Loading...I’ve been thinking a lot about what Jesus said in response when he was tested by a lawyer with this question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Jesus said: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 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.”
We talk about the two greatest commandments a lot when we talk about what we are called to be as Jesus Followers—but not just as Jesus Followers, but people who believe in God’s presence in our lives.
Love God with everything you have and are and will be. Love your neighbors, near, far, known and unknown, as you love yourself. Put God first in your life and show your devotion to God by loving yourself so you can love others.
When we pay attention to the questions raised in our Baptismal Covenant that remind us of what it looks like to love others, we are reminded (and will be reminded again next week, when we baptize three young people), that with God’s help, we can love people through the ways we respect their dignity, seek out fairness through just laws, and all the rest.
I think we understand all this. We know none of it is easy, but we trust that God will help us, especially when it is hard to love people we may not agree with or who have hurt us.
What I think is also important to this Gospel passage is the last part of Jesus’s response. That part where Jesus says that “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
My thoughts on that have taken me to the image of the family tree hanging on the wall in our friend’s dining room. It is a sign that starts at the top with the family and parents names. Hanging below are the names of their children and their spouses, then below that there are photos of their grandchildren.
It’s a typical family tree set up. When you consider it that way, this image is one of the ways we can understand Jesus’s response to the lawyer.
Imagine that the top of the sign says, “Love God.” On the next line, it says, “Love your neighbors as you love yourself” in some pretty font. Below this, hang the individual commandments. But we don’t need the first one, because it is at the top of the sign.
Below each of the commandments, we hang some of the Levitical laws, found in the Torah, laws that are for God’s people, rules and guidelines created to help the Chosen People, the Jews, or Israelites, to help them live into the first and greatest commandment to Love God.
Below these Torah laws, which we can consider as religious and life-giving laws are messages from the Prophets. Messages that teach how to live in ways that follow the Torah law.
Every single one of the items literally hangs below the top of the sign. Every single Torah law and teaching from all the Prophets hangs from the ultimate commandments to Love God and Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Jesus is reminding us that when (or if) we ever wonder how to love God and love our neighbors, we are to pay attention to everything that hangs below it, because every statement below it is an example of loving one another, which, in turn, is loving God.
I honestly believe our faith is that simple. I believe that Jesus came into this world to remind us that our trust in God is demonstrated by the health of human relationships. When our relationships are in balance, beginning with ensuring our own lives are in balance, we are giving back to God what is God’s: we are loving God through the ways we treat one another.
I have often said that it is much easier to “love” someone than it is to “like” someone. It is easy to be trapped by behaviors and attitudes and belief systems that separate us from one another. But even though these can get in the way, that does not mean we don’t—or can’t—love others.
When we believe that God creates all humanity in God’s image, we inherently acknowledge that every human being deserves to be seen as a child of God, whether they believe it or not.
We get to choose how we acknowledge that truth. It can be in the voting booth. Or in our generosity of time, talent, and treasure to organizations that feed, house, and clothe those most in need. We might feel it most through forgiving others or even forgiving ourselves. It can be where we align our understanding of our relationship to God in the places we spend our time in the world.
We are given every opportunity to look at the world through God’s eyes. To see the beauty and the uