November 4th:
Call: Hebrews 9: 11-14
Text: Mark 12: 28-34
Read: Canticle of Love (646)
The Right Answer
This morning's scripture is well known, but it's not only well known
More importantly it also presents an essential truth of Christianity.
We call it the "Great Commandment"
I would suggest that there is no more important scripture for followers of Christ
To understand
And to live.
This is how Mark presents it: Mark 12: 28-34.
It is simple.
It is astonishingly simple
It is remarkably simple
It is incredibly simple.
And I'll bet that you and I could spend the rest of our time together
Coming up with adverb after adverb to modify and explain how simple it is.
"Unbelievably" "Awesomely" "Unquestionably"
But our goal here is to internalize the great commandment
So that it becomes a part of us.
Our goal is not to show off our vocabularies.
Suffice it to say
We do not need a graduate degree to understand the scripture.
We do not need an undergraduate degree to understand it.
We do not need a high school diploma or GED to understand it
I do not believe that we even need to be able to read to understand it.
For all Jesus is saying in his answer to the scribe's question
Is that in this essential command for those who follow him
Loving God and loving each other as we love ourselves
Are intertwined and inextricably interconnected
For if we are to love God, then we must love each other
Not should or ought to love each other
But must love each other
We do not have to be exactly alike
We do not have to agree with each other
We do not have to like the same food, the same music,
Or the same baseball team
(for which both Norm and I breathe a sigh of relief And utter a heartfelt "amen.")
We simply have to treat each other lovingly
As we would want others to treat us.
As I said "It is simple." "It is simple."
Now, skeptical lovers of Broadway show tunes might suggest
"You're dreaming the impossible dream."
Others among us might ask,
"Jim, have you ever met so and so?"
[If coming up with adverbs isn't an activity that turns you on,
Perhaps finding names to replace "so and so" might be an alternative.
Actually, guessing whom you might name
is more fun for me than the adverb game]
I will admit, however,
That some people are harder to love than others.
But this isn't my rule.
This isn't my suggestion.
This rule comes from God. And not everything that is simple is easy.
This scripture is not the only place where we encounter this command.
In John's first letter, he writes that love comes from God
And tells us that if we do not love each other
Then we don't really love God.
And way back in the Old Testament
The prophets time after time, after time
Continually talked about
how the people of Israel had trampled over the poor and the needy
how they had failed to behave justly or to deliver justice
The story of the exile around which most of our prophetic books revolve
Is the story of the people of Israel and the people of Judah
being punished for their disobedience
But it is not enough to say that they disobeyed God
We need to be more specific
Which of God's commands did they disobey?
One: they worshipped other gods
And Two: they poorly treated the unfortunate and the challenged.
In other words, they disobeyed God by
failing to love God with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength AND by
failing to love each other as themselves.
In short they disobeyed God by disobeying
what Christ said was The Greatest Commandment
Just spend some time reading
Isaiah and Jeremiah Amos and Hosea
And Micah
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams?
Will the Lord be pleased with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Will the Lord be pleased if I give my firstborn?
And although it is only implied in the scripture
I can just hear God and Micah bellow with frustration
NO! NO! NO!
Ten thousand times NO!
And then going on to say
He has told you mortal what is good
And what the Lord does require of you.
Is To do justice
To love kindness
To walk humbly with your God.
That is what the Lord requires
And isn't that just another way of saying
Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength
And love your neighbor as yourself?
The Great Commandment was around and alive - albeit in other words
Long before Christ was born in Bethlehem/
The Great Commandment is what they disobeyed
In the northern kingdom of Israel or Samaria
And The Great Commandment is what they disobeyed
In the Southern kingdom of Judah or Jerusalem
But when even that punishment didn't pound the message
into human heads and human hearts
and so, God took another approach
God sent his son
God sent him to teach
And the essence of his teaching was the Great Commandment
God sent him as an example
Look at Christ's devotion to His father
Look at who it was Christ walked with and ate with.
It was not the elite of society. No!
And God sent him to hang on a cross to die for us
Even for the so and so's who seem so hard to love.
Christ went to that cross because he loved his father
With all his heart, mind, soul, and strength
Christ went to the cross because he loved us - all of us.
The scribe who asked the question of Jesus
Responded that Christ had given the "right" answer.
And so having seen his example and having heard this scripture,
We ask ourselves,
Do the ways you and I lead our lives
also provide the "right answer?
Or do they fail to do so?"
They should, for like the command itself
The question is simple and the answer is simple
Why then is it often such a struggle for us who call ourselves Christians?