Keeping it about Love

Nit-picking

Since our children have started school, we have had a few bouts of head lice in our family. Thankfully nothing this year - I’m hopeful that one of the side benefits to the pandemic and increased physical distancing is that maybe headlice may be on the decline.

Now when that first head louse is found - there is this dreaded realisation that hits my wife and I experience. And when I say my wife and I, I must admit that it is my wife who bears the brunt of the tedious work that is about to follow.

Now possibly you haven’t gone through this in a while so let me remind you what happens. First of all you need to recognise that when one person gets it, there is a high chance that everyone else has it - and when you have three girls, each with long hair, that equal - not fun.

Well, it starts with the chemical treatment. This special foam stays in their hair for about 10 minutes. But if that was it, it wouldn’t be too bad. But the real fun starts when you get out the nit comb.

The nit comb is a very fine comb that is designed to pull out lice, which are all hopefully dead now, and if you are lucky you might get some of the nits, which in case you’re unaware, are the eggs that the lice lay.

With long hair, the process can take quite a while, and then about 10 days later, you have to repeat the process.

But it is the hair brushing which really becomes tedious - and again, I need to be careful because Fiona by far and away does most of this.

Each small clump of hair has to literally be attended to with a fine tooth comb.

Quite literally, we are nit-picking and I can tell you that this is not something that brings much joy. To be sure, it’s necessary, but we’ll only do it when it is absolutely necessary.

Now this word “nit-picking” - it’s a phrase that has entered our vocabulary. We use it to describe those small and minute details that some people seem to love to dwell on.

Now I know that some people are details people and they love the idea of exploring those finer details, but from my perspective, I think there is about as much joy from nit-picking the details, as there is from actually nit-picking a lice infested head.

You see, something happens when we nit-pick, and that is that we lose sight of the big picture. If you think about the literal act of removing nits from hair, your focus becomes on one tiny bit of hair. In the process, you wonder why anyone would ever want long thick hair.

But here’s the thing - once you step back, and rather than focussing on the individual nits, you actually see that the full head of hair is a beautiful thing.

Now the same thing happens when we metaphorically nit-pick.

Think about it. Let’s say we get caught up on a turn of phrase some one always uses. We get upset because someone calls you too much, or maybe not enough. A favourite nit-pick must be on the songs we sing in church. Perhaps they’re too modern, or too traditional, or not theological enough, or too wordy. Believe me, if there’s a complaint to be had about songs, I’m pretty sure I’ve heards it somewhere along the lines.

Really, when we start nit-picking, we can look anywhere and we’ll find reason to complain.

Now when this happens, what happens is that our focus comes off the big picture.

You see, our nit-picking stops us from seeing that all too often, God is moving in some big and amazing way, but we’re too busy getting concerned by all of the minor details to see.

To avoid this with our hair, we need to step back and see how it fits together.

To avoid this problem in the church, we need to see the thing that holds it all together, because when we do, we will see something that is absolutely beautiful. And that is what I want to do today.

I want to show that for all the things we will be able to find to complain about, there is something truly inspiring, and it keeps us together, and it is what is going to make a beautiful church.

Jesus goes to the temple

I’m going to be doing this by taking us into the gospel of Mark.

Structure of Mark

Now, one thing I like about Mark’s gospel is that it has this basic structure which is works around.

The first half of the book essentially helps us to figure out who this guy called Jesus is. And almost all of the action is not in Jerusalem, but up around the region of Galilee which was a few days walk north.

We get a climax in the narrative when Peter, one of Jesus’ closest disciples, is able to make the confession that Jesus is the Christ. That is, Jesus was the one that they have been longing for. The one that would redeem them.

Well, it is only after this great confession, which comes about half way through the book, that the narrative takes quite a shift. And the shift is both a thematic change, and a geographical change.

You see, we now start finding out what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But geographically, we start moving from Galillee, down to Jerusalem.

We finally get to Jerusalem at the start of chapter 11, which quite dramatically happened in the events that we refer to as Palm Sunday.

Now, if you know your church calendar, then you’ll be aware that this places us on the Sunday prior to his crucifixion.

Well, immediately following this dramatic entrance, Mark tells us that Jesus goes to the temple courts and takes a look around.

And so suddenly, not only have we arrived in Jerusalem, we have now arrived at the temple.

Temple theme

Now, let’s just pause here a moment because we’re about to enter a theme that I’ve explored in various facets over the last few weeks. That is, this theme of the temple.

