Matthew 22:34-46 "Four Letter Words"

         The setting is Jerusalem, the Holy City.  The season is Passover, just a couple of days before Jesus’ arrest in the garden, his subsequent monkey trial, and his unbearably painful and humiliating crucifixion. 

Prior to this particular day, in the name of Yahweh/God and the Holy One’s dream for the world, in the name of Yahweh/God and all that this God of Israel stood for, Jesus had entered the City riding a donkey.  Since then, he had been doing just about everything possible to get on the wrong side of the Jewish temple hierarchy: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the priests and temple scholars who survived and thrived only because they were in the pocket of the oppressive Roman Empire.

         So far, Jesus had cursed a fig tree that had wilted and died before their very eyes.  He had told three offensive parables – one about two sons, one about a wicked tenant farmer, and one about a wedding feast – all of them designed to uplift the down-and-out and the honest ones and scare the pants off the powerful and mighty.  In a fit of anger that not even his disciples had ever witnessed before, he had wreaked havoc in the temple atrium, freeing sacrificial doves and lambs, overturning tables, scattering tribute money, and whipping the vendors who tried to stand their ground.  

         In the atmosphere of heightened fear and hostility that he had singlehandedly created, with their power and prestige challenged, it was no wonder that the temple hotshots were out to get Jesus.  And so, on this sunlit morning, the testing committee arrived, led by the brightest and the best of the Old Guard.  They were convinced that they were coming from a position of strength, intending to use the 613 laws of Moses as their battleground and their nitpicking questions as weapons. They were certain that they could outwit and outfox a backwater Messiah wannabee if for no other reason than because everyone knew that nothing good ever came out of Nazareth.

         In their little minds warped by their own sense of power, the questioners figured it would be like a first century reality show.  The point was to test Jesus, throw him off his game by entangling him in endless complicated disputes, so that he would end up, perhaps unwittingly, giving answers that were either stupid or downright blasphemous.  Then they would victoriously send him home, humiliated, his tail between his legs, his Messiah dreams destroyed – all this with lots of people watching. 

As Methodist pastor, Alyce MacKenzie imagines: “Let’s see if Jesus can sing a cappella like on ‘Sing Off’.  Or lose fat and gain muscle like on the ‘Biggest Loser.’ Let’s see if Jesus can dance for us like on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’.  Let’s see if he can survive in the wilderness like on ‘Survivor.’  Let’s find out if he can cook like on ‘Chopped’…. Let’s give the savior a pop quiz and see if he passes.”

         And so they do.  Curious listeners come and go, but the debate continues non-stop.  The Pharisees ask about taxes and what should be rightfully paid to Caesar and what should be set aside for God.  When Jesus’ response made sense even to those trying to trip him up, they fabricated an outlandish scenario about a woman who had been married seven times and who had outlived all her husbands before she herself died.  Then they wanted to know whose wife she would be in heaven. 

When Jesus neatly got himself out of that little imbroglio, they pulled out all the stops and asked him what they were so certain would trip him up.  A temple scholar with slicked-back hair and eyes that glittered with malice carefully clear his throat before he stepped forward in the late afternoon sun. He paused dramatically prior to dropping the big one, the question on which all the hopes of the temple Old Guard lay: “So, Jesus,” he queried, “Of all those 613 commandments given to us by Moses himself, what is the greatest commandment?”

The crowd gasped and leaned in closer to hear Jesus’ answer.  His response was almost a prayer, so like the daily Shema that every good Jew repeated each day: “‘You shall love the Lord your Go with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.‘ This is the greatest and first commandment.” 

And then when everyone nodded and turned to leave or began to murmur amongst themselves, figuring that this was Jesus’ final answer to a final question, our rabbi declared, “Oh, hold it a minute.  There is more.  Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

One blogger I read had this to say about the final bombshell Jesus dropped. “What probably was a bit surprising to the Pharisees was the second commandment that Jesus lumps together with the first. ’You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

This commandment comes from Leviticus 19:18 and was a much lesser known commandment than the first one Jesus talks about. It’s a bold move by Jesus to elevate this commandment to the level of the scripture that inspired the Shema. Jesus is really throwing a curveball at the Pharisees. How can you put love of neighbor on the same level as love of God?

And if we’re really looking to complicate things even more, how can you love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself? Love of self is implied in order to love one’s neighbor. So now, in a sense, we have three great commandments: Love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self. Confusing stuff, and probably not what the Pharisees were expecting to hear.”

All in all, the rest of the afternoon fell apart.  Jesus ended up asking questions of the Pharisees, questions they could not answer.  And as suppertime neared and the crowd dispersed, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the priests and religious scholars faded one by one into the inner sanctum of the temple.  They left in silence, and we are told that no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. 

Because, you see, in the end, there was only one question, a question that lies at the heart of Christianity, a question that arises mostly unanswered in moderate Protestant congregations worldwide today as cultural priorities shift and attendance drops on Sunday mornings and families read the newspaper or cheer for their little athletes or drop their kids off for voice lessons instead.  What does it mean to love God – and oh, wait a minute, there is more, to also love your neighbor as yourself? 

