Now Advent Can Begin!

Just as Christmas cannot begin (for some people) until the Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College, Cambridge have been read and sung, so I cannot begin Advent until I have heard the Nine Lessons and Carols at St Johns College (also Cambridge). I listened to them today on the BBC Radio Three. 

The high mark of the service (for me) is the singing of the wonderful advent hymn, "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending" (at roughly the 90 minute mark of the service). Each year in my Worldview and Culture class, I introduce my students to this hymn, with its linking of the birth of the baby with the return of the King in power and great glory.

Lo! he comes with clouds descending, once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending swell the triumph of his train:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! God appears, on earth to reign.

 

Every eye shall now behold him robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at nought and sold him, pierced and nailed him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, Deeply wailing, Deeply wailing, Shall the true Messiah see.

 

Those dear tokens of his passion still his dazzling body bears,
Cause of endless exultation to his ransomed worshippers:
With what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture, gaze we on those glorious scars!

 

Yea, Amen! let all adore thee, high on thine eternal throne;
Saviour, take the power and glory: claim the kingdom for thine own:
O come quickly! O come quickly! O come quickly!
Alleluia! Come, Lord, come!

 

As I tell my students, this hymn contains possibly the most terrifying lines in English: "Those who set at naught and sold him, pierced and nailed him to the tree, deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see." My BIC and Mennonite training shrinks from the image of God's judgment, but Scripture holds divine love and wrath together in a seamless whole -- and so must we.

In Charles Wesley's original, there were more verses: how many, I am not sure. This website gives seven. In my class, I contrast verse three above with Penn State fight songs. [For context, in the previous period I had introduced my students to the phenomenon of school spirit via university songs -- a phenomenon that leaves my Canadian students, for whom school spirit is an alien concept, shaking their heads.] "Fight on State" contains the words, "we'll hit that line, roll up the score, fight on for victory ever more, fight on, Penn State!" I have a recording of the Men's Glee Club singing vigorously at Homecoming, and it is stirring stuff!

Contrast this ethos -- when you're ahead, finish 'em off! -- with the hymn: "Those dear tokens of his passion still his dazzling body wears." God's omnipotence revealed through Christ's ultimate weakness. "With what rapture gaze we on those glorious scars!" In the recent American election, Trump's refusal to concede flows from a conviction that any weakness is unacceptable. In the hymn, God's power glories in Christ's death! Weakness is in our blood. We rejoice in and embrace our own weakness as Christ takes it into his own death.

I could go on, but close with some links to youtube versions of this wonderful advent hymn:

The Cambridge Singers (a wonderful rendition with brass, but omitting verse three)

Saint John's College (1994: perhaps the original that I first heard, but omitting verse three)

Saint John's College (2015: with verse three, and with a descant that blew me away)

Life after Death: The bread and butter of Christian Faith

Today we begin a three-part series on death and dying. I begin this morning, and Lee will develop the theme further in parts two and three. We conclude on the afternoon of November 22 with another “foodless faspa”.

One might say that the purpose of Christian living – indeed, of human living – is to learn how to die. Everyone who has gone before has lived and died. All of us in our turn will complete our lives by dying. It is the Christian belief that the hard passage of death, which is sometimes felt as a curse, is in fact God’s great gift to us. Death is the door to eternity, with the offer that eternity is filled with God, what one songwriter has called “the land without tears”.

If this is the case, then in Paul’s words we “walk in the resurrection”. We live the way God wants us to live now, because resurrection life is already bubbling inside of us. We explore this foundational idea this morning through two Scripture passages and ask what it means for the way that we live.

