used in worship, and the kinds of sermons you can expect to hear. In addition, of course, the churches believe different things. There are differences about the Lord's Supper and baptism.
Somewhere along the line, we Christians have to know what is at the heart of what we call Christianity. Is it styles of worship? Music? The pastor's sermons? Doctrinal beliefs? Or is it something else?
The spiritual master in the book Illusions said that we are placed here to be happy and to learn. I can agree with that. I believe that is what God intended in making us in God's very own image. Yet, as a pastor, and as a Christian, I want to ask, how can we be happy? Moreover, what is it that is most important for us to learn?
Maybe Jesus can help us at this point.
In answering a question like that, preachers often think they have to come up with something new, something that is better than last time. We believe that if it is not new, creative, and original, it is not worth saying. Jesus reminds us here that new is not always better. In answer to the question, Jesus responds with the Shema and a text from Leviticus. It was familiar, and that is precisely the point that strengthened what Jesus had to say. Fred Craddock put it this way: "There is power in the familiar."
The Application
Our society talks so much about love.
I am almost afraid to use the word in a sermon. It is almost as if we can talk about it here, in church. Nevertheless, when we get out into real life, love becomes much more difficult to discern and to communicate to one another. One of the things that I often do at weddings is read a text from I Corinthians 13, the "Love Chapter." I suggest to the couples in introducing the text that there are many misunderstandings about love in the world today. For some, it is purely romantic love. Some have called this the "romantic solution" which people often take to the problems in their lives. There is the subtle belief that somehow, if a person just feels enough chemistry flowing with another person, all other problems in relationships will vanish. Yet, many relationships have gotten in trouble precisely because they could not get past the romantic stage and into something more substantial and enduring. And of course, there is the confusion of identifying love with sex. The sexual drive is very real. It can be a rewarding part of a relationship, as can romantic love. Yet, there must be more to love than romance and sexuality.
That is a starting place that our culture would hardly have. Sometimes the church is criticized for being too pious. I believe the church is not pious enough. We have become another community organization to which to belong. Love is a relationship, and relationships take time. John Wesley connected happiness, holiness, and love, based on the text before us. What is the source of unhappiness? Albert Outler, Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit:
"...human unhappiness, in any and all its forms, comes from setting our love of creation above our love of the creator, our love of self above our love of neighbor."
The source of unhappiness is misdirected love.
Jesus speaks next of loving the neighbor.
Being kind, and generous with others, and being there in a time of crisis, and accepting one another with a spirit of grace, is all a part of loving the neighbor. There is so much in us that strives for perfection, in ourselves and in others. However, maybe the greatest gift we can give to one another is the gift of acceptance. We can know one another well enough that we know we are all imperfect, and yet still accept one another and love one another. What a gift we can give!
The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own. --Eric Hoffer.
A man finally decided to ask his boss for a raise in salary. He told his wife that morning what he was about to do. At the close of the day, he finally got up the nerve to ask his boss for the raise. To his delight, he agreed. When he arrived home, the table was set with the best dishes. His wife had prepared a festive meal. When he sat down at the table, there was a note: "Congratulations, darling! I knew you would get the raise! These things will tell you how much I love you." He assumed that someone at the office had tipped her off as to what the answer of the boss had been. Then he noticed a second note that had apparently dropped from her pocket. It read: "Don't worry about not getting the raise. You deserve it anyway! These things will tell you how much I love you."[7]
Conclusion
John Wesley, "Wandering Thoughts":
What is religion then? It is easy to answer, if we consult the oracles of God. According to these, it lies in one single point: it is neither more nor less than love. It is the love that is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment. Religion is the love of God and our neighbor; that is every person under heaven.
Ultimately, Christianity is rather simple, is it not? With all our differences, we can share what Jesus says here is common ground. All that is asked is that we love God with all that we are, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves.
Matthew 22:34-40 is a dialogue on
the greatest commandment. The source is Mark.
Matthew sets the stage for the
dialogue by saying that when the Pharisees heard that Jesus silenced the
Sadducees, they came together as a group. In Matthew, then, the setting is
controversy. One of them, a lawyer (an expert in the interpretation of Torah),
asked him a question, also with the purpose of testing him. Such a motive is
different in Mark, in which the question seemingly comes from a friendly
scribe.
The question the lawyer asks begins
with addressing Jesus as teacher or rabbi. His question regards which
commandment in the law is the greatest. Jesus recited to the lawyer the shema,
that they shall love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and mind.