To do a very brief recap, the temple is that central contact point between God and his people. It is his dwelling place - although, as I’ve mentioned previously, that’s not to imply that God isn’t everywhere.

We’ve looked over the weeks at how this idea of God providing a physical place on earth was developed in the Old Testament, and how that brought us to Jesus, the one that physically dwelt on earth and became the point that we now turn to to come to God.

And so, when we read in Mark 11:11 that Jesus enters Jerusalem and goes into the temple courts and takes a look around… well.. surveys the very thing that should be starting to bring things together.

The physical temple and Jesus and now literally coming together, and unfortunately, the picture is not as it should be.

What Jesus saw

You see, Mark 11:11 leaves us momentarily hanging. It’s that moment where you’re not quite sure what his assessment is going to be.

But the next day, while he’s on his way back to the temple, he comes across a fig tree which becomes a symbol of what is about to follow. You see, the fig tree is not in bloom. It was completely fruitless. And what we’re about to find is that the same thing has happened to the temple.

Money-changers

Well, when Jesus enters the temple this time, we are not left wondering what Jesus is thinking. He is angry.

That is because the temple has become a market place, where people have become focussed on profits.

Oppostion

For the remainder of chapter 11 and all of chapter 12, the narrative remains in the temple and it is like this battle is taking place.

In fact, it is like he has all of these opponents who are lined up and ready to give their best serve at Jesus.

What I want to suggest is that we are about to witness some of the best nit-pickers operating at their finest.

First up is the chief priests, and they nit-pick on the issue of authority.

We get a brief interlude of the nit-pickers as we get into chapter 12 with Jesus telling a parable, although if you explore the parable, you’ll see Jesus picturing a group of people who miss the point due to their own selfishness.

In chapter 12 verse 13, we get our second group of nit-pickers the Pharisees and Herodians. Their issue is a matter of paying tax, although the real issue was about how they should relate with an ungodly government.

Our third group of nit-pickers come from the Sadducees, and they’re going to tackle the issue of marriage in the resurrection, because they’ve got a different understanding of what happens when you die.

You see, each of these groups they’ve lost their focus.

The sad thing is that they are in the temple. The temple of all places should be where you can see what God is doing.

A few weeks back, I even looked at that powerful prayer of dedication that King Solomon prayed when the temple was first built. He spoke about the temple being a place that brought people together. Where people could find forgiveness. When no matter who you were, or where you’ve come from, you can know that God wants to be with you.

But as humans, we have this tendency to miss the big picture and instead focus on the unimportant.

There’s a saying which sums this up - you can’t see the forest because of the trees.

You see, the chief priests were too concerned with where the power lay. The pharisees with avoiding worldliness. And the Saducess with the future.

Each made their concern this primary concern to govern everything.

Now it’s not as if these concerns are completely unimportant. In fact, issues of power, worldliness and the future are in fact things we should be concerned about. And if you have the time, I’d suggest you read how Jesus deals with each of them in turn.

But there is something far more important.

Greatest Commandment

Well, enter one of the teachers of the law.

This man has been watching. He has seen that Jesus has been giving very good answers to all of the concerns put to him.

Now when this man comes into picture, we kind of don’t know what to make of him. You see, we’ve just seen these various groups trying to trap Jesus. And so it is easy to think that perhaps he’s trying to come in with a trap as well.

We can perhaps think this way because we’re probably bringing to mind a very similar incident that occurs in Luke’s gospel which leads to Jesus telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. On that occasion, the questioner was being another nit-picker. But in Luke’s gospel, that story didn’t occur in the temple, so I would suggest it was a completely different event.

Now maybe the man here is actually just another nit-picker. But I want to suggest that possibly, this man actually gets it.

You see, he asks the question: “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

Now why is he asking this question? Well, it doesn’t actually tell us his motive. But perhaps from his time in the temple and seeing Jesus, he has stood back and saw that there must be something that draws all this together.

These other questioners have been picking issues that just aren’t that important. So what is it?

Well, Jesus gives his answer. “The most important one” he starts “is this”:

Now what Jesus says next, is not some obscure quote. Rather it is the words known as the Shema. They come from Deut 6:4 and they are words that a good Jew of this time would say every morning and every evening. They are words that should be firmly implanted in the mind of every Jew.

The words are: “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”.

Perhaps the surprising thing is how unsurprising this answer is. But I guess this is why it’s surprising. Because if loving God with all your heart soul, mind and strength was such a focus, why then, would you be so concerned with knocking Jesus down with your nit-picking conerns which at best are secondary concerns?

