Love like it matters!

Read Matthew 22:34-40

Teachers and coaches are sometimes greeted by a student from long ago.  It may be a decade or two or three, but the student or the athlete has something he or she must say.  They are simple words.

You made a difference.  You made a difference in my life.  You will never know how much you meant to me.  You motivated me, challenged, or encouraged me, and…

I finished school.

I never quit.

I served 20 years in the Air Force.

I wrote a book.

I got my doctorate.

I became a missionary.

I became a brain surgeon.

Somehow, God used you—teacher, coach, mentor, servant of God—as a vessel to love another person like it really mattered, because it did.  It did.  It mattered in this lifetime.

These are words of affirmation to teachers and coaches and other mentors.  Sometimes they come with hugs or tears or hugs and tears.

You made a difference.  What powerful words—what emotional words are these?  What powerful words!

The Teachers of the Law were trying to trip up Jesus.  They had tried earlier and failed asking him about paying taxes to Caesar.  “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s” sent them away with their heads tucked between their legs.

The Sadducees tried to trick him as well, but they were silenced.

The Pharisees wanted another shot at tripping up this Rabbi whom everyone was so interested in, so they put forth one they considered to be an expert in the law.  So, he asked:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  Understand that is a very legitimate question.

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.”

Some of the Pharisees knew this answer as witnessed elsewhere in the Bible, at least the part up to all the law and the prophets hanging on those two commandments.  They didn’t really understand it but they knew it.  Love God with everything that you are and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.

The religious leaders were about rules.  God is about love and he wants all who call upon his name to be about love.  He wants all who have received the gift of grace through Jesus Christ to call him not only Savior but Lord.

To belong to Jesus is to call him Lord.  You are his.  You are being shaped—your heart is being reformed—in the image and likeness of God’s own heart.  We love God and we love each other.

It’s all about love and relationships.

Some of you still don’t know why I make sure a big deal over Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets.  We don’t do sign-ups.  People have called me and asked what the hours are for our food pantry.  I tell them that we don’t have hours for a food pantry but if you are hungry come see me and we will give you some food.

I have eyes to see small things that make the church transactional.  We must not be transactional.  We are called to be transformational.  We are people of love not stuff.  We connect with people.  We have relationships that matter with people.  Our love matters with people.

We give out more and more food and help with bills and stuff that people need to negotiate this world every year.  It’s more each year.  But the transactional nature of it lessens each year.

Answer me some simple questions.  Please be precise.

How many ears of sweet corn have you eaten in the past 5 years?  If you are allergic to corn, that’s probably an easy answer.

How many oil changes have you done on your vehicles in the last decade?  Yes, those that you paid someone else to do count.

How many cans of popcorn, nuts, cookie dough, Sweetheart Dinner tickets, and rolls of Blue and Gold Sausage have you purchased since the turn of the century?  I know, that’s a long time to keep track of—so go ahead and round up to the nearest hundred in your fundraiser purchases.

How many people, let’s say in your lifetime, outside of your family, do you hold dear to your heart?

The first three questions were probably something that nobody keeps up with, nor should they.  This last question was likely very easy to answer, and names—not numbers—started to pop into your mind.

The first three questions were of a transactional nature.  It’s just stuff that you do or give or take that usually does not have a lifelong impact on you.  This last one was about transformation.  At some point, these people became special to you.

Jesus wants us to have relationships not transactions.  Our relationships are based on our love for God and for each other.

“‘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.”

Transactions come and go.  You might have to keep up with some of them for your taxes, but relationships are what life is about.

Our love for God is first and our love for each other is a very close second.

“‘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.”

Let’s love like it matters, because it does!

Amen!

All the Law and the Prophets

Read Matthew 22:34-40

Let’s make sure of our perspective before we begin.  We say GOD LOVES YOU – LOVE ONE ANOTHER time and time again.  Do we fully believe that God loves us?  It does make a difference.

We know God is holy.  He is righteous.  He is all powerful.  He is sovereign.  He is all knowing.  He is immutable.  He is God and he is Creator and he is the Judge of his creation.

Most people acknowledge these things and those things should give us pause to think and reflect and maybe shake a bit in our boots.

But until we accept that the very essence of God is love, much of the Bible is obscured to us.  Until we believe that God loves us, our growth is minimal.  Until we accept that God is love and that he loves us, it is sometimes impossible to believe that he has good plans for us. 

Before we were just a little blimp in our mother’s womb, God knew us; but did he love us?  That’s the question that must no longer be a question for us.  If you question whether God loves you or not, the answer is that he does.

