Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
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In his sermon “Final Jeopardy”. Rev. Randy Quinn talks about all the commandments listed in the scriptures - all 613 of them. Someone had too much time on their hands. Someone – some unknown person centuries ago – carefully examined the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers Deuteronomy and determined that there were exactly 613 different commands God gave the people of Israel.
Well, clearly they didn’t have enough to do, if they had time to tabulate all the commandments! Nevertheless, there were clearly plenty of laws. How would one decide which was the greatest?
This week’s story from Matthew picks up on last week. The Sadducees and the Herodians, if you remember, tried to trap Jesus by posing him a question they thought he could not answer - and Jesus of course, not only answered it, but turned the tables and showed them to be hypocrites. So now the Pharisees get into it. They get an expert in the law to pose a question they are absolutely sure will stump him. After all, there *are* 613 commandments......and once again, they fail miserably.
Let’s try something else. Of all the things Jesus said, what do you think is the most important? Here’s a few....
I am way, truth, life (Jn. 14:6).
God so loved the world (Jn. 3:16)
Love one another (Jn. 13:34).
Let the children come (Mk. 10:14).
Seek first the Kingdom of God (Mt. 7:7)
Jesus makes it sound so simple, to go through the commandments and pull out just two, one from Deuteronomy, one Leviticus.
How about these quotes?
Human beings do not live by bread alone (Dt. 8:3; Mt. 4:4).
The poor will be with you always (Dt. 15:11; Mt. 26:11).
Love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19:18; Mt. 22:39).
Three quotes, two from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus - he is not only familiar with scripture, he is just as familiar with the law as the expert Pharisee.
Is it possible that Jesus really hit on something - he always was able to take older scriptures and repeat them in a way that made them sound new and different.
In a sense we are talking about the right thing, the main thing. So I’m asking you, “what is the main thing?”
Is it to have a full sanctuary on Sunday morning?
Is it to be excellent preachers?
Is it mission?
Is it to equip the laity to be effective in their individual ministries?
Is it to provide food to the hungry?
Is it to gather in prayer for one another?
What is the purpose of this church? Of all the things we consider are part of church, what is the one thing we are called to do and be as a congregation?
Jesus has given us a conundrum......we can’t love God without loving our neighbour and we cannot love our neighbour without loving God.
Perhaps the best example of putting those two aspects of the Christian faith together is Jesus himself, who clearly loved God and just as clearly loved the people he met. He spent time alone with God and he spent time with his disciples as well as the multitudes. Loving God led to and was reflected in his love for people.
So who is our neighbour?
We come to church on Sunday morning, and sit in the same place every week. Sometimes we come and sit so far away from everyone else, that when we sing our voice sounds so weak we swallow it. How radical it would be for everyone to sit with everyone else, and sing as if we really meant it.
Or we come and sit with the people we know, and don’t make a move to the people we don’t. We always sit with the same people. It’s strange how congregations do that - people we have attended church with for years - and yet act as if we are strangers when we come to the gathered community.
How about outside the church? A few weeks ago, at lunch at Harbour Grounds, I sat and spoke with a family who didn’t know there was a church up here. Are we good neighbours to the people who are right around us? How do they know we are here?
What would happen if someone who was a known pedophile came to church? Or someone who walks in off the street, dirty and smelly, reeking of alcohol.....would we escort them gently out the door? How about a family who came here as refugees? And are waiting for a hearing?
Just as the Prayer of Jesus is the most radical prayer we have, and we should not repeat it by rote, but think carefully about it - Jesus quotes two commandments which have been in the law for centuries, yet the religious leaders have not lived them out. And it seems to me the Prayer of Jesus goes hand in hand with the commandments - doesn’t it?
So once again the religious leaders try to trip him up and he turns the tables - they are caught. Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and love your neighbour the same way you love yourself. On these two hang ALL the law, and ALL the prophets.
This is not gentle Jesus, meek and mild. This is quintessential Jesus, tired of them trying to find a way to discredit him, Jesus at his very harshest. There is a challenge here - to them, and to us. Do we LIVE the commandments? Do we really LIVE them?
Rev. Thom Shuman wrote a poem for this week:
Seems easy to love our neighbor when she is the grandmother across the street,
who always seems to make 'too many chocolate chip cookies'
and brings a plate full over to our house;
it's never hard to love our neighbor when he is the retired gent right next door
who is willing to share his tools, and when we don't have the know-how,
patiently shows us one-more-time how to unstop a drain,
change the oil in our car, get the mower started
without pulling our arms out;
it is so simple to love our neighbor when it is the kids who come by each fall
selling Christmas wreaths for their scout troops,
and each spring offering popcorn and candy to support the drama club;
but what if Moammar Gahdafi had moved in down the street;
if the single mom whom we admire so much turns out to be a parolee;
if the local Muslim population petitions the school board
to allow time for Dhuhr?
what then?
Sources:
1. Howell, David B., editor. Lectionary Homiletics. October 1999 (Vol. X, No. 11) and October 2002 (Vol. XIII, No. 11).
2. Quinn, Randy L. “Daring to Ask.” Sermon preached October 24, 1993 at Allen Blanchard; based on Matthew 22:34-46.
3. Final Jeopardy, a sermon based on Matthew 22:34-40, Rev. Randy Quinn
4. It’s So Easy, a poem by Rev. Thom Shuman, 2011.
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