Job 19

These verses from Job 19 are best known for the wonderful aria in Handel’s Messiah, “I know that my Redeemer liveth” – just after the Hallelujah chorus. They are interesting in that Job speaks them in the midst of complaints. This chapter begins with the words, “How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” Job is speaking here of his friends, who are not helpful in their efforts to explain what is happening, but just before the verses we read, he says, “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me.” Then Job turns and a song of unlikely praise and hope breaks out: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

This is an affirmation of pure hope, but it is a hope that proves to be true. Within the Old Testament we find little about the afterlife; people did not think much about what we call “eternity”. Even in Jesus’ own time, when the Pharisees had begun to teach the reality of the resurrection, many still believed that after death there was only “the grave”, Sheol, a place where the dead are … well, dead. When faced with his own death, Job breaks out in assurance that somehow – even if his troubles kill him – he will be alive with God. God is his Redeemer.

1 Corinthians 15

Paul spells out the foundation of that hope in 1 Corinthians 15. The first eleven verses of the chapter provide a summary of basic Christian belief: Christ died for our sins; Christ was raised; Christ lives, and we can know him. In much of our preaching and Bible study, we emphasize the teachings and ministry of Jesus; Paul reminds us that his life and teaching rest on the foundation of his death and resurrection. Christ died, and Christ was raised: This is the beginning of our lives in Christ.

Verses 12 to 19 of our text make the point clearly. If there is no such thing as resurrection (as the Sadducees claimed in Judaism), then even Jesus was not raised. If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, our preaching and faith are useless. Everything hangs on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Without that, we are bound by the patterns and structures of sin, in which we live our lives. Paul puts it this way: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Verses 20 to 28 develop the point.

·         Christ has been raised from the dead

·         Everyone died in Adam’s sin; everyone rises in Christ’s resurrection

·         Christ wins the victory [over sin and death] first for himself, and then for all who belong to him

·         When Christ rules over every other authority and power in the universe, he will hand his authority over to the Father.

·         The last “enemy” to be defeated is death

·         The final two verses are complicated. I read them to mean: Christ’s final victory re-establishes perfect order in the world, in which God the Father reigns through God the Son and all people take their place in God’s “New Heaven and New Earth”.

 Bringing the Scripture into our Conversation

What does all of this have to do with us today? I know a Mennonite who is attending a Catholic Church. I asked him if he could become a Catholic. He replied, “The trouble is I would have to affirm that I believe the whole of the church’s doctrine, and I don’t think I can. As I Mennonite, I promise to do something, and I can do that!” I would disagree with him: Mennonites also “believe something”, but he is right that we emphasise Christian living over Christian believing.

That being the case, what does it mean for our daily lives to believe in the resurrection of Jesus? We will pursue this question more deeply in the Going Deeper time, but I give one consequence of this belief for us to consider.

We all live on the basis of what we believe is most important in life or fundamentally true. One of the best ways to find out what a person really believe is true is to consider what that person actually does. If someone says, “I believe that we should love everyone and help anybody who is in need when they are in need”, but we observe that person acting in a hateful way, exercising a destructive power over the person in need, then we can conclude that  their real belief is something different. By their actions, they have proclaimed, “I believe in using power to benefit myself before anyone else.”

What does a life lived in the truth of the resurrection look like – both the resurrection of Jesus and our own death and resurrection? In Romans 6, Paul writes:

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

We walk in newness of life. We walk in the resurrection. We have “died to sin”, and we live in his resurrection. Let me list some possible ways that we can “walk in the resurrection”.

·         People in our world live fearfully. We are taking measures to deal with the threat offered by Covid-19, including holding our Going Deeper class as a Zoom session this afternoon, instead of meeting in the sanctuary. We take proper precautions, but we know that God is “King of the universe”. A Zulu song we used to sing in Zimbabwe says, “Even though we walk in danger and evil on this earth, we are going to Heaven.” We do not need to be paralyzed by fear, whatever we face.

·         Unfettered individualism is a strong value for most people in Canada. Although we value our individual freedom and the equality that God has placed within us, we do not insist on our absolute right to do whatever we want to do. We recognize that we live in mutual submission as brothers and sisters, children of God. We do not rule over each other, but we do care deeply for each other.

