Love God. Love Others. Help Others Love God.
Notes
Transcript
I feel like there is a sermon I’ve been trying to preach all my career. It’s one that keeps nagging me, keeps pushing itself to the front of my mind. It’s the sermon the Spirit seems to have stirred up and put upon my heart as an identifier — Seth, this is the burning of your bones.
And it comes to mind again this week as we hear this familiar passage, the Greatest Commandment. Yet again, my bones are burning and I can’t help but take us to the heart of this teaching.
Mark 12:28–34 (NRSV)
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “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 truly said 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.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
As we all know, this week, our nation makes a choice and votes upon for our next president. Across the country, people have begun turning out to make their voice heard. We pray that God’s justice and righteousness will roll down through the vote of the people. The person we elect will be imperfect and therefore we pray for God’s mercy that they would be provided for, surrounded by wisdom, humble and willing to listen.
The Psalmist reminds us to place our trust in God’s sovereign power, for our hope is found in God and God alone. Psalm 146 says,
Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
Who do you put your trust in? Where do we invest our hope? What is first, above all else, in our hearts and our minds?
The scribe’s question of Jesus is meant to test him along these lines. But as we see from the lead verse of our passage, we also see that this scribe is observing Jesus’ way of teaching and, in even just the slightest way, can’t we see how he is perhaps questioning Jesus because he knows Jesus gets it?
We’ve heard a lot about fact-checking in the news of late. In a sense, the Scribe is fact-checking Jesus. He’s saying: Alright, if this teacher is going to gather so much attention and engage the religious leadership in debate and discussion…if this is gonna happen, then let’s make sure he knows what he’s talking about.
You see, our passage this morning comes in the context of a larger discourse between Jesus and the Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sadducees, and his followers. The scribes, it is important to understand, are the legal experts. It is the scribes who would know the Jewish law down to the last jot and tittle, every last precise word and marking. The scribes were the ones tasked with copying down the sacred Hebrew texts and preserving them for the religious community. They would prioritize accuracy and precision in the keeping of the law and would know it, better than almost anyone. They are the learned legal scholars of their day and the would know the answer to this question: What is the Greatest Commandment?
You see, this Great Commandment is not something Jesus makes up when he tells his followers to love God and love their neighbor. No, Jesus is working directly with the Hebrew law, the Torah, when he teaches this commandment. So the scribe is testing him — do you know your Hebrew Law.
Of course, any serious Jew who followed the Law would know the answer to this question — the answer comes in the form of a mantra, a well-known statement, a naming of God’s oneness and power that the Hebrew people knew as the Shema,
“Hear O Israel, the Lord you God, the Lord is One.”
This is the summary of the entirety of the Law.
Let’s recall how Jesus answered:
Jesus answered, “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.”
There is no greater commandment than these. This is the correct answer. If you were a religiously adherent Jew, you would know this.
Contrary to some of Jesus’ previous discussions with the professionally religious, this interaction with a scribe shores up Jesus’ rightful role as a Teacher. The scribe might have been trying to trick him, nonetheless. He could be challenging this man, hoping to out him as a charlatan or fraud. It is one thing to use religious settings and religious language to shore up your base and prop up your power. We see this all the time. But when challenged to provide a real answer, a true testament to faith, such strong words and lofty statements are unmasked by reality. Does Jesus really know the law?
Yes, yes he does.
It should also be noted that the Law here is not the civic law or the laws imposed by the Roman occupiers. This is the religious law of the Hebrew people. This is the law that supersedes all other laws in the hearts of the faithful. The Lord is One.
And the scribe confirms this — you are correct, Teacher. The scribe titles Jesus—Teacher, didaskalos. The scribe sees that Jesus is a teacher worth listening to.
Their interaction continues with the Scribe’s restatement of the Great Commandment and then confirms that it is more important than all the right practices or rituals of sacrifice and piety. Before anything else, this is the commandment. Love God. And Love Others.
Jesus replies — “you are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Because the scribe knows the importance of this commandment, he and Jesus resonate over their shared devotion to the Law. Yes, friend, you get it. Now come and see!
