Love Comes First

When I was preparing this sermon for today, the Great Commission of Jesus to his disciples at the end of the book of Matthew was one of the scriptures in the Lectionary for this Sunday. These four verses that we’ll read in a moment contain so much about what our Christian faith truly means, and what was important to Jesus. And we have witnessed events this week in our country that have stirred up so much righteous indignation, I started to think about these things in the light of the giving of the Holy Spirit we just celebrated last week and the Commission we have been given. I think it is important we address some of what has been going on, and what we as followers of Christ might do. It can be a difficult thing to write a sermon in such times as these, because the tendency on the part of the preacher is to tell people how to think. I hope I don’t do that today. One of our founding principles of the Disciples of Christ is the right of each individual to study scripture for themselves, and come to their own interpretations of how that scripture is to be taken. We believe in and celebrate diversity in people and in personal faithful interpretation of the scriptures. We recognize and rejoice in the diversity that God has provided us, for the richness of thoughts and viewpoints it brings. In light of these things, let’s remember what Jesus modeled for us, and what he commanded of us.

Jesus left us with at least three “Greats”; the Great Confession, “We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and we Accept him as our Lord and Savior.” This is the only requirement for acceptance into the body of Christ, demonstrated through baptism. Then there are The Great Commandments, To love God and to Love One Another; and the third, the Great Commission, we’ll take up now in Matthew 28:16-20.

The New Revised Standard Version The Commissioning of the Disciples

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In Matthew, this is the only meeting of Jesus with his disciples after his resurrection. Luke and John had written of the several visits between Jesus and his disciples, according to their stories, over a forty day period before he was taken up to be with the Father. If taken at face value, Matthew wrote as if this is the same day of, or only a few days after, the resurrection. The disciples had been in Jerusalem, when they received the message from Mary Magdalene, who had found the empty tomb, that they were to meet Jesus in Galilee. And if they had left right then, it would have taken a few days to walk back to Galilee. As in so many Bible stories, there may be a compression of time here. And as we discussed last week, time sequences were not necessarily the most important thing in the mind of some Gospel writers, and time sequence took a back seat to the meaning of the events they witnessed to. But, even though the gospels were each a little different from each other in the way their stories were told and in the different things that each gospel writer wanted to emphasize, they all had in their endings a sending out of the disciples into the whole world to preach the good news, and the importance of obeying Jesus’ commandments. So, I think we can see that this was a message, and a charge that was pretty important to Jesus. And while evangelism includes telling the story of Jesus to others, it also includes the message of our obedience to the commandments of Jesus. But, how do we evangelize that part of Jesus’ message about obedience? And what importance does it have for today?

Evangelism is a word that conjures up strong emotions in people. Some envision being hit over the head with the Bible, with a narrative that “God’s gonna gitcha” if you don’t accept Jesus Christ as your savior, and you better do it or else you’re going to hell. For those who maybe have never experienced the Lord, it is not a welcomed message. Michael Green in his book, “The Message of Matthew”, writes, “The Great Commission is the counterpart of the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor. Without that, evangelism will be cold and hard. It will alienate rather than attract. It will not embody the Spirit of heaven, where love is the universal language.” One can’t really go with out the other. Love must come first, as we introduce the message of Jesus, including that “obedience part.” Jesus didn’t invite us into a laundry list of rules to follow to be his disciples. He didn’t tell us to follow a particular set of steps, and he didn’t tell us to not do this other list of things in order to follow him. Jesus commanded us to love God, and to love one another. When Jesus tells his disciples to teach others to obey his commandments, that is what he is referencing. He knows that love is the key to it all. In John 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” He didn’t say, go read scripture at someone until they succumb. He didn’t tell us to scare the living daylights out of someone with messages of how awful they are, and how God will punish them for who they are, or things they’ve done, until they finally are so filled with guilt and fear that they try to act only out of that fear. Jesus did not tell us to just display our holy symbols and the Word of God, but to live out the meaning of those symbols, and the meaning behind the Word of God. Love God, and love one another. And obey those commandments, because we love.