·         Most people in North America believe in what peace teachers call “the myth of redemptive violence”. When one is attacked, the idea goes, a righteous person may respond with violence. It is wrong, they say, to attack other people first, but, like Popeye defending Olive Oyl, the good guy is justified in demolishing the bad guy. We follow the teachings of Jesus. As we “walk in the resurrection”, we recognize that we do not fear what may happen to us if we pursue peace. We can live for peace in everything that we do – in our families and in our jobs and in our nation and in our relationships. Another Zulu hymn says, “Peace in this world of sin: the blood of Jesus pours out peace.” Amen! As we sang earlier, “We are people of God’s peace as a new creation.” We live for peace and remember the peace of God on this Peace Sunday in Canada.

·         Many people are willing to cheat on a deal if it gives them an advantage, or to cut corners on a job if they can get away with it, or take something that they want without paying if no one is looking. We follow the teachings of Jesus. Our “yes” is yes, and our “no” is no. We do what is right when people are watching and when they are not. We walk in the resurrection.

 

In short, we live by the standards and values of God’s Reign, even while we are in this life. If the resurrection is real, if we have died to sin and live “in newness of life”, we look different than people around us. We act the way Jesus teaches us to act, filled with his Spirit.

 

The Personal Side

As I work on this sermon, I have been diagnosed with unstable angina. I feel the precariousness of human physical life. How does this message about the resurrection and life after death speak to me in my human frailty? I speak cautiously now. It is easy to say that God comforts us in our weakness. It is harder to face that weakness squarely.

 

Note how Job speaks. “My heart faints within me.” I know what he means! Note how Paul speaks. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” The problems and troubles of this world are real. Jesus warned his disciples just before his crucifixion, “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” Jesus was speaking especially about the persecution that they would face as his followers, but the truth applies more broadly.

 

I have referred several times to Zulu hymns. African hymnody often picks up the theme of the trouble we face in this world – “this world of trouble”, “this world of sin”, and so on. They have it right: Life is hard, and death is harder. Death would make us fear and turn against God if it could. Then we read the whole verse and we see, “in me you may have peace.” We hear Jesus, “take courage; I have conquered the world!” Death may be God’s enemy, but in the resurrection, Jesus brings us the death of death. We are enabled to walk in the resurrection, knowing that even death cannot finish us.

 

This is a great truth, and this is a hard truth. Death teaches us to rely on God. As someone said in our Going Deeper Time a few weeks ago, death forces us to rely on God. We cannot overcome death, but we can rest in God, who has conquered death. This is the reason that Paul says (1
Thessalonians 4: 13f): “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.” We grieve at death, but we know that Jesus rose from the dead and will bring us also with him at the end of time. We will rise with Jesus and live forever with Jesus.

 

Conclusion

This then is the hope of Christian living – that we live and die in Christ, so that we do not need to fear death. We can live in this life the way God wants us to, and when the end comes, we can die in Christ – and live forever.

 

I think of the words of another great hymn, “Abide with me”. This was written by a pastor who was near the end of his life. It is essentially his last words to his congregation.

1. Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
   When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
2. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
   Change and decay in all around I see—O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
3. I need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
   Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
4. I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
   Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
5. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
   Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

8 November 2020

Going Deeper Questions:

·         What does the resurrection of Jesus mean to you? Why is it important?

·         Mennonites have emphasised the importance of how we live, not just of what we believe. What difference does the resurrection of Jesus make in the way that we actually live day to day?

·         How do you feel about the fact that each of us will die? Paul calls death the last enemy to be defeated. If death is God’s enemy, how can we welcome death as a friend?

·         What are your favourite Scriptures that speak about death and dying?

 

Texts:

Job 19: 23-29

²³ “O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! ²⁴ O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!

²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; ²⁶ and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, ²⁷ whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me! ²⁸ If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him’; ²⁹ be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”

 

1 Corinthians 15: 12-28

¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; ¹⁴ and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. ¹⁷ If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. ²¹ For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²² for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.

