True Love

Here is last week's sermon. Enjoy.

I’ve never been very good at debate. I guess I don’t think well on my feet. Typically, if I’m in a disagreement with someone or some sort of discussion, I’ll have a few things to say. But when it’s over I always think of 3 or 4 things I should have or could have said. I can remember a few years ago I had a meeting in Gulf Shores that didn’t go particularly well. There were disagreements and some arguing. Eventually the matter was unresolved and I left frustrated because it was an argument I should’ve won. After about an hour on the road, it hit me. I realized exactly what I should have said to make my point and argue my side so that it could not be refuted. But it was too late.

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen that Jesus does not have that problem. He thinks on his feet. He comes up with quick, witty responses to any challenge, and usually has a good story complete with an insult of his accuser. Today’s scripture proves it again. Another challenge. Another quick response.

Matthew 22:34-46

We have spent the last few weeks in the Temple with Jesus. On a Sunday he rode into town on the back of a donkey while the people waved branches and shouted Hosanna. After riding into town Jesus and his followers went to the Temple. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was the week of Passover and Jews from all over the known world were coming to Jerusalem and many of them would go immediately to the Temple to pray. But Jesus had other ideas, or at least what he saw when he arrived there gave him other ideas. He flipped over tables shouting & screaming. Driving the moneychangers and merchants from the temple court. It was a direct challenge to the Temple and its leadership.

The next day he returned to the Temple. And he spent what must have been most of that day fending off one attack after another. He walked into a series of confrontations with different groups of Jerusalem leadership. The Temple priests and elders, the Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sadducees, the Pharisees again. Each of them coming with questions they thought would trap him, trip him up, make him say something they could use against him.

First the Temple leaders asked him “By what authority do you do these things?” Jesus rebutted them by telling two parables that compared them to a disobedient son and a group of murderous sharecroppers, and another comparing them to rebellious wedding invitees. Then the Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap him with a political question about paying taxes to Rome. Next a group of Sadducees questioned him about resurrection.

Each time Jesus silenced his accusers and astounded the crowds.

It kind of reminds me of a schoolyard argument. Maybe an argument about who’s the better superhero: Spiderman or Superman?

Spiderman can’t fly! How can he beat Superman? He doesn’t have to fly. He can climb walls and swing around town on his webs. Well, Superman can stop bullets! Spiderman can’t stop bullets! He doesn’t have to. His spider-sense tells him something’s wrong and he has great reflexes so he can dodge the bullets.

Those arguments always have sort of an accuser and a defender. The Superman guy says Spiderman is inferior and the other boy defends Spiderman. One side with all of the questions and the other has all of the answers. For every point, he has a counter-point. Until finally, the accuser gets completely frustrated with the argument. He cannot seem to get the upper hand even though he’s sure he is right. And for all of his wonderful questions and thought-out tactics, the responses of his Spiderman-loving opponent leave him grasping for one last-gasp attempt to win.

Oh yeah, well, well, what makes Spiderman so great?

That’s where our little exchange between Jesus and the Jewish leadership find us today. Jesus has answered every challenge. And completely frustrated all of his accusers. Now they come in with a final desperate question.

Oh yeah, well, well, what’s the greatest commandment?

This question was like lobbing a softball to Jesus. All of the challenges and traps up to this point were well thought out and pretty smart, but Jesus handled them easily. This one seems like an afterthought.

But Jesus, once again responds with thought and precision. In his response Jesus quotes scripture. First he quotes the beginning of the Shema. The Shema is a prayer or an affirmation. It is used in Synagogue worship and is said by those of the Jewish faith, often twice a day. It is typically the first scripture learned by Jewish children. This has been true since before Jesus’ life. It is found in the book of Deuteronomy. The part Jesus quotes is from 6:5, but the prayer actually starts in verse 4. “Hear O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” Then as Jesus says, “‘you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” Which makes sense since it is the first scripture many of them learned. It is first.

