| | | |  | Second Congregational Church, UCC*
Hillside Street, Bennington, Vermont (802) 442-2559
"resolutely inclusive, spiritually alive, and empowered for ministry in the world." |
|
|
|
| |
“First Things First” -- October 26, 2008 Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18, Matthew 22:34-46
Posted: October 28th, 2008 @ 10:04am
A few years before Jesus was born, the great Jewish Rabbi Hillel was challenged to teach all of Torah while standing on one leg. (And you thought the ancients had no sense of humor!) The wise rabbi’s response, delivered while poised on one foot, was “What is hateful to you do not do to others. The rest is commentary, now go learn.”
There’s no mention of body position, but in this passage from Matthew, Jesus is essentially challenged to do the same thing. “Teacher,” the lawyer from the Pharisees asks him, “which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Now there were 613 commandments in the law, each of which the Pharisees were bound and determined to keep. Jesus has withstood two other delegations from the authorities who have tried to entrap him–first an unlikely combination of Pharisee disciples and Herodians (lackeys of King Herod) and then a crew from the Sadducees. This is a classic situation in the ancient mid-east world, this public debate or argument, called riposte, which remains in our language as a fencing term. A person’s honor was reinforced or diminished by how well they rose to the challenge of these public arguments, which is why some of Jesus’ comments seem unnecessarily harsh to us, when in fact, they were precisely what allowed him to have a hearing in his culture. Our presidential debates are perhaps as close as we get to this kind of thing, with an outward politeness but an underlying tension.
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus would no doubt have known Hillel’s answer – “What is hateful to you do not do to others. The rest is commentary.” Jesus answers skillfully, using the positive statements from Torah–“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ [It is the shema, the commandment which Jews were to recite first thing in the morning, to post on their doorjams, to carry in little boxes attached to their foreheads.) This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ [which we read in Leviticus a few moments ago]. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Jesus hangs all the law and the prophets on love. As professor Tom Long says, “The whole law is about love, not rules,....[It is] about really loving God and one’s neighbor, not about figuring out how to avoid stepping on cracks in the legal sidewalk.” (Cited in the UCC’s online resource, Samuel, from Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion)
Now, we might wonder how humans can be commanded to love–to love God or neighbor or anything else. Surely there are things about how God has arranged the universe that we do not love–things like the unfairness of life–“Why do the wicked prosper?” as the psalmist asks–or the tragic death of innocents or the apparent allowance of evil and violence. What is there to love? And to love our neighbors, when they can be thoroughly unloveable? When they cheat or kill or betray or do harm to others? And the command to love them as ourselves can lead to a whole discussion about how we really may not love ourselves all that much, riddled as we are with regrets or failures or flaws. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ [Jesus said.] This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
“In an age when the word ‘love’ is greatly abused,’ Douglas Hare writes, “it is important to remember that the primary component of biblical love is not affection but commitment.” (Cited in Samuel, op cit.) Commitment is a setting of the heart, something we choose to do, a way we freely choose to live our lives, a mixture of feeling and action. One example of this comes from a pastor who, based upon the witness and clear testimony of two older women in her church, decided to raise her pledge to a tithe, the giving of a tenth of her income. She found that the more invested she was in her church, the more she came to love her church, the more committed she was to its well-being and faithfulness. Not a bad story to keep in mind as we enter into this upcoming stewardship season, as challenging and even as scary as it may be this year. What is it that we love, that we are committed to?
The character of the heart in ancient Jewish psychology depended upon its orientation. What was it centered in, where was its fundamental loyalty? Jesus called his followers to center their lives in God, not in the other rival centers like family, country, religion, or race.
We live in unsettled and unsettling times. In 9 days we will elect a new president and vice-president. The financial markets both here and around the world are in disarray. There is a nervousness about how this all will affect our jobs, our pensions, our ability to pay our bills and commitments, not to mention all the unknown spin-offs on a national and international level that we never even knew we should be worrying about! So much seems – and is--out of our control. Choices have been made for us by people and forces unknown to us, unknown by us.
But there is a choice still and always available to us. That is the choice to center our lives in love, rather than its opposite, which is not hate but rather fear. “What is the greatest commandment?” “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength and the second is like it–You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
When all the usual props and scenery of our lives are crumbling or in question, it can give us a kind of clarity as to what is essential and what isn’t. We may find unexpected gifts in the midst of this recession. The price of gasoline has gone down because we are driving less. Did we really need to be doing all that driving before? In those big, gas-guzzling vehicles? Might not our health be improved by walking or biking more and our environment improved by carpooling or taking public transportation or driving less? Might we not discover – or re-discover– ways of entertaining ourselves that don’t depend on spending money? Might we not find ways of sharing and working with others so that the burden on each individual is lessened? One of the lessons of this financial crisis is how intricately connected we are to people and institutions around the world, just as the environmental crisis has taught us just how connected we are to all the creatures and features of the earth. It is a small world, after all. Might we not come to think of taking care of the health of our bodies, minds, and spirit as a contribution to the common good, as we engage in more and more preventative health practices like exercise, healthy eating, daily prayer and meditation, to cut down on doctor visits and medications?
“To love God,” writes one commentator, “is to be devoted to a basic and fundamental reality that runs through all of life and creation...a reality that beckons us to live better than we live....that exists as already present, an Empire ‘within you,’ that can be as powerful in the shaping of human life and relationships as we want it to be.” (Stephen J. Patterson, in Samuel)
We can choose to orient our lives toward that Reality.
Author and mystic Thomas Merton wrote about what it means to orient our lives toward the Reality of love–
“To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason fro my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. If, there, I do anything or think anything or say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfilment, or joy. To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God.” (A Book of Hours, ed. Kathleen Deignan)
We can “enter into the sanctuary,... which is the mystery of God” in prayer and meditation, in practicing mindfulness and awareness in the midst of our activities and our relationships. It takes practice, even while it is a gift from God.
Love and hate in Jesus’ culture were less about emotions and primarily about belonging. Love meant being attached to a group, which, in a very practical sense, was a matter of survival. “Hate” meant to detach from someone or something. Marcus Borg call these two command-ments–to love God and love neighbor as oneself-- the “two great relationships.” And “justice [he says] is the social form of love.” (The Heart of Christianity)
The love that we choose to orient our lives toward in these challenging times must be as strong and dense and complex as the times demand. Not only are we as individuals and we as a community of faith called to this love of God and love of neighbor, we are called to live that out in acts of both charity and justice. “Charity is commendable,” writes journalist Bill Moyers; “everyone should be charitable. But justice aims to create a social order in which if individuals choose not to be charitable, people will not go hungry, unschooled or sick without care. Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; faith-based justice offers a place at the table.” (From Foreward in Faith Works: the Life of an Activist Preacher by Jim Wallis)
That’s where we come back to next week’s election. “Liberty and justice for all” we pledge ourselves to in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. How we structure our life together, what we orient our lives toward, matters. We bring our faith with us into the voting booth.
“What is the greatest commandment?” the lawyer asked Jesus. ““You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength and the second is like it–You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” May these words be focus and grounding and challenge for us as the events in our world and in our lives swirl around us. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. On these two commandments hang all the rest of life. May it be so. Amen.
|
|