Following this, no one dares ask Jesus any more questions — this Teacher is one to be listened to.
It is incredibly important that we note that this interaction confirms a continuity between the Jewish law and the Message of Jesus. The Scribe, the ultra-precise religious stenographer…he has confirmed this shared understanding.
We have to hear it this way — the scribe is confirming that Jesus’ words are true. And Jesus sees him for his closeness to the way of the Kingdom.
What law is written upon your heart?
Through the years, we’ve talked about ultimate and penultimate desires, this sense that there are some laws that overshadow all other laws, some desires and orientations that direct us most, other ways of being always subordinate to these priorities.
What is the law that you follow?
I have to talk about this current political moment because it, in its own way, attempts to overshadow and become our first priority. In our own way, we are asking, what is the Law that we will follow? The political process in our country is designed in a way that it plays to our allegiances and asks us the question, like the scribe, challenging us — what is most important?
So hear that question of following the law again — what is the most important thing that you follow, that you adhere to?
As Americans, we clearly have a lot of diverse answers to this question. What is the most important law? Well, maybe it’s something to do with the sovereignty of our bodies or our borders. Maybe we have the Bill of Rights memorized or we can respond with the law of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Is this the law we have at the highest place in our lives?
Is it?
Is this our highest, greatest commandment that we follow? All men are created equal? Liberty and justice for all?
Is this the highest law in the heart of a follower of Jesus?
No.
Clearly, no.
Laws are good and laws are important and laws order our society. But are the laws of our land and the sovereignty of our nation, do they have the final word to us?
Jesus’ answer to the Scribe is a prepackaged answer, in its own way, a recitation of the first commandment from the Law of Moses. Love the Lord your God…
We know this. But do we interalize it and really see it, here and now — is this the first thing?
There is a lot of energy out there right now, trying to get you to pay more attention to the noise of politics than the way of Jesus.
So what is our first thing, as Christ’s church, as God’s people? Would we want Jesus to answer this question any differently, today?
Here is the Good News of Hope for us today: Even after what is sure to be a tumultuous and dramatic election. Even after the dust settles and, hopefully, we have found a peaceful way to move forward as a nation, even after someone loses and someone wins and our divisions are exposed and our hope for unity is drawn out…even after all of this…the Law of God remains.
There is no higher law.
There is no greater commandment.
Before all rulers and powers and bureacracies and structures…before all these things: Christ alone.
God has given Christ authority over all Creation and therefore over every power and principality, ruler and scribe. Over all these things — yes over, as in above and more important than — over all things, Christ.
You’ve also heard me ask, through the years, this question — Who do we choose to be?
After all of this, after the fact-checking scribes, after the dust settles over an election, what remains and who will we be?
The choice before us is pretty stark. There are so many ways we are being directed to BE and so many ways we’re being asked to align ourselves with the powerful and the important people of our world. Our hearts and minds’ allegiance is being tested. So, who will we be?
What will our law be?
Which commandment is first of all?
Before all things, and after all things, this is our law: Love God. Love your Neighbor.
And help others do the same! Our work is to help others be free of the oppression of unjust laws and tyranical rulers. Our law leads us to liberate others from this destructive system that divides us. Love God, Love Others, and then, together, let’s help each other do the same.
How do you love God? Think, how does that manifest in you?
Granduer, awe, wonder. That’s a big part of it for me. I love God by pointing out how beautiful God is and how free I am in God’s love.
How do you love God?
By loving others, by caring for the hurting and sick, by binding up the wounded, by sticking together as God’s beloved, over country, over party, over candidate. Now and after the election and until Kingdom Come, this is our law.
I want to close with this question: What does it look like to be a people who live their whole lives oriented around this Great Commandment?
Jesus taught us what markers of the Kingdom of God are, what it means to be a participant in this Great Commandment Way. I’d like to close by reading the Beatitudes, from the Book of Matthew, which Christians look to as one of the most clear articulations of what Jesus’ way leads us to be like in the world. This is what people who follow the Great Commandment look like:
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Joy, hope, love. Let us worship God, now and always, following this Great Commandment.
Amen.