The struggle might be to know this with everything that you are—heart, soul, body, spirit, and mind.  Everything that makes you, you, must know that God is love and that he loves you.

When we say or read or think God is Love and God loves me, it must be more than theory.  It is reality for us.  Actually, it is reality for everyone, but we have eyes to see the truth.  We believe these things and therefore can move forward with this topic of love being more than an academic exercise.

Knowing the truth of God’s love for us produces action in us.

Love is not only real, it drives the universe.  Love propels everything with purpose.  And so we come to those words that we have said over and over and worn on our wrists and share with thousands:

GOD LOVES YOU – LOVE ONE ANOTHER

There was a path to get to this point.  Here is the tweet version:  Creation, sin, preservation of a remnant in the flood, choosing a people to be his own, and the law.  Yes, there is a bit more in the 39 books on the left-hand side of your Bibles, but God was best known to his people for a time through the law. 

To keep people pointed in the right direction, God occasionally sent prophets.  People didn’t always do a good job on the home study and correspondence courses when it came to knowing and obeying the law.  Sometimes, they needed a person to point the way.

So the guiding forces for God’s people as they tried to be people of God were the Law—often called the Law of Moses—and the prophets.

By the time that Jesus came into this world as God with Us, there were many experts in the law.  They were Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, and other religious leaders who thought they had a good handle on the law.  They were not always in agreement with each other.  There was much discussion and commentary among the experts.

They would have loved Facebook because everyone surely had a special insight that others had missed.  Some surely emerged as more expert than others.

This is the first century world in Judea and Galilee and in those areas of the Promised Land where knowing the law as important in daily life.  

Understand knowing the law often came with unique perspective. 

Rabbis—teachers—would accept disciples and train them.  The disciples were said to have taken on the yoke of their master—of their teacher.  That meant that they would learn his insights and adopt his perspectives, at least while each was a disciple.

But some would become experts.  They would dig deeper than most.  They had more analytical skill.  They connected the dots better.  They might have touched the edges of what today we call the full biblical witness, absent the other 27 books that came later.

Today, we take with a grain of salt anyone who claims to be an expert.  We see experts on television all of the time and many of them don’t seem credible, much less an expert in anything.

Most of us do know or have known experts in at least one area.  Perhaps we are or have been an expert in this area.  We all know expert parents.  What constitutes an expert parent? 

An expert parent is a parent who knows exactly what to do in each and every situation.  You might think that would take decades of parenting experience, but quite the opposite is true.

It seems to be that those with no children of their own have all of the answers.  Those who have never been a parent are always the expert parents.

The irony is that two weeks after having a child of their own, their expert status is revoked.

Today, you don’t always find experts where you think you should.  It seems that all of our state’s expert educators are in the state legislature.  Oops!  Did I leave that in my message?

My point is that today being an expert doesn’t carry the same weight that it did 2000 years ago.  A man believed to be an expert in the law would have been given this status by his peers.  It was not likes on Facebook or text your vote to the Sanhedrin.  Among all of the men who believed that they knew their stuff, a few were held in very high regard.

In this 22^nd chapter of Matthew, we see 3 distinct encounters between the religious leaders and Jesus.   If you need the big picture context, the religious leaders of the day don’t like Jesus.  Jesus is bringing truth and the leaders prefer comfort.  They like things the way they are.

The Pharisees reinforced by the Herodians took their shot with is it legal to pay taxes to Caesar?  The question itself should have been escape proof.

Answer yes, and Jesus has told people to pay taxes to a very unpopular conqueror—the Romans—who just happened to have an emperor who had declared himself to be god.

Answer no, and the Jesus problem would be taken care of by the Romans.  The Romans didn’t care much what the Jews believed, but they would not stand for someone advocating not paying taxes.   Such a man gets locked up.  He can run a prison ministry but he won’t be circulating around the countryside anymore.

We know what happened.  Jesus asked for a coin and one was offered.  He presented a question:  Whose image is on the coin. The people answered:  Caesar.   He proffered a solution:  Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s.

The Sadducees took their shot with their 7 brothers for one bride question and were told they were just wrong.  There is a resurrection.

So the Pharisees want to take another shot at tripping up Jesus.  They are still licking their wounds, but they select the best among them to test Jesus in the law.  The trick question didn’t work.  Let’s just see if Jesus paid attention in school.  Let’s just see if he knows his stuff.

The expert is polite and professional addressing Jesus as Teacher.  He asks, “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

Visualize the wheels spinning in the expert’s mind.  Depending upon how Jesus answers, the follow up questions will exploit anything that seems to be weak or incomplete.  He has been sent by his peers to test Jesus.

Jesus answers, “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.”

He answered the question and even reminded the expert of the question in his answer; but Jesus does not allow the expert a follow-on question as he continues in explanation.

He continues, “And the second is like it.”

Hold on, the expert only asked for the greatest, but the first and greatest commandment is incomplete without the second which is like it.  An expert should know that.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Both of these commands come out of the law.  They are not paired together in what we call the Old Testament.  Jesus has connected two big dots.

It’s not that the Pharisees were a bunch of dummies.  At least one other expert in the law had connected these dots.  Read the beginning of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Here, the expert gives the answer:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself.

The pairing here is not new and some of the religious leaders had put these two commands together as very important.  But Jesus continued.

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

The expert had asked about the law, but Jesus added the complete context.  God gave you law and he sent prophets.  If you read these words and listen to the words of the prophets, then you will realize that the foundation for all that you have received from God is loving God and loving your neighbor.

If you are truly expert in the law and in the books of prophecy, you would know that the infrastructure to what God is telling us rests on loving God and loving our neighbor.

If each of the books of the law and the scrolls of the prophets were cloaks, they would all hang on the coatrack called love God and love your neighbor.

If you were not blinded by your own self-righteousness, you would see that loving God defines the state of our hearts and minds.  Loving our neighbor calls us to live what is inside of us.

If you had eyes to see then you would realize that what comes in the law and through the prophets are not book answers but life answers.

Jesus was teaching that everything that you have learned from God’s laws and his prophets up to this point have pointed you to love God and love your neighbor.

There is a command that comes after what came in the law and prophecy.  We know it.  Jesus told his disciples, as I have loved you, so you must love one another.

It sounds like the old command, but it is more.

How did Jesus love us?  How did he love his disciples?  With everything that he was, that’s how he loved us.  He gave his very life for us.  That’s love.  That’s raising the bar.

The law directs us to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.  That’s tough but doable.

Jesus tells us to love our neighbor more than we love ourselves.  We love with the totality of our lives.  He has raised the bar.

What is the first and greatest commandment? 

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.

The law and the prophets take us to this pairing of fundamental directions.  Jesus takes us a step farther.  Love one another with your very life.  Love one another as much as I have loved you.  Love each other as much as God loves you.

I ask again.  Do you believe that God is love and that he loves you?  It is not a question of what you have read, though reading helps.  It is a question of what you believe.

You may not be an expert in the law, but you must be certain in this belief.  God loves you.

For once you truly believe that, there is one irresistible response within you; that you love one another.

Everything in all of history up to the advent of Jesus, said love God and love you neighbor as much as yourself.  Jesus takes us to the place where we love God by loving our neighbor as much as he loves us.

I remind you once again that God is love and that he loves you.  Let’s respond in love in all that we are and all that we do.

God loves you.  Love one another.

Amen.

The Good Samaritan

Read Luke 10:25-37

This is one of the more familiar parables in the Bible.  The term Good Samaritan is so common these days that we forget what a contradiction in terms, what an oxymoron it would have been to use this term 2000 years ago.

The term Good Samaritan is not even used in the scripture.  This is a title or pericope heading that attached itself to the text in later years.  In Luke’s Gospel, this story is sandwiched in between the sending of the 72 and a very personal encounter with Mary who truly valued her time with Jesus and Martha who remained wrapped up in things of the world.

This parable begins with a question.  It is a question from a teacher of the law who is seeking to best Jesus in public more than he is seeking an answer.

The teacher asks, what must I do to inherit eternal life.

Jesus answers with a question and the teacher replies:  Love the Lord with all you heart, soul, strength, and mind; and to love your neighbor as yourself. 

Jesus replies, yes you got the right answer.  Do this and you will live. 

There is another train of thought that could be pursued here—he didn’t say the words, Jesus is Lord or whosoever believeth in hiim, and Jesus told him he would live if he did these four things.  We don’t have a ticket for that train at this time.  Perhaps we will board that train on another day.

The teacher wants to take one more shot and asks who is my neighbor?

Jesus tells the parable, in which we can easily see five or six main characters.  The robbers set the story in motion by ambushing a man.

The man is probably a Jew.  Jesus was talking to a teacher of the law and most of the people around him at this time were likely Jews.  The man was one of them.  The crowd likely had empathy for the man.

Next we have the priest and the Levite.  Both see the man and pass by on the other side.  Our reaction in the twenty-first century is often look at how sanctimonious these religious leaders were.  We have seen that holier than thou attitude before.

These two might have received a little more sympathy from the Jewish crowd.  After all, Priests had to remain clean and pure to fulfill their duties in the temple.  Some might have said, they were just following the law and the provisions and commentaries on the law found in the Talmud and Mishnah.  The teacher of the law, however, should have known that the Mishnah provided and exception to these restrictive guidelines when encountering an abandon corpse. 

If we take the words literally that both the Priest and the Levite are going down the road, then they were leaving Jerusalem which was several hundred feet above sea level and Jericho was below sea level.  Today, we might say that we were going down the road and in western Oklahoma that term may or may not connote a change in altitude.  But if the priest and the Levite were both going down, then they were leaving Jerusalem, traveling the same direction as the man, and thus would have concluded any temple duties which would have required purification.

In any case, both passed the man on the other side of the road.

Next we come to the Samaritan.  I would suspect that there might have even been a few boos and hisses at the mention of this character.  It’s not that there was underlying racial hatred towards the Samaritans.  There was overt racial hatred towards these “half breeds.”  Whether the roots of this hatred go back to the time of the Babylonian Captivity or were a more recent development really doesn’t bear on the situation.  Racial hatred is racial hatred and it is not going to be dispelled by finding the historical roots.  Hatred is a condition of the heart and many in the crowd that was listening likely had this hatred ingrained in their hearts.

When Jesus asks the teacher of the law which one of the three was a neighbor to the man who was robbed, the teacher replies the one who showed mercy.  Perhaps this is just the teacher revealing his insight into the parable or perhaps it is his reluctance to say the word Samaritan without spitting at the same time.

But it is the Samaritan who does what most had hoped the priest or the Levite would do.  He cares for the man with his own oil, and wine, and beast of burden.  He brings him to an Inn and doesn’t drop him off.  He cares for him overnight.  The next day, he pays the innkeeper in advance and tells him that he will settle accounts upon his return and pay him anything else that he is due.  The Samaritan truly shows love and mercy.

There is another human character in this story, one who has no lines to say or action, but who perhaps has something to reveal.  That is the innkeeper.  He accepts the Samaritan at his word that he will make good on any expense incurred by the innkeeper.  This tells us that he either witnessed something that inspired trust in the Samaritan or there was an existing relationship.  In either case, the innkeeper agrees—at least we hear of no objection—to keep and care for the beaten man. 

Others throughout history have interpreted this parable allegorically.  Origin Adamatius, one of the church fathers that lived in the second and third centuries would offer the following representations.

The man in Adam.

Jerusalem is Paradise.

Jericho is the world.

The priest is the law.

The Levite represents the prophets.

The beast or donkey is the Lord’s incarnate body.

The Inn which accepts all—whosoever will may come—is the church.

The Innkeeper is the head of the church.

The Samaritan is Christ and the message to the Innkeeper that he will settle accounts upon his return reminds us of the second coming of Christ.

Augustine and others might parallel this traditional allegorical interpretation to some degree.  They might add that the robbers were the Devil and his angels.

John Newton, who would write Amazing Grace and lived in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, also penned these lines supporting the traditional allegorical interpretation:

How kind the good Samaritan
To him who fell among the thieves!
Thus Jesus pities fallen man,
And heals the wounds the soul receives.

There have been many interpretations of this parable through the ages, but this morning, I would like to focus on the two very direct statements that Jesus makes in conjunction with this scripture.

The first comes before the parable when the teacher responds to the question posed by Jesus, how do you interpret the law.  The man says love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus says do this and you will live.  The conversation could have stopped here.  Jesus said love God with everything that you are and everything that you have.  Jesus said, truly love God.

We—the generations of believers who followed—are enriched by the parable that followed the teacher’s question, who is my neighbor.  Jesus answered the teacher’s question with a parable and with a command.

When the teacher revealed that the neighbor was the one who showed mercy; Jesus said go and do likewise.

The answer to who is my neighbor is to be a neighbor.  For all of the interpretation and representation that this parable may include; the directive words are to love God and to be a neighbor—to love one another.  We are not to be so much concerned about who to love or where to love or in what circumstances do we show love.  We are told to go and do likewise—to be mercy, to be love, to be a neighbor.

It is a wonderful parable that so many have tried to make more intricate than it need be.  Love God, love each other, and be a neighbor are powerful and direct.

There are so many ways to examine this parable, but the question to us is what are we going to do in response to this teaching?

How about:

Love God.

Love one another.

Be a neighbor.

Amen!