5 November 2018

"Love God, Love Your Neighbour" (sermon)


Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
November 4, 2018
Scripture Reading:  Mark 12:28-34


You know how when you watch a TV show, sometimes the episodes begin with a quick recap of what happened on last week’s episode?  I almost feel like this weeks reading from Mark’s gospel needs to be prefaced with, “Here’s what you missed last week on The Bible.”

The church year begins with Advent and moves through Christmas, Epiphany, on to Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost; and then we have a great long stretch of time until we get to the last Sunday of the church year when we look forward to the Reign of Christ.  Our readings from Mark’s gospel from Christmas, through Easter and Pentecost, and on until about the middle of September were all focused on Jesus’ ministry close to home, in the region of Galilee.  We had stories about Jesus calling his disciples, and healing people, and teaching people.  And then around the middle of September, we reached the first big pivot-point in the story.  Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and then told them that he was going to die, but then would be raised back to life.

After that moment, Jesus and his disciples began their journey from Galilee, south towards Jerusalem, and Jesus’ teaching began to take on an increased urgency.

Now if you have been following our readings from week-to-week, you might have noticed that between last week and this week, we have skipped over a chapter and a half of Mark’s gospel.  In that chapter, Jesus and his followers entered the city of Jerusalem, which marks the next big pivot-point in Mark’s gospel.

We are now into the last couple of days of Jesus’ life, and his teachings are taking on an even greater sense of urgency and importance.

And here we have a scribe, one of the temple officials, asking Jesus, what is the greatest commandment of all.  Here is Jesus’ opportunity to leave his listeners with one final message.  Here is Jesus’ opportunity to sum up his entire teaching into a quick soundbite.  Maybe you want to compare it to a lawyer’s closing argument at a trial; maybe you want to compare it to a politician’s final speech before retiring; maybe you want to compare it to the last page on a book – the words that are left in your ear and in your mind once you are done.

And Jesus chooses to quote from Deuteronomy and Leviticus – two of the books of the Torah, the 5 books that are the books of the law or the teachings for all Jewish people.  These are books that the Scribe as a devout Jewish person would have been intimately familiar with; and they are books that Jesus as a devout Jewish person would have grown up hearing, and then spent his ministry teaching from.

And Jesus begins by quoting from Deuteronomy, the words of the Shema, the words of the prayer that is prayed every day by every Jewish person.  “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

And then he goes on to quote from Leviticus, which, on the surface, might appear to be a book of lists of things that you are supposed to do and not do.  But there, in the middle of chapter 19 of Leviticus, comes this summary statement:  “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”  All of the dos and do-nots in the verses leading up to this one are about doing the decent thing by your neighbour; about treating your neighbour as you would want to be treated yourself.

That’s it.  Jesus’ summary of God’s commandments; Jesus’ summary of everything that he has been teaching and doing; it all comes down to this:  Love God.  Love your neighbour.  This is the core, the centre of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  Love God.  Love your neighbour.

Now some of you might be thinking, and I know that I sometimes think this, but some people are so much easier to love than others.  How can I love someone that I don’t particularly like?

Believe me, we aren’t the first ones to struggle with this!  A couple of my favourite authors have addressed this very question.

Madeline L’Engle is maybe best known these days for her book A Wrinkle in Time which was made in to a movie earlier this year.  In the sequel to this book, A Wind in the Door, one of the characters, Meg, is struggling to love a character that she doesn’t really like – namely the principal at her school, Mr. Jenkins.  Meg asks, “how can I do the impossible? … How can I feel love for Mr. Jenkins?” and she is told, “Love isn’t how you feel.  It’s what you do.”[1]  Love isn’t how you feel – it’s what you do.

C. S. Lewis, well known for writing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, along with the rest of the Narnia books, also wrote many theology books.  In his book Mere Christianity he suggests that the way to find love for our neighbours that aren’t particularly likeable is not “to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings… Do not waste time bothering whether you love your neighbour; act as if you did.”[2]  He goes on to suggest that the same rule applies to loving God – that we should ask ourselves, “If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?  [and] when you have found the answer, go and do it.”[3]

So loving our neighbour or loving God comes down to how we live, and how we act towards them.  Our love is more than something that we feel – it is something that we do, something that we live.

This week, for All Saints Day, we have been remembering all of the saints of the church – all of the women and men of faith who have come before us, who have led the way in faith, who have mentored us, who have taught us, who have inspired us.  These are women and men of faith who have modeled for us how to live this love – how to live life loving God and loving neighbour.

And so we give thanks for the saints we have known, and for the saints we have heard or read about.  We give thanks for their lives and for their faith; and we pray that we too might be inspired by the Holy Spirit to live out this love that comes from God.  And we can be confident that God isn’t done with us yet – that the Holy Spirit is always transforming us more and more into the image of Christ so that we too can be drawn into the eternal dance of love that is God.

May it be so.
Amen.

 
The "Great Cloud of Witnesses" for All Saints Day
Triptych from the chapel of the Atlantic School of Theology
Photo Credit:  Falen McNulty
 


[1] Madeleine L’Engle, A Wind in the Door (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1973), 117-118.
[2] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Harper, 1952), 130-131.
[3] Ibid., 132.

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