Then Jesus quotes more scripture. This time from Leviticus 19:18. “And a second is like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There’s no argument. Again, they know Jesus is right.

As part of what we call the Great Commission, Jesus tells his disciples after making new disciples they should “teach them to obey all that I (Jesus) have commanded.” This means that we, as Jesus’ disciples, should obey all that he commanded. Well, here we have 2. The greatest and one like it; really commandment 1 and 1A.

The fulfillment of these two commandments is what John Wesley called Christian perfection. Total, perfect love of God and neighbor. That is our goal as disciples of Jesus Christ. It is true sanctification. So, then the question becomes, how do we do it? How do we achieve this “Christian Perfection;” true love of God and neighbor?

Of the two parts of this Greatest Commandment, the first part is probably the easiest. I say probably because it’s not truly all that easy. It’s not easy to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind.

Because we don’t love God with our whole heart. Too many other things take little pieces. Auburn football or Alabama football. Family, friends. TV shows. Cars. It’s hard to love God with our whole heart. Not exclusively, of course, but first and foremost. Love God first. Always.

What about loving God with our soul? That’s a little more difficult to define. The word translated as soul is translated in other places as life or person. In other words, it is our being. To love God with everything that we are. With our entire being. Heart, soul, mind.

Of the three, the mind is the one we leave out most often. We are called to love God with our entire mind. That means we need to devote some grey matter to God. We need to study the scriptures. We need to think about our faith. It is really easy to sit and listen to me or some other preacher and think, “yep, now I have faith.” To blindly accept whatever you’re told. I don’t want that. I want you to think and study. I want you to ask question and seek answers. That’s the only way we can grow.

One of the tools that Methodists use in deciding theological questions is called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. It is 4 elements we should use to determine if something is true or sound. Scripture is first and foremost. Then there is experience, what does your faith experience tell you? Then tradition. What has the church traditionally said or believed? The fourth is reason. What does your brain tell you? Does it make sense? Faith does not mean blind faith.

The love we’re talking about is not emotional love. It’s not an, “I love you.” Kind of love. As one author put it, Jesus is not talking about “a passive response to something outside us.” It is a choice we make. And that applies to loving others as well as God.

I heard that question recently. “How do we love people when we don’t agree with what they think or do?” And it is as simple and as difficult as deciding to love them. It’s simple to say, harder to do. But that’s just it. We have to make the choice to love them. And of course, that means our neighbor and our enemy and those we don’t feel one way or the other about. It means everyone.

I read a great story along those lines earlier this week. It was a story that made me think and made me angry and made me…well, I’ll just tell it.

Will D. Campbell was a Baptist pastor from Mississippi. He was also heavily involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. He writes of some of his experiences in his book, Brother to a Dragonfly.

Will was visiting a friend in Fairhope, AL in 1965. While he was there he learned of the deaths of Jonathan Daniels and Father Richard Morrisroe. Daniels was an Episcopal seminary student and Morrisroe, a Catholic priest. They were in Lowndes County, AL registering black citizens to vote when they were arrested along with several other activists. After their release from jail, the two white men and two African American men went to a store to get a drink. Through some odd circumstances, a Lowndes county deputy named Thomas Coleman showed up and shot and killed Jonathan and Richard. In cold blood, simply because of why they were there.

Campbell wrote that he hated that man. He cursed him and the courts that he knew would release him. But after talking with his friend P.D., who was not a Christian, he came to realize that God loved Thomas Coleman, just as much as God loved Jonathan or Richard. And that meant that Will had to love him. It wasn’t easy, but it was a choice he had to make. He realized that true love of God meant true love of neighbor. And true love of neighbor meant loving everyone. It meant God’s grace and mercy were for everyone.

That is what Jesus calls us to. That is love of God and neighbor. It doesn’t happen on its own. It’s not easy. But it is our calling. It is our duty.

Make disciples. Help the least of these. Pray for and love your enemies and the unlovable. Sustain each other. That is our calling.