Now, even though the man only asked for one commandment, Jesus isn’t finished yet, and that’s because, loving God has a natural corollary.

Jesus this time goes to Leviticus 19:18 which says: “Love you neighbour as yourself”.

You see, when we love God, it should naturally follow that we love others.

Ten Commandments

Now, it’s worth pointing out here, that if you look at the Ten Commandments it matches up really nicely with these two commands.

Think about it, the first four commandments are: No other gods, No idols, Don’t misuse God’s name and keep the Sabbath. Essentially, they are all about loving God.

The next six: honour parents, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet. Essentially these are about loving others.

Now I know that is a simplification, but actually, when we boil it down to what it really is, we start to see the big picture.

The Big Picture

And that’s why, this question at the temple gives us such a relief. It finally brings things around to where they should be.

It enables us to step back from all these nit-pickers who want to major in the minors and shows us that there is something better.

You see, at the heart of what God is doing, we find the one thing we all so desperately need. Love.

But it is so important to clarify what this love is.

You see, particulary in our day today, we have cheapened our understanding of love. We have made it this warm fuzzy emotion

You see, this is actually what makes this whole section so powerful.

Because not only is Jesus talking about love. He’s also about to demonstrate the greatest act of love that has ever occurred.

He is about to give himself as a sacrifice. The act in history which will tie everything God has been doing together. And in doing so, allow each of us to be able to stand before God as blameless people.

You see, love is not just a feeling, it is a deep action of giving of yourself to the other.

We’re going to be talking about our vision statement later today. The vision that can be summed up in the words Love, Share Serve.

But as we’ll discuss then, we’ve added some descriptors to these words. To the word Love, we’ve added “whole-heartedly”. You see, when Jesus says to love the Lord your God with all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength, and to love you neighbour as yourself - this is not something we can do a bit of.

If we follow what Jesus says, then we can’t sort of love someone.

You know, sometimes I think we can trick ourselves that we are loving people because we do a few nice things for others.

But let’s look at a husband who does the dishes, cleans the house and even cooks nice meals for her wife. You might say, wow, that husband must really love his wife. But then if I add that this same husband never listens to his wife, makes plans that ignore his wife, and just generally denigrates her - well, you might then question his love.

Now I know that love isn’t perfect. Everyone has their weaknesses. But love is not something you do a bit of and then think you’ve done enough.

It is about whole-heartedly giving yourself.

This is the kind of love that Jesus showed, and its the kind of love that he expects from us.

The response

Well, let me briefly come back to the action from our passage.

You see, after Jesus gives his response which clearly articulates the greatest commandment, the man finds himself in agreement with Jesus, to the point that he effectively repeats the whole answer, and even adds the correct words: “to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices”.

With this, it’s like you can almost see the smile that appears on the face of Jesus.

Yes! Finally someone who actually gets it. Someone that isn’t about cheap point-scoring, or the crazy nit-picking that he has come across.

In this little exchange we begin to see how this can all turn out.

And for this reason, Jesus says to him “You are not far from the kingdom of God”.

Clarification

Now, there’s an important clarification I want to make in all of this.

When we put love at the forefront, this does not mean that nothing else matters.

We can sometimes see this attitude in the world today - that is, as long as your nice to others, it doesn’t matter what you do.

But I’d suggest that it is in fact because love is so important that those other matters become important.

I care about your morality because I love you.

But we need to get this order correct.

We need to love first, and let those secondary concerns flow from that.

This means if we come across a person in a sexual relationship that isn’t honouring to God - we shouldn’t start denigrating them as some evil being. Rather we start with an attitude of love, and from that attitude of wholehearted love, we then can show them a better way.

Conclusion

For many of us, our natural instinct is to get stuck into the details.

As Christians, we rightfully value morality. But we need to understand that these issues are only a consequence of the love that God has for us.

Without love, I’d argue that they are just arbitary rules. The truth is, much of the world around us see the things we teach as indeed just that - arbitary rules with no basis. But they couldn’t be further from the truth. They are in fact direct consequences of the love that God has for us. A love that has so perfectly designed this world for us to live in.

Later this morning, many of us will be sticking around to consider the future direction of this church.

There are going to be many aspects of this, and in fact, this will just be part of the ongoing discussion. But we cannot afford to see the issues we’ll be discussing separate to the Love that God has shown us, and the love we need to show to others.

From this love comes everything else. Including the rest of our vision: to humbly share, and to serve with a passion.

So let me pray...