The current upheaval in our society is disturbing. It can be downright scary. Opinions about what is right and what is wrong in the whole situation run the gamut. Responsible, and peaceful protests are occuring by people who see the need for change, and are trying to make known the need for that change. Unfortunately, as we have seen from past history, that there are those who will take advantage of the strong and raw emotions that lead to the protests, and begin to cloud the message with bad behavior. It is painful for those who live in those areas to see their homes, businesses, and churches, damaged and looted. It is painful to see the tears of those who have lost everything they worked for all their lives. It is painful to see the tragedy of the use of military tactics on citizens who are lawfully exercising their right to assemble and protest the actions of their public officials and public servants. It is painful to watch a man die needlessly, begging for air at the hands of those who are sworn to protect their communities. It is painful to know that the rest of our sworn officers are struggling to deal with the fallout of the bad actions of some of their own, and how they can make a positive difference for their communities now. In the midst of all the confusion surrounding the right and the wrong of it all, we need to recognize that we must eliminate the base cause of all that we are witnessing. But, we must first recognize the value of every man, woman, and child. We are all God’s children, and our treatment of each other should reflect that value.

In the midst of the chaos we see, you may ask where is the good in all of it. It is all so ugly, and messy, and loud and disturbing. That’s the way it is when a societal upheaval occurs. But, there are those who are making a positive difference, if you look for them. Fred Rogers, whom we all know as Mr. Rogers from the TV show by that name, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of 'disaster,' I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world." 

As Jesus gave his disciples his great commission to make disciples in all the world, he told them that they were to also teach others to obey his commands. As Jesus modeled for us, love is the root of all that we do as his followers. So, we wonder, what does the Commission we have received from our Saviour mean for us in this community where we are? How are we supposed to make any difference, now? You may have heard the question, often asked by Christians, “What would Jesus do?” And while that is a question that can often help us find the direction we should go in our actions, it may be even more important to ask, “What is Jesus doing?” When Jesus gave his commandments, and his commission, he intended those for times just like we are experiencing now. Jesus lived in a time of severe oppression. The Jewish people were under the figurative boot of the Roman Empire. They were seen as just an unruly bunch that had to be dominated by the authorities. What is Jesus doing? Right now. Where can we see Jesus working, and how can we be his helpers? First, we should be in prayer for God to lead and guide us in how we proceed from here. But, then we need to do more.

Even if we are never directly affected by the same sort of civil unrest we are witnessing elsewhere, we have a responsibility as commissioned by Jesus Christ to try to make a difference where we live in the lives of those who may be dealing with some deep seated and long held attitudes and societal structures that make life a bigger struggle for them, just because of where they were born, or the color of their skin. We cannot assume that because we aren’t seeing protests on our town square that everyone accepts the way things are. Can we see Jesus working here to bring healing and help to those different than ourselves?

How can we carry out the commission from Jesus in this light? With love, we can open our ears and listen to the stories of the plights of minorities that we ourselves have never had to deal with. With love, we can lift up and defend the dignity of others unlike ourselves with our words and our actions. We can ask ourselves if the language we use to describe those unlike ourselves shows how we value them, or if the language we use diminishes them in our eyes and those listening to us. We can be attentive to the policies that are proposed or that are enacted at all levels of our government, to see if they unfairly affect particular groups based on their personal and collective characteristics. We can be sure that we are carrying out the commission of Jesus to obey his commandments and make disciples, by showing the love he modeled for us in how we treat others. Love must always come first. Emulating our saviour in his care for the least, the oppressed, the poor, the downtrodden demonstrates to others what life in Christ is like. Love must come first. We may never know in the course of our lives when or how we may have made a difference for someone that we may not even know just in the way we have spoken to them, or treated them. The scripture we read today said that some of the disciples who went to the mountain, doubted when they first saw Jesus there. But, then he came to them and gave them the reassurance of who he was. In the same way, those who hear us call ourselves Christians, may doubt at first. They will need to see what it means to live in Christ. And through our actions, we can show them who Jesus is, and how he cares for all of us. We can share the Holy Spirit with others when they see and feel our concern, and our value of them as a human being who is deserving of respect, and love. Love must come first. In obedience to Jesus’ commands, and to the commission we have been given to make disciples throughout the world, even in the midst of turmoil, love must always come first.

And in these times when it seems the world is coming apart, at this time when we need guidance and reassurance, we have the words of our Savior as he departs from his disciples. These are probably my favorite words in all of the Bible. At a time when his disciples knew he must leave them, and they were unsure of what to do next, just as we are navigating our ways through all that is occurring, Jesus, said to his friends, “Remember, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. “ In the midst of everything we are living through, Jesus is here, he has given us his assurance that we are not alone, because, through the Holy Spirit, he is with us always, through it all, because His love comes first.