That is the question that lies at the root of who we envision ourselves to be as the church, and specifically, as the church here in Raymond.  What does it mean to love God – and love your neighbor?  Who is God, and who exactly is my neighbor?  And just how do I go about loving them?  How are these two commandments that Jesus lumped together as the single most important commandment intertwined?  Wrestling with these questions – and living these questions -  lies at the heart of discipleship, at the heart of who we proclaim ourselves to be as Christians.

A man was working on a crossword puzzle and was having trouble getting a couple of the words to fit with each other.  He asked, "What’s a four-letter word for a strong emotional reaction toward a difficult person?"

Someone listening said, "The answer is hate."

Someone else exclaimed, "No, wait, the answer is love!"

Though that little four letter word certainly does have an emotional element, Biblical love is more than a feeling.  Lutheran pastor Clayton Schmit put it this way: “To love God with all our heart, mind, and soul seems nearly impossible when we think of love as an emotion. How does one conjure up feelings for something as remote, mysterious, and disembodied as the concept of God? We cannot look into God's eyes, wrap our arms around the Spirit, or even see the face of Jesus.

Likewise, loving our neighbor is difficult. If love is merely our passive response to the person next to us, we are likely to be more often repulsed than moved to love. How can one legitimately look into the face of an enemy and feel unqualified love? It is nearly impossible.

But, biblical love is not passive (Schmit goes on to say). It is not something that occurs to us without our control or will. Biblical love is something we do…. To love (one’s) neighbor as oneself is to act toward the other as one would act toward those close to you. We treat the stranger as well as we treat those that we love emotionally.” 

Schmit seems to be saying (and I agree with him) that we can control Biblical love.  It is something we choose to do.  In short, when we love God's people, we are always, and at the same time, loving God. In fact, that is the only true way we can love God.

Love as the commandment that Jesus put forth as the single greatest one is not what we feel.  It is what we do – and it is always a choice.  Loving God and loving your neighbor are not just similar statements.  They are one and the same.  Only when we are loving our neighbor are we really loving God.  Only when we are intentionally engaged with the world – with God’s creation – are we capable of loving God.  

I like what Episcopal priest Rick Morley had to say about the church and worship in this creative tension between love of God and love of neighbor. 

You see, I think so most if not all of us come to worship with the express purpose of demonstrating our love for God.  We get up early on a Sunday morning, and we sit in these hard, wooden pews for an hour or so.  We praise God through heartfelt prayer and phenomenal music and by avidly listening to Scripture and by trying to keep our eyes open during the sermon.  Surely that is showing our love for God.

And, yet, listen to what Morley has to say: “The Church spends a lot of time on a lot of things. We have programs and initiatives, we have theological arguments and conversations, we build buildings and we seek to expand our reach. But, we cannot forget the core, the foundation of love.

We are redeemed by love, and we are to be known for our love of others. Love for those near us, and those far; those like us, and those alien to us; those who we like, and those who we have a hard time stomaching; those who are nice to us, and those who have injured us greatly; those who think like us, vote like us, pray like us, and those who work for the very opposite things. We love. We encourage love. We are to build people and communities and cultures on love.”

In the end, being a Christian, being the church in a difficult, jaded, oftentimes selfish and cynical world, is about being passionate about love – having a passion for God and a passion for the world.  It is about trusting that, with God’s help, this crazy mixed up world we live in can be transformed at least in the direction of God’s dream of justice and peace. 

Can you imagine a world where there would be no hunger because we could not sleep at night if our neighbors did not have something to eat?  Can you imagine a world without war because we could not imagine subjecting our neighbor to anything we would not want done to us - and they would not be able to imagine doing it to us, either?  And can you imagine politics in such a world - no negative ads, no deceit and dirty tricks and hidden agendas?  There would be no alternative facts, and not even fake news would be able to get a foothold in that world that God dreams of.

Loving God and loving one’s neighbor is about realizing that God is seldom found hanging around churches but instead is discovered when we step outside of our own little world and actively engage with the vast and beautiful tapestry of humanity all around us. 

We can say we love God when we come to church every Sunday, but we really do not love God if we are not actively concerned with and engaged in the world. Love:  It is a four-letter word that is tricky in its seeming simplicity. The more we love, the more we know God and viscerally understand what God is like.  The more we love those around us, the more we love God. 

In the end, that four-letter word lies at the foundation of who we are as Christians.  It grounds us. It anchors us.  It connects us to our neighbor which, in turn, connects us to God.  How we as a congregation actively and intentionally express that love and those connections will define us as a church and will determine how many people enter those doors to be a meaningful part of this community.

Whether or not we survive and thrive as a church is our choice, and it is as simple and as complicated as a four-letter word and how we as a congregation choose, with God’s help, to express it.  As we enter our stewardship season when you will be asked to financially support the ministries of our church, my prayer is that, as I said to our son, Paddy, and his new wife, Megan, when I officiated at their wedding this past weekend – when all is said and done, and only faith, hope, and love remain, for you (and for us as a church), may the greatest of these have been love.