"Deciding to Love"
Sermon Presented October 23, 2005
Matthew 22:34-40
Whenever I read our text for this morning, I feel guilty. How can I expect you to do what I cannot do on a consistent basis? I am expected to talk the talk - it's my job to proclaim - but I also need to walk the walk, and this is where the difficulty comes in. I decided that by working on these issues and struggling with Jesus' words and commands, I can relate to our common struggles and help discern God's word for us!
I don't think I'm rationalizing my slow progress in the area of love when I say that the Christian life is a journey and that none of us arrives at perfection in this lifetime. For this reason I continue to focus on my belief that God loves me and has more patience with me than I have with myself. I also believe that God forgives me when I fail to love as I should. I hope this doesn't sound like a cop-out!
Let's look at this familiar text together - a text found in Matthew 22:34-40. (There are 6 additional verses in the lectionary reading, but I decided that I have my hands full with these verses!) (Read text.)
At the Wisconsin Region Annual Meeting a week ago, I had a somewhat heated conversation with a fellow minister who was preparing to lead a discussion on Forgiveness the next day. (This minister is a good friend and a member of the same Lilly Group as I.) She made the statement that we have no options when it comes to forgiveness. We must forgive all offenses against us immediately and move on. My argument to her was (and is) that I can easily forgive the person who cuts me off on the highway or crowds in front of me in the check-out line. I can easily forgive my children or grandchildren because of my great love for them. But there are some issues that are so devastating that they can't be forgiven at will and must be worked through over a period of months or even years. I used as examples divorce and victimization by abuse. She countered that we won't be forgiven by God unless we forgive the offender immediately and completely!
I couldn't turn loose of this issue and when I saw her the next day at lunch - in fact I looked for her - I again brought up the topic! I told her that we can decide in our minds and hearts to forgive someone, but this decision only opens the door to begin the process of forgiveness. My Christian training tells me that when I recognize a need to forgive, I should begin working on it. But to accomplish forgiveness I must have a change of heart and this takes time. Again she disagreed vehemently. I must admit that I haven't changed my mind - nor has she, but I do continue to grapple with the issue and her understanding of it!
I believe that loving others is in the same category as forgiveness, but I think it's easier to love than to forgive because you don't need to have loving feelings to do loving acts toward someone. But forgiveness involves more than an action; feelings are involved! By doing loving acts toward a person, positive feelings may come, but not necessarily! So today, I'm glad I'm speaking of love and not forgiveness!
Let's look at the text. An attorney - a Pharisee - asks Jesus to define the greatest commandment, and Jesus pulls out two commandments from a massive legal code to answer his question. (Ancient scribal tradition taught that the law consisted of no less than 613 commands: 365 prohibitions - one for each day of the year - and 268 positive commands: one for each part of the human body.) The first commandment Jesus speaks is from what the Jews call the Shema, which means "to hear." It's the Jewish confession of faith that begins "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." But then Jesus adds a second command that is also part of the legal code: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." He hooks the two together, giving them equal importance, and then says that ALL of the laws and the prophets are based on these two commands.
For me, the best way to picture what Jesus says is to imagine a wheel - with these two commandments as the hub and the other 611 laws as spokes emanating from the hub. Everything we do should be connected to this hub.
So here we are, listening to Jesus' command to love God and love people with equal attention, and some reply: "Is that all there is to it? If that's all there is, then I can accomplish that just as easily on the banks of the lake with a fishing pole in hand, watching a ball kicked through the goalpost, shopping in Door County or sitting on the beach as I can in church. I don't need to attend worship services to love!"
I disagree (but what else would you expect from a minister) and contend that we need one another in the Christian community for support in loving God and others and for a place to test our progress. When church leaders do their part and parishioners show up to interact with God and with one another, our attitudes and acts of love are honed. However, mainline churches often cop out of our responsibilities because we don't want to appear too dogmatic or ruffle anyone's feathers. We are lax about proclaiming the need for Sabbath practice, tithing, prayer, worship, scripture study and fighting injustice. If the church does what the church is supposed to do, we will have frequent reminders of what it means to love God and one another. As we work with people we may not like, we will learn what loving others is all about. When we stay away from worship and our Christian family, we miss the abrasive contact with God and others that shows us our need to worship and to love. Through these relationships, we are challenged in our call to love one another - and our call to love God.
