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.

….

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.