This is the greatest and first commandment. Pannenberg notes that Jesus goes to
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 rather than Exodus 20:3, making the demand made upon the
people not on the saving act of the exodus but the uniqueness of Yahweh. Linked
to this is an express requirement of total commitment to this God.[1]
How does one obey this command? In scripture, to love God frequently means to
obey God (see Deuteronomy 13:3-4 and 30:16-20; Joshua 22:5; 1 John 2:4-6 and
5:3a). It is not so much by affection for God that we love God; it is by
following the inclinations of our God-attuned will, our heart’s desire to honor
God’s will/ways. (See Charles Wesley’s hymn, “O For a Heart to Praise My God.”)
One is to love God with one’s whole self, one’s entire being. Several biblical
passages invite the listener to love God with “all your heart (and soul)” —
Deuteronomy 4:29 (= Jeremiah 29:13); 10:12; 11:13; 30:6, 10. Also Joshua 22:5.
A second is like (homosia) it, that they shall love the neighbor as themselves.
Rabbi Hillel the Elder; "What is hateful to you do not do to your
neighbor. That is the whole law, all else
is commentary." Love for neighbor is almost as important as love for God,
citing Leviticus 19:18b. The first few verses of Leviticus 19 insist on
Israel’s honoring their holy God with proper respect; verses 9-18a require that
they show justice and respect to their fellow human beings as well. Offering
one’s best to God is not sufficient to fulfill the heart of God’s commandments;
one must also offer one’s best to others. The source for our love for God and
neighbor is none other than God’s love (see 1 John 4:7-21). All the law and the
prophets hang on these two commandments. Daniel J. Harrington observes that
"Jesus' love-commandment goes to the root of things and provides a
coherent principle for appreciating and observing the other commandments."[2]
We should note that Jesus' move is to combine the law AND the prophets. There
is a close connection in Scripture between God’s law and God’s prophets (who
spoke for God). The prophets insisted that God’s people follow God’s law (see 2
Kings 17:13; Jeremiah 26:4-6; Daniel 9:9-10; and Zechariah 7:12). Moreover “the
law and the prophets” can collectively mean (all) “Scripture” (see Luke 24:27;
Acts 13:15; Acts 24:14; and Acts 28:23; and Matthew 7:12 just above). Jesus
says he came to fulfill the law and the prophets (see Matthew 5:17-20 in the
light of 24:35). Not only is this linkage tantamount to saying that on these
two commandments hangs the message of the Hebrew Scriptures in their entirety.
It also means that Jesus' interpretation of the greatest commandment is central
to understanding the prophetic tradition and ethical demands emerging from the
prophetic witness to God breaking into human history - a tradition and witness
with which Jesus very much aligns his ministry and mission throughout the
gospel of Matthew.
Here Jesus stresses if not the
equality, then certainly the dynamic interrelationship operating between the
commands to love God and to love neighbor. Accountability to one is meaningless
without accountability to the other. The point is the contrast between
Pharisaic legalism and the ethics of love for God and neighbor. Barth stresses
that the two commandments are not identical. At the same time, the second is
not simply appended, subordinate, or derivative. The second is like the first.
The passage has reference to God, but also to the neighbor. It has the one
dimension, but also the other. It finds in the Creator the One who points to
this creature, the neighbor.[3]
How do you love your neighbor? Just
as love for God is not primarily a matter of affection for God, love for
neighbor is expressed more by your caring/thoughtful actions than by whatever
warm inner sentiments you might (or might not) have toward your neighbor. (Note
how Jesus “defines” neighbor-love in Luke 10:29 ff., in the parable of the Good
Samaritan, which immediately follows Luke’s version of this passage about
loving God and neighbor.) Assuming that you have learned to love/respect
yourself (an often-overlooked matter for renewed appropriate attention), you
are to love neighbor in the same manner. (This roughly parallels another of
Jesus’ summary statements, Matthew 7:12 — ”The Golden Rule”: “In everything do
to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the
prophets.”)
Barth has a rather extensive
discussion of the life of the children of God, which is primarily being one who
loves God and neighbor. I will offer, in comparison, a summary of what he has
to say there. [4]
The love of
God summarizes the being of the children of God.
The object of the commandment is
God. In loving God, humanity has a partner in God, who loves humanity as well.
