Love All Worship One

Before I went off to seminary I spent the summer working at the church I grew up in as a temporary youth director to help fill in the void after the last one left while the looked for a more permanent person. While I was serving in that position the youth and I held a fundraiser by selling some Christian apparel. To this day I still have the beanie that I bought from it. It was something I loved and it helped to raise funds for the youth so it was a win-win purchase. It is a navy blue beanie with a Christian fish symbol on it and it says, “Love All, Worship One”.

The reason why I love it so much is that it reminds me of this passage from Mark about the greatest commandment. We are to love God with all our heart, with all our being, with all our mind, and with all our strength. The second is to love our neighbor as ourself. Love all, worship one. The legal expert who asked the question agrees with Jesus that these are in fact the most important parts of the Torah and that is how we should live our lives. Unfortunately this happy moment doesn’t last for very long because he then warns against other legal experts.

There were some among this group that enjoyed the benefits that their status brought them. They were recognized with honor and people would intentionally greet them when in public. They would have places of honor or reserved seating in worship and at meals. Remember that when you ate at banquets people were placed according to their perceived status by the host. So having a place of honor meant they were considered very highly in their social spheres. Then he went on to say that some even went so far as to cheat widows of their homes while showing off their religiosity by the lengthy prayers that would say in front of others.

Part of the problem of all of this is that the whole reason they were called the legal experts is because they were the ones that knew all the 613 laws of the Torah and were supposed to be the ones to uphold what those laws meant and how they were interpreted and practiced. The reason I say this is a problem is that Jesus sees how some of them, not the one that Jesus had interacted with a moment ago, but some others who did not use the Torah the ways that it was supposed to be used. It seems that some of them used it to their own benefit as I mentioned and not to the benefit of what the Torah actually said. We see that clearly referenced when Jesus says that some of them cheat widows out of their homes. There are lots of references to the protection and the care of the orphan and the widow and how some of that came from the priests from what was given to the temple out of other people’s abundance.

Which makes the conversation about the widow and her two copper coins that much more potent. Jesus has just finished warning against those certain legal experts who used the law to their advantage instead of for the benefit of the orphan and the widow and then this widow as seen as throwing in the last of all that she has to the temple for the legal experts to do with how they interpret is best for the community. This isn’t a condemnation against all legal experts because again we have the one who Jesus says is not far from the kingdom of God. But how disheartening it must have been for Jesus to have just warned against those who weren’t honest to then see this woman give to a system that was supposed to support her and there was a good chance that it didn’t.

Which leads me back to how we started our conversation today with that legal expert who agreed with Jesus that the greatest commandments are to love God and love neighbor. One of the best ways to love God is to love our neighbor. So we have to ask ourselves how do we care for the widow when she does give away or spend or for whatever reason no longer has those last two copper coins? For it is our treatment of her, the way that we live out our love for her that we then show God our love for God. Think about it in terms of what we talked about last week, if you were here with us, we talked about how we are all created in God’s image and therefore we all have worth and value. If, we treat the widow and the orphan, the poor, migrant, and outcast with the love and care we have been called to by God by uplifting and supporting them in their need, then we are treating the image of God with the very love of God. And if we are treating the other person as the image of God they are, I see no greater way to show our love for God.

This idea is exactly what the legal expert says when he praises Jesus for his answer. He essentially repeats what Jesus says, but then he expands on Jesus’ own answer and adds that loving God and loving neighbor are more important than all kinds of burnt offerings and sacrifices. It’s this addition that he says that I believe is why Jesus tells him that he isn’t far from God’s kingdom. You see this legal expert is saying that the way that we treat each other, the way that we love each other and God is more important than all these other things that are in place. And can you imagine what this world would be like if all people or at least all people of faith truly lived this out? If we set all our differences aside? If we set all our disagreements aside? If we set all our traditions and rituals aside and lived out love of God and love of neighbor so that people like this poor widow don’t have to worry about whats to come next when they drop their last two coins into the treasury? Instead they can know without hesitation that they will be loved, they will be cared for and that those two coins can be offered to God without worry or hesitation because people live out this idea that we should all care for one another.

We see that throughout the gospels that the life and ministry of Jesus if full of abundance and that abundance only creates more abundance. So when we love all and worship one we can experience that abundance not only for ourselves but for the whole world. Live into the abundance of God and that is given through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and share the good news of abundant life through your love of God and neighbor. Amen.