Malice Towards None: Love

NRSue Matthew 22:34-40 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, an expert in the law, 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.”*

INTRO

This week we conclude our Do Unto Others sermon series. Over the past 5 weeks, we have explored what it means to live in the purple space where we see the value in one another and learn to live together as we “cultivate kindness, compassion, humility, respect, and love for one another and for the good of all the world, no matter what.” We began with exploring the Golden Rule as we named our need to choose kindness for ourselves and for others. Next, we explore compassion as we discussed our need to have compassion for ourselves, and for one another. Then, we named our need to live in Christian humility which binds us together in complete surrender to Jesus Christ as we share God’s love with the world. Last week, we talked about our need to have Respect to not only view ourselves as worthy but to see others as valued. This week, we will examine God’s call to be a people of love.

Church, every four years after a winner as been declared we hear the same sentiments. When you look at the history of of presidential election victory speeches we tend to hear the same narrative in a different way. One recent victory speech was “It’s time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans.” Another victory speech said: “It's time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again…They are not our enemies. They are Americans.”

After all the harsh rhetoric, after the debates, the name calling, after heated discussions with family members and others in our beloved circle, those who spurred us onward in action, who gave rise to the passion to make a difference through our vote, now have to try and tame the fires of those passions. It is hard to listen to people we disagree with, it is easier to assume that “they”, “those on the other side” are out to get us or the people we love, which in turn makes us resentful, and if we’re honest our passions turns to anger. As we wonder how in the world someone could vote for this person or that person as the differences between their polices are highlighted, as candidates gaslight one another, and tensions rise all across America.

Here on the the verge of election day tensions are high. These tensions are high because change is on the horizon. I imagine this is how the pharisees and scribes felt. As the passover festival inches closer and closer, where by we, and the Jewish people celebrate the salvific work of God in the world. We see the teachers and leaders of theses holy pilgrimages becoming more and more tense. After-all, the passover is one of the three pilgrimage festivals that required all physically able and ceremonially clean male Jews to attend. These pilgrimage feasts are considered the most theologically significant, celebrating the great three-fold saving event in Israel's history…the passover being one of these feasts.

The leaders of the temple are upset because too much was changing to fast. These persons and their forefathers, spent their whole lives perfecting a religious platform which they believed followed the 613 commandments found in the Old Testament. Yet, Jesus comes and says things like observance of the Sabbath does not take precedence over human needs. He says things like you have heard it said do not murder but anyone who harbors anger has committed murder in their hearts. These kind of statements upend that which has been and ushers in change. The tensions begin to rise as the Pharisees and Sadducees take turns asking a series of questions meant to trick up this new and upcoming rabbi.

Our passage this Sunday comes at the end of Matthew as the conflict with the scribes and pharisees reaches its crisis point. After Jesus navigates through a series of questions around taxes, questions on the resurrection, ethics, and the scribes are left speechless. The Pharisees, who are the lawyers and experts of God’s law huddled together when finally one goes before Jesus with a question that gets to the heart of their concerns…how shall one uphold all the laws found within the Torah? Which commandment is the greatest? A question which is surely meant to become a springboard to which the experts of the law can poke holes in Jesus’ teachings, and begin the process of discrediting him.

Surely, the questioner expected Jesus to answer with one of the Ten Commandments, those had been inscribed in stone by God’s own finger. As a group these commandments stood out as one which are essential to the faith. Yet, in some circles of Jewish thought all commands are of equal importance in God’s eyes. Thus to argue that one is more important then the other would be considered sinful as we look at the laws through the lens of humanity’s standards of judgement. Yet, Jesus does not choose one of the ten commandments…he quotes the Shema. The Shema is a fundamental, ancient, and central prayer that was recited daily by the Jewish Community. Jesus answers their question with liturgy!

Often, we think that these written calls to worship, the opening prayers, the prayer of illumination, the benediction are just words on a page…but Jesus used the liturgy of the temple to teach about God. You see, how we talk about God matters. Liturgy does not give way to the temporary, anger and emotions of the day…instead liturgy grounds us in the language of the church, it reflects on the nature of God, makes our petitions known, and asks God to show up!

I am particular in the ways that I officiate funerals. I work with families, but I ground the service in liturgy. This liturgy draws on scriptural promises and goes back to the very beginnings of our faith. In other words, when I use liturgy at a funeral, the words of hope and comfort we find come from scripture and name in that moment what we believe about God, resurrection and eternal life. The way we name this at a funeral is critical as it demonstrates what is is we proclaim to believe from our baptisms, through life, and even in death. This way of talking about God should be reflective in all aspects of life. And, our patterns of prayer in our everyday prayer life ought to reflect the prayers of our liturgy on Sunday mornings and other occasions.