 

The Land Without Tears (Ralph Carmichael)

Thru the night of regret and sorrow flow my shameless tears

Lost from sight was that glad tomorrow, naught but wasted years.

In my weakness I knelt to pray

In his kindness I heard him say:

“I’ll take you safely across the way, across the way

Into the Land without tears. Without tears. Into a land without tears.”

 

Now I know he’ll walk beside me thru the darkest night,

As go, he’ll be there to guide me in the path that’s right.

When I come to the close of day, when he speaks I will hear him say,

“I’ll take you safely across the way, across the way 

Into the Land without tears. Without tears. Into a land without tears.”

As Familiar as it Gets

The Great Commandment, as we call it, is close to our hearts. As Mennonites, we probably pay more attention to this love command than we do to the Great Commission. Love God and love others. What could be better? These verses are our favourites, as familiar to us as our own family names – as familiar as it gets. Yet somehow the point of the command eludes us.

We are indeed Mennonites – Conference Mennonites to be sure. Not MB, or EMC, or EMMC, or CMC, or any of those other Mennonite groups that came out of us; nor are we Amish or Swiss Mennonite, or BIC, or Haldeman. Come to think of it, if Mennonites emphasize love so much, why have we divided into so many groups? Perhaps this love command is harder than it sounds. Somewhere in the process our love – for God or for the other – breaks down. We want to examine this breakdown this morning, reflecting on this oh so familiar text.

Psalm 90

Our Psalm this morning locates our love for God and for other within God’s steadfast love for us. Paradoxically, it pairs God’s love for us with our pain, “Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us and as many years as we have seen evil.” The point is not that God seeks to hurt (for our own good, as our parents might have said); rather, God loves us in good times and in bad times and God’s love sustains us whatever happens around us.

Before we can talk about how we love God, we must remember that God loves us. God is always there, at every stage of our lives and in whatever situation we face, extending out arms of grace and love to carry us forward.

Matthew 22

The saying of Jesus that we read this morning comes near the end of a series of controversies between Jesus and the Pharisees. Two weeks ago, I preached on the idea that true thankfulness flows from putting on God’s character. Last week, Lee explored the difficult passage telling us to give Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s. Lee suggested that the deep implication of Jesus’ controversies with the Pharisees is that he challenges them at the level of allegiance. Do they really give their full selves to God, or do they use their passion for Torah Law to continue to order their own lives?

In the verses we read, the Pharisees return to the attack, after the Sadducees had taken their turn in a dispute over resurrection in the verses between Lee’s verses last week and ours this morning. This time, their question is simple: “What is the centre of Torah Law?” Jesus responds with “Love God, and love your neighbour.” This was a continuing question in Jesus’ day, and the Pharisees had their own rabbis who had given similar answers.

One famous exchange was with the Rabbi Hillel:

One famous account in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a) tells about a gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism. This happened not infrequently, and this individual stated that he would accept Judaism only if a rabbi would teach him the entire Torah while he, the prospective convert, stood on one foot. First he went to Shammai, who, insulted by this ridiculous request, threw him out of the house. The man did not give up and went to Hillel. This gentle sage accepted the challenge, and said: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!” (From Chabad.org)

You see how much like the Golden Rule Hillel’s response was. Jesus gives a fuller answer but in the same general direction: Love God; love your neighbour. In Luke’s gospel, the saying leads to the question, “Who is my neighbour?” This leads in turn to the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Matthew, the pharisees have no follow up. Instead, Jesus challenges their categories by reciting Psalm 110 and asking them how the Messiah – the anointed One of God – could be David’s Son and David’s Lord at the same time.

Wrestling with these Texts

Lee and I have talked together about these texts. In our conversation about Matthew 22, Lee pointed out that the human tendency is to look for a loophole that gets us off the hook. In this case, the loophole is contained in the command. “Love God”: that’s clear and we would all agree that we should love God. “Love your neighbour”: that’s also clear and we would all agree that we should love our neighbour.

