From the Pastor |
Oh the joys of those… Happy are those… blessed are those… who delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. That is what the first psalm tells us. “They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.” Their delight… their happiness comes from the law of the Lord.
The Jews know that it was the Law of God… the Torah… that is at the heart of righteousness. The blessed life deliberately avoids the way of the wicked and makes the conscious choice to follow God’s way… to follow God’s laws. This happiness is not simply a feeling, but it has to do with being in a right relationship with God because the Law prioritizes lives so they are oriented to God. And it is the Law of God that Jesus is questioned about in today’s reading. As I noted last week, there was tremendous division within the Jewish community… with varying responses to the reign of the Roman Empire. The Pharisees emphasized the importance of obedience to the Torah, and ritual purity as the means to restoring Israel to its original glory. The Sadducees and the Herodians believed that the best way to respond to Roman power was through collaboration rather than opposition. The Zealots, were an aggressive political party who looked to lead a rebellion against the Roman Empire… driving them from the Holy Land by force. And it seems each group was interested in either forcing Jesus’ hand or discrediting him in some way. The continuous challenging of Jesus in the Temple was their way of trying to trip him up… to get him in trouble with one side or another. Today’s reading was no different. In this final question they try to back Jesus into a corner… “an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Now, this question may appear rather straightforward today. But it was a bit of a landmine. I mean… come on… Jesus was a ‘nobody’… from a nowhere town in Galilee… He was a self-appointed teacher whose followers were fishermen, peasants and tax collectors. His critics, on the other hand are professionally trained leaders and scholars. The Pharisees had studied every detail of Jewish law. They felt they knew the truth and they were out to prove it. Maybe they didn’t think Jesus knew all of the laws… I mean, the Torah contains 613 laws given by God. 248 of them were things that God told them to do. 365 of them were things that God told them NOT to do. 613 laws! Most people I know have trouble remembering the first 10… but each of those 613 laws were a divine imperative… each one carrying the authority of a divinely appointed leader, namely Moses… each one stepped in religious tradition and supported by the Jewish community. This expert must have thought he was pretty slick. After all… Jesus claimed to be sent by God… therefore he MUST know all 613 very well… and surely he could not deny the importance of ANY of the commandments. In fact, one way to answer would have been that all the commands are great because they come from God, but if Jesus gives this answer … then they can spring the trap… I can picture the very next question being… “If every commandment in the Law is great, then, Jesus, why have you broken so many of them.” You see… Jesus was… at least in their eyes… a law breaker: he’d broken the Sabbath laws by healing people on the Sabbath. He committed blasphemy when he forgave sins. His own followers had been seen failing to adhere to the strict dietary and cleanliness laws such as the ritual washing of hands before eating to which Jesus had simply replied “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth that is what defiles them.” (Matt. 15:11) He was a law breaker and I think this expert of the law was hoping to call him out on it! But once again… Jesus doesn’t play by their rules. Instead, Jesus cuts to the very core of God’s will and purpose by responding: “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.” You shall “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and the greatest commandment. We are each to love our God with “all” that is within us… heart, soul and mind… But how do we do that… how do we love God with all we are? Loving God means putting God first in every area of our lives. It is that whole priorities thing again… Loving God with all our heart, soul and mind means making God our number one priority… every day. Too often we stray off the off the path of righteousness because we have lost touch with the most basic truth there is: God is the one… the source of all goodness… the giver of wholeness. We focus our hearts and minds on the things of this world… But Jesus is clearly saying that there is nothing more important than loving God. No other law, rule, custom, culture or tradition is more important than loving God completely. That is why this is the greatest commandment. But loving God is not simply an emotion… it is not sentimental. Love is an action, a behavior, and a commitment which is why Jesus adds a second commandment to complement the first. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Let’s face it… Loving God with all we are is difficult, but loving our neighbors is usually where most of us seriously mess up as we attempt to follow in the way of Christ. In fact… loving your God and loving your neighbor are so strongly interconnected that there is NO separating them. If we truly love God it will show in our interactions with others. In fact, our actions in public reveal more about our relationship with God than anything else. All people… Our loved ones… our neighbors and even our enemies are created in God’s image… they are all images of God. Giving to God what is God's, loving our neighbors as ourselves, is God's tool to remake the world. In the world of war, climate change, poverty, economic crisis and deadly diseases, love may appear to be powerless and irrelevant. But, when love is lived as demonstrated by Jesus it speaks directly to the root causes of our struggles. You see… While fear and anger cause war and division… Love drives us to seek out connections and understanding. It is love that drives us to share what we have so that others can not only survive but thrive. Love leads us to be more careful in how we treat our environment and use our resources… It guides us in the way we deal with those who are suffering. Love for God… expressed in love for our neighbor works to bring justice… it strives for peace… it cares for “least”, the lost and the most vulnerable. Love… the true agape love of God is what this world needs desperately. The challenge is whether we are prepared to embrace love, to live love, to “preach” love and to work to spread love through the world. It requires us to recognize that it is God's image we find in our neighbors… yes… even in our enemies. If we are truly followers of Christ Jesus, we are called to follow not just the law of love but his loving example as well. It makes sense that those who delight in God’s laws would be happy… If our focus is on God… we will not be so easily swayed by the things of this world. We would be less likely to “follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.” We are called to obey the laws of God because the law is God's gift to help all of God's creations flourish. God has given us tremendous capacity and tremendous freedom, and we regularly have the opportunity to demonstrate our love for God and for our neighbor. Unfortunately, we often fall short of that endeavor… again and again and again. Thankfully, we serve a God who loves us… who is willing to forgive us over and over and over. We know this to be true because in the cross we can see just how much our God loves us. God loves us so much that we are given the command to demonstrate our love for God by caring for one another; God loves us enough to forgive us each time we fail. So, when Jesus explains that the law and the prophets all hang on the commandments to love God and love our neighbors, he is inviting us to re-evaluate our lives, our commitments, and even our politics and orient them in ways that demonstrate and honor God’s divine image in others. So, as you move forward into this new week… work on your priorities and try to determine where God is on the list. Then work to make loving God the priority in your life… then allow your love of God to spill outward to all you come in contact with… loving you neighbors… ALL your neighbors as yourself. If we can and do, we will discover that, little by little, the world begins to change… moving a little further toward being the kingdom of beauty, love and compassion that God created it to be.
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Yeon Shin
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