We can universalize love but it's the nitty-gritty relationships that test us. We are seldom challenged to love the Muslims in the Middle East or the Hindus in India because we're not there! (This changes when there's an earthquake and we need to do tangible acts of love by sending aid.) However, our challenges come with our spouse, children, neighbor, teacher, boss, colleague, grocery clerk and fellow church member. It's one thing to love humankind and quite another to love the bully, abuser, ex-husband, or in laws. We need to enlarge our boundaries of love to include those who appear to be unlovable.
Now, let's go back and reemphasize a point I made earlier that love isn't a feeling but a commitment to loving action. Christian love isn't sentimentality but more like covenant love or steadfast love as proclaimed in the Hebrew scripture. Jesus expanded this command even more when he said to love our enemies - to do loving acts toward them!
How do we act in love toward someone we don't like - or someone who has hurt us deeply? Do we snub them, purposely avoid them or make caustic statements to them or about them? How do we love God when God seems distant or inaccessible? Jesus says that our relationship with God and people is to be based on love. Our relationship with God is a vertical relationship and our relationship with people is horizontal and inextricably woven into the first. Even though they are inseparable, neither is absorbed into the other. I might add that some people who are atheists do a much better job of keeping the second command than some of us who claim to be Christians.
We must love God first and then extend God's love to others. The first commandment remains the first commandment. God remains the ultimate point of reference for living. Prayer, public and private worship, the search for truth about God and a serious wrestling with faith issues are essential to loving God with our hearts, minds, and souls.
On our faith journey, we experience detours, roadblocks, dead-ends, and slippery and bumpy roads. And even though we never completely arrive at our destination, we make forward progress when we follow Jesus. Jesus doesn't give us options here. The command is to love.
I John 4:20 says: "If you don't love a brother or sister whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen?" That's strong language! When John wrote this, I'll bet he didn't know some of the people we know! Of course it's easier to love someone we can't see than an ever present one who irritates us and rubs up against us ways that makes us miserable. John tells us that there is no evidence of our love for God unless we treat others right. When we show no justice or mercy or love toward others, our worship of God is a sham.
We grow in love for God and others while in community - while in the church. When we work closely with others, we can either grow in love for one another or we can alienate ourselves from them. Let's face it; Christians are quite different from one another - socially, politically, and theologically. What pulls us together is our desire to follow Jesus. In community we must learn to do love toward those who differ from us.
When Jesus calls us to love our neighbors, he isn't asking us to tolerate them. "I'm right and you're wrong, but I'll tolerate your ungrounded theology, politics or social agenda." No! Jesus says to actively love them. It's not "them and us," but "we" in community.
Here is a practical tip for building love relationships. Decide to accept another unconditionally, not just when he or she does what you want or believes what you believe or says what you want to hear. You notice I said "decide" because it's an act of the will to take this step. And our motivation to act in love isn't in hopes the other will change, because that may never happen.
There can never be enough laws to cover all of the ethical decisions we need to make every day of our lives as we live in community. In freedom, God calls us to make our ethical decisions based on love - love for God and love for others. Those who love God and their neighbors possess the basics for making right choices.
As I practiced this sermon this morning I decided to change the conclusion because of a conversation I had last night with Sherrie. She told me a story from a Max Lucado study they are doing at their church in Marysville. In a video story, the speaker was the younger man in the following story.
A young belligerent man moved next door to an eighty-year-old man who tried every way he could to reach the man with kindness. Each effort was met with rebuff. One day the younger man was in an accident and confined to his home. One day he heard a mower and the old man was mowing his lawn. He shouted to him that he didn't intend to pay him, to which the man replied that he expected no pay.
The mowing continued for many weeks. One day the old man needed to leave town and asked his son to mow the neighbor's lawn for him. When the young man noticed someone else mowing his lawn, he questioned the man. He was told that the man's dad asked him to mow since he would be gone. A change came over the injured neighbor - a change that eventually resulted in his becoming a Christian and a member of the old man's church. God worked through continuing acts of love to touch a neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself! Amen