When we bring them together, however, we run into problems. What if my neighbour is not only hard to love, but also actively opposed to God? Can I love God and love God’s enemy at the same time? This instinct to find a loophole is deeply held in the human race. As a pacifist, I have described to my friends the way I understand Jesus’ call to peace. Often, my friends will respond with some dilemma that they think falsifies the call to peace. “What would you do if someone broke into your house and threatened your wife? Would you not protect her in any way you could?” What my friends have done is try to find a loophole, so that Jesus’ call to peace does not apply to them.

Children have mastered the art of loopholes. When our sons were young, we were convinced they would grow up to be lawyers. They found the loopholes in all our rules, and they even drew up their own family contract, which they were equally adept at deconstructing. That’s what people do: We find the loophole.

In this case, the problem is that loving God and loving neighbour are each hard to do on its own. When we combine them, they are impossible to do fully. Our overwhelming love for God will make us intolerant of those who don’t measure up to God’s standards, or our overwhelming love for our neighbour will make us rebuke God for judging them. To love both at the same time with our whole being is impossible.

In Luke’s parallel passage, one listener grasped the problem and asked, “Who is my neighbour?” He was looking for a loophole, and Jesus closed the loophole with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Matthew, Jesus follows up the impossible command with an impossible identity. “The Messiah is the Son of David, but how can David’s Son be David’s Lord?”

The problem that arises in our text demands a solution. If Jesus tells us to love God and love our neighbour, and if loving both fully is impossible, what is our solution? What do we do? The answer is found in Jesus’ further words about the Messiah. This reference to Psalm 110 is important. No other verses from the Old Testament are quoted as often as these verses about the Messiah, David’s Son and Lord. They contain an impossible truth: The Messiah is David’s Son; and the Messiah is David’s Lord.

This inner puzzle reflects the central Christian doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus is the son of Joseph and Mary. He was a human child and grew into an adult like any of us. Jesus is also the Lord of Joseph and Mary. He is (in Paul’s words), “the image of the invisible God.” Who better than the impossible God-man to help us fulfill an impossible command?

The Through Line

You have heard of TED talks. One expert tells how to do a good TED talk: “There’s a helpful word used to analyze plays, movies, and novels; it applies to talks, too. It’s ‘through-line,’ the connecting theme that ties together each narrative element. Every talk should have one.”

His point is simple – effective communication is going somewhere. The “through-line” tells you where it’s going. What is Jesus’ through-line? Matthew records a series of controversies, in which Jesus disputes with the religious leaders. What’s his point? What is the overarching through-line that holds these controversies together? Once we answer that question, you should be able to tell what Lee and I have been preaching about for the past three weeks.

Consider the undressed wedding guest. He wanted to remain in control of his own life. Consider the saying about Caesar and God. God wants all of us – heart, soul, and mind, not just part of us. In today’s passage, Jesus shows that we can love God and neighbour only if we belong completely to God. The through-line is the question of allegiance and ownership. Who do you belong to? Who do you give full allegiance to? Who runs your life?

Jesus asked these questions of the pharisees and other religious leaders over and over again. Jesus asks us the same question. Who runs your life? Who do you owe allegiance to? Who gives you your identity here on earth?

Towards an Application

What does it look like to love God and love our neighbour? What does this life look like – giving everything to God and only giving Caesar what God permits? How do we do it? I like Ron Sider. Twenty years ago, he preached at Missionfest Manitoba, and he came to SMC and preached to us. He has an annoying tendency to hold on to both sides of the impossible command. He counsels an absolute love for God. In a book called One-Sided Christianity, he writes that if he could do any one thing over in his life, it would be to invite more people to follow Jesus. He describes the conversion of a Jewish activist against apartheid in South Africa before the days of majority rule. After this young man asked Jesus into his life, Ron said that he walked around his hotel room singing praises to God. Just as Jesus tells us that the angels in glory sing for joy when a lost child is found, so also Ron sang for joy. I know Ron, and I know that he loves the Lord.