To love means to become what we already are, that is, those whom God loves. To
love means to choose God as the Lord, the One who is our Lord because Christ is
our Advocate and Representative. To love means to be obedient to the
commandment of this God. In every case, love is an accepting, confirming and
grasping of our future. In it, this future is identical with the reality of
God, who in the fullest sense of the word is for us. This God is our future. To
love God is to seek God. What matters is emphatically not the fact of our
seeking, but the direction of our seeking. They are what they are as genuine
seekers after God by giving a Yes that comes from the heart, soul, mind, and
strength, even when they find God. When the love of God reaches its goal, they
hear, feel, and taste afresh that have an incomparable Lord. When they find
God, grace meets them, which they then accept into their lives. Grace shows
what God does for them. Grace shows that in themselves they are poor, impotent,
and empty. It shows that they rebel against God. Grace points them away from
self and toward Christ who is the promise of what they can become. Grace does
not allow arrogance. Grace reveals the rebellion and imperfection of even the
best thoughts and undertakings by humanity. Grace does not allow any arrogance.
Grace reveals the lethargy and wildness that lie like a heavy load upon even
the best thoughts and undertakings. Grace demands that they live only by grace,
and by grace really live. Further, does the addition “with all thy heart, soul,
mind, and strength” add anything? The addition is a guarantee against every
division and reservation. It means that Christian love is characterized as a
total constitution and attitude of humanity. The addition lights up the
voluntary obedience given to Christ to love. We shall seek after God only when
the commandment to do it has reached all that we are. Such love cannot be lost.
Such love is the thankfulness that the believer owes to God in the divine work
of revealing and reconciling.
The love of neighbor summarizes the
doing of the children of God.
Praise of God is serious only in
the context of the commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The
praise of God is obedience to this commandment. We can make the point that as
human beings we live in an historical and social context ordered by God. If we
are to love God, we must also love what God has created. We honor and love God
when we honor and love what God has created.
To love God and to love the
neighbor are both commandments of the one God.
What does it mean to love the
neighbor? First, “thou shalt” is a command to love those in the midst of the
world that now is and is passing. Second, who is the neighbor? Christians need
to realize that such love is the only way to maintain faith. We need no longer
seek higher or more impressive ways. The neighbor is the person within the
circle of significant relationships we have as social creatures. The neighbor
is also the stranger within the gates, the one seemingly ignored by our circles
of significant relationships. My neighbor is the one who emerges from among all
human beings as this one person in particular. I must hear a summons from Jesus
Christ. I must be ready to obey the summons to go and do likewise. I have a
decisive part in the event by which a human being is my neighbor. That
suffering human being in need of help directs the children of God to the task
that God has appointed for them. God does not will the many griefs, sufferings,
and burdens under which we people have to sigh. God wills their removal. God
wills a better world. Therefore, we should will this better world, and a true
worship of God consists in our cooperation in the removal of these sufferings.
Therefore, our neighbor in his or her distress is a reminder to us and the
occasion and object of our proper worship of God. Third, to love means to enter
into the future that God has posited for us in and with the existence of our
neighbor. To love means to accept the benefit that God has shown by not leaving
us alone but having given us the neighbor. To love means to reconcile ourselves
to the existence of the neighbor, to find ourselves in the fact that God wills
us to exist as the children of God in this way. The children of God abide in
love. The strength of the Christian witness stands or falls with the fact that
with all its urgency this restraint is peculiar to it. I only declare to the
other that in relation to him or her I believe in Jesus Christ, that I do not
meet the neighbor as a stranger but as my brother or sister, even though I do
not know that he or she is such. I do not withhold from the neighbor the praise
that I owe to God. In that way, I fulfill my responsibility to my neighbor.
Fourth, what does the addition of “as thyself” mean? It does not mean an
addition of another commandment, as if there were really three. It admits that
love of self is quite natural. When I love my neighbor, I am confessing that my
self-love, standing alone, is not a good thing.
In
addition, Barth also stresses that one cannot withdraw from the neighbor to
some special religious sphere. Nor can we allow love of neighbor to absorb love
of God, thereby taking away its independent quality. [5]
He stresses that love to others cannot exhaust itself in love to God. Nor can
love to God exhaust itself in love of others. One cannot replace the other.
Love to God evokes love to neighbor. One cannot have Christ and not have the
neighbor. Therefore, one cannot have God without having also the neighbor. Such
love is obedience to the direction God wants to take you. [6]
[1]
Systematic Theology Volume 2, 330.
[3]
Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 216-7.
[4]
Church Dogmatics, I.2 [18.2]
371-401], [18.3] 401-457.
[5]
Church Dogmatics III.4 [53.1] 49.
[6]
Church Dogmatics IV.1 [58.2] 105-107.
[7]
(Church Management--The Clergy Journal,
in Steve Goodier, "To the Point," Quote, September 1, 1985 . Story told by Joe
Harding
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