Jesus brings them the the fundamentals, and grounds them in a prayer that combines different scriptures as a petition to God. By quoting the Shema which derives it beginning words from Deuteronomy 6 and combining it with Leviticus 19:18, Jesus names that the aim of the law is to orient one’s entire life towards God…and one can not love God without loving what God loves!

God loves the Romans and the Israelites, Republicans and Democrats, the poor and the rich, the Jew and greek. The mission of our savior transcends the salvation of any particular group or nation. God loves all of creation! Jesus refuses to identify love of God with rigid religious requirements instead he points to love. In chapter 25 he reminds us again “When you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

Jesus says…these two commands Love God and Love of Neighbor involve the whole law. All 613 commands come down to Love of God and Love of Neighbor, not only the law but the prophet as well. One commentary notes “Anyone who loves God and people wholeheartedly is not going to come short in religious observances, nor in doing what is proper to other people.”

This is a hard reality for the Pharisees to accept. The image of God as one who love all nations threatens the identity of the pharisees, the chosen people of God are to proclaim God’s love to the world. They are called to love the unclean and the rejected as much as Jesus loves them! You mean its not all about ridged rules? This love of God, love of neighbor is tied to proper self-love. To love others you and I must love ourselves as God loves us…we must see ourselves as sacred and beloved in the eyes of the savior.

Church the world wants us to think in terms of individualism. How will voting for this person or that person meet my needs, my rights, my desires? What will bring me contentment? It brings into question: what is the center of our lives?

One way to pay attention to what is our center is to pay attention to the rules that we create for ourselves. These rules can be formal but are more often informal rules. In my childhood home if your friend you stayed over Saturday night the rule was they had to go to church with us. One rule might be put 10% of your paycheck into savings, or dinner must be eaten at the table, or always be home to read to the kids. These rules reveal what orients our lives. So it is with Jesus’ commands. After all the teaching, preaching, healing, on his way to the cross Jesus names his center, his mission, what the actualization of God’s kingdom on earth looks like: Love of God, Love of Neighbor, Love of Self.

John Wesley puts it this way: “Love is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment.” Very excellent things are spoken of love; it is the essence, the spirit, the life of all virtue. It is not only the first and great command, but it is all the commandments in one. “Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are amiable,” or honourable; “if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,” they are all comprised in this one word,—love.”

Beloved Church, the center of our lives, the center of our call as Christians, the reason we celebrate the saints, the call of Christ is to love! The commands of Christ beg us to question: how does the allocation of our time, our resources, whether we support this mission or that mission, how we worship, how we serve, what is the relationship between the church and the state, how we vote, must be discerned through the commands of Christ: how do we best love our God? Ourselves and neighbors?

Stanely Hauerwas once wrote: “American Christians don’t know how to read the bible well. They don’t know how to read the bible well because they’re Americans before they’re Christians.” Yet in Jesus Christ and in our baptism, we are named and claimed first and foremost by God. In our funeral liturgy we name this as we pray, “Eternal God, you have shared with us the life of so and so. Before he/she was ours, he/she is yours.” Before we are Americans, we are God’s children.

Church, this means that we have got to hear the prospectives of others, value them even in disagreement, and learn to see God in every single person. We have got to learn that loving well requires kindness, compassion, humility, and respect, as we discern, pray, and listen to Holy Spirit as we discern how God is calling us to serve..and be present with one another and with those outside of these walls.

The Social Principles of the United Methodist Church as outline in the Book of Discipline state “Our involvement in political systems is rooted in the Gospel imperative to love

our neighbors, to do justice, and to care for the vulnerable. As United Methodists, we

acknowledge that love requires responsible political action and engagement aimed at

the betterment of society and the promotion of the common good. We acknowledge that

such political engagement demands humility and mindfulness of our own complicity in

perpetuating injustice. It also necessitates compassion, prayer, and a willingness to discern

God’s guidance.”

How you vote, how you talk about the other party or candidate, how you talk about one another, how you talk about those who look and act different then you matters. All these things ought to be grounded in how to best love God and our neighbor for they are intrinsically tired together.

In living in this purple space with love, we must also realize that when someone votes differently than we do, they do so because they believe that it is the best way forward for the place that they love. So too is this true in the church. Those who are in different denominations, those who have different theological views do so because they believe in their heart they are best following after Jesus Christ. My prayer is that we will open our hearts to God’s ways of being together: with kindness, compassion, humility, respect, and love.

As we prepare to live in this space in our political reality, my prayer is that as you cast your vote you will also realize that one’s vote is only part of the solution…we’re also called to love our neighbor in more tangible ways than just voting…we are called to feed, cloth, and get to know our neighbors…not just here a but around the globe. May we be a people committed to living together in kindness, compassion, humility, respect, and love despite our differences as we share this way of being together with the whole world. For at the end of the day, love is the way.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.