Ron has also given his life to love for neighbour. Such love looks so much like social activism that people accuse him of selling the gospel out for social activism. Ron’s response is that loving others is simply expressing our love for God. Our love for God is central, and we express it by loving others. We have no time to fight with those who disagree with us. We’re too busy loving them. Because Ron has written publicly about the dangers of voting for Trump, some American church leaders have said that he is demon-possessed. (Bear with me. It’s a ridiculous charge, but they made it anyway.) In his reply, Ron embraced them as Christian brothers with whom he disagrees. He expressed his readiness to take communion with them and refused to condemn them for their political positions – or even for their attacks against him.

Ron has his faults, but I appreciate his desire to love God and to love others. He would agree that these commands are too hard for us – as commands. Perhaps instead of calling this the Great Commandment, we should call it the Great Invitation. Instead of thinking that we have to try really hard to love God, and then turn around and try even harder to love a difficult neighbour, perhaps Jesus is inviting us to accept his presence in us.

He is our older brother, and he is our Lord. He is the one who hurts with us and who lives in us. He is the one who dies with us and rises with us. He is the one who gives us life, a life of perfect love. If you try to keep this great commandment yourself, it will break you. If instead you hear the voice of Jesus inviting you into a new life, filled with God’s Spirit, you will find that you can step into love beyond measure, God’s love overflowing for all people.

Conclusion

Paul wrestled with the same dilemma we have been describing in Romans 7 and 8. In chapter 7, he says essentially, “When we try to keep this command in our strength, we will fail every time. We know what to do, but we just can’t do it.” In chapter 8, he gives the clincher, “What the law (you and I acting in our own abilities) cannot do, God does in us.”

⁵ Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶ The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

Who do you belong to? Who runs your life? Where does your ability to do anything come from? It is easy to spiritualize what I am saying and think that we just need to pray more and everything will be all right. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying that you can pray your way out of bad situations, or that you if you just love God, everything will be all right.

Paul said it better than I can: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to do God’s good purpose.” We work at loving each other. We work hard at loving difficult people who are also our neighbours. We do our best, “with fear and trembling”. We do so because God is at work in us. We love others because we love God. We love because God pours out God’s love in us. God’s Spirit released in us accomplishes what we cannot do on our own, and we keep the impossible command.

Focus: Often quoted, the greatest and second commandments (as outlined by Jesus) provide us with ethics, direction, hope, understanding, and identity. We often receive them as invitations to “be” a certain kind of person or to “do” specific kinds of things. Love is indeed something we need to practice, but is it something we can ever accomplish?

Going Deeper:

1. Love of God and neighbor can seem impossible, and yet Jesus identifies them as the heart of the Gospel. How do we reconcile such commands with our inability to live up to their goals?

2. What is the difference between loving God and loving our neighbor? What do they look like?

3. Think of a time when you were loved. What did it look like? What was it really about for you? Was it something that was did, or was it more like a gift, an expression of Jesus among us?

4. How can we say that this command means that we should love people who do bad things, such as the soldiers turning Palestinian peasants off their own land, or the terrorists who kill innocent children in an attack on a defenceless community, or the callous policeman whose actions lead to the death of an ordinary unoffending person? How do we love in the presence of evil actions?

Steinbach Mennonite Church

25 October 2020

Texts

Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17

God’s Eternity and Human Frailty

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. ² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

³ You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” ⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. ⁵ You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; ⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

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¹³ Turn, O Lord! How long?  Have compassion on your servants! ¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,  so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. ¹⁵ Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,  and as many years as we have seen evil.

¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants,  and your glorious power to their children. ¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,  and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands!

 Matthew 22:34-46

The Greatest Commandment

³⁴ When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵ and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷ He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The Question about David’s Son

⁴¹ Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ⁴² “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” ⁴³ He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ⁴⁴ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? 

⁴⁵ If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.