Sainthood

28 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?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 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.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 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’; 33 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.” 34 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.

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Modeling

One of the churches we served in the past had a tradition of doing a Live Nativity during the days leading up to Christmas. For several years I would take my turn dressed as a wise man or Joseph and stand with a handful of others from the church as we modeled the day baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem. I'm sure it wasn't entirely historically accurate. For one thing, there were several years when it was freezing cold or raining, and the little wooden manger frame kept some of the cold out, but not all of it. Then it was the task of standing still for almost an hour while people walked by and stared at you.

If you have ever done anything like that, you know that there are moments you tell yourself that you are doing it for Jesus. You will not see the fruit of your labors, but you are modeling Jesus for them. They may not thank you because many will not recognize you, so dressed up in the story of Jesus, but it won't matter. You are doing it to model Jesus to others.

And hopefully, you are not doing it alone. I took comfort in the fact that there were 5 or 6 others standing with me, young and old together, trying to stay close enough to keep warm. Together we each played our roles to tell the story of Jesus without words and without actions. We showed the love of Christ by the looks in our eyes and the sacrifice we made being there in the cold.

Our true faith traditions lead us to be living sacrifices for God. Whether they are things we have done for hundreds of years, like preach and pray together, or things we just discovered last year, like checking in on those far away through zoom meetings... our true faith traditions lead us to be living sacrifices that model faith for the disciples we make.

Loving God

I shared at the beginning of October that I am convinced that most of our challenges are found in the task of making disciple-makers. That is, we are called not only to make disciples of Jesus but to make disciples who will pass down the torch by making new disciples of Jesus themselves.

Some of us are guilty of spending more time talking about making disciples and disciple-makers and less time actually doing it. Others of us are guilty of just jumping in and doing without paying attention to whether we are making disciples and disciple-makers, or if we are just trying to look busy. The Jewish people in the time of Jesus had similar challenges and the religious leaders debated and bickered with one another as to what the people of God should be doing. It was just such an argument that was going on around Jesus.

Everyone was there. The Pharisees, the tax collectors, the Sadducees, and all the rest of us who fall somewhere in between that lot. Jesus had stirred them up by questioning all the traditions they had been given and had fought to maintain among their people and in their nation. This was the day Jesus took the kid gloves off and flat out told them... "You're doing it wrong!" The people weren't happy and you can bet the disciples were nervous and confused.

Suddenly, God dropped a spotlight down from heaven, and the wisdom of God came out, not from the mouth of Jesus but from one of the scribes. This unnamed scribe could tell that Jesus had a good grasp of God, better perhaps than anyone else around, so he asked a most important question in the midst of this chaos.

"What is the first commandment?"

Now, we cannot tell from the ancient greek letters what he meant by "first", but we can tell by the context of the conversation going on and where Mark is leading us in the gospel itself that this man was not giving Jesus a quiz from Jewish Sunday School. He was not testing Jesus to see if He knew which commandment was written or given first. He was asking about the priority of commandments because sometimes the commandments of the Bible interfered with one another. The Sabbath law, for example, prevented people from doing good, as well as evil, one day per week. There were many other nit-picky examples that some of the people may have been arguing about right then. This scribe was asking where discipleship begins so that we as disciples know where our foundation rests and so that we as disciple-makers know the first and most important thing to pass on to our disciples.

The Lord, our God, is one, therefore:

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Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. We get the long version because Jesus doesn't want to skimp out on holding anything back from God. All we have and all we are belong to God. Love Him with it.

That is simple and true in a way like saying the ocean is wet is simple and true. It is so much more than that. It is not a formula of how to act. It points us into a loving relationship with God, and thanks to the God-given question of this scribe, it tells us that not only does God want us to be in a loving relationship with Him... nothing else matters if we don't have that. Nothing. It's the first commandment. If we cannot guide people into a loving relationship with God, all our busyness is accomplishing nothing for God.

In a world where our loyalty is constantly divided between many things, Jesus reminds us that there is only one thing worth our everything. God.

Loving Others

But Jesus does not stop there. He jumps right into rule number 1.5 - the second half of the Great Commandment.

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Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is not a matter of religion or politics. With all the liberals, moderates, and conservatives there before Him, Jesus let them know that we were made to be in a loving relationship with each other. Who do you love like yourself? Whoever you consider your family, or those closest to you. Who is your neighbor (Jesus had a whole other lesson on that)... Anyone who is near you.

1 Commandment, with 2 parts. Love God and love others. Again, it sounds simple.

It is like saying, if you stand in the ocean, you are going to get wet. Furthermore, if you are standing in the ocean and touching someone, they are going to get wet too.

If you are in a loving relationship with God, it is going to affect you. If you are in relationships with those around you, it is going to affect them too. If this is not happening, there is a disconnect somewhere, and all the laws and sacrifices, all the prayers and church services, won't change a thing. We have to go back to the foundation of being in loving relationships with God and each other.

That stopped all the debates and bickering. That shut everyone up. If you cannot handle the foundation of the faith, how can you go on to anything else? Without love flowing between God and us and then through us to the people around us, we are not yet a church. We are a club. We are a group of people who pay for services. We are not a family, and we are not God's people. And maybe we don't know and love Jesus as much as we would like others to believe.

Modeling Together

How do we get beyond the rut of unfaithful and unhelpful busyness and back into growing loving relationships?

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We do it together. You cannot be in a relationship with others all by yourself, and God does not expect you to figure them out by yourself. We are made together, as a family, to follow God together, and to lovingly guide each other along the way. Do you know what the shepherd calls the sheep that goes off on her own? A lost sheep. The person who is trying to do life on their own is a lost sheep, even if they are doing it in the name of Jesus.

I have heard several of you talk about wanting to meet together to discuss God in your life, and I am always happy to have those conversations. We need to set aside time to do that. You also need to connect with each other as well. If a pastor is the only disciple-maker in a church, it is going to be a very small church. Fortunately, we have others who work alongside me, making disciples as well. We have staff, Sunday School Teachers, Small group leaders, and many others with a life of experience walking with Jesus that can share with you. Some of them can share things that are outside of my own ability. That's why we work as a team, as a family, together.

And I expect many of you already have people in your lives who have invested in you. They have helped you in some big ways, and perhaps many small ways, walk closer with Jesus. They are parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, and many others who have modeled what it looks like to be a disciple and invited you to join with them. They are the saints in your life. They are your disciple-makers.

In a moment, we are going to celebrate those saints that have passed away from this world and gone on to their heavenly reward in the past year. You have others who have passed away in previous years as well, and for time's sake, and on behalf of those whose grief is more recent, I invite you to share the names of your disciple-makers with each other in Sunday School or fellowship after the service is concluded.

But there is one last question to consider. It is a question that goes beyond our blessings and woes, our joys, and our grief. The question God asks us today, and every day, and when our time comes to meet Him face to face... Who will call us their disciple-maker? Who will name us as one who brought them closer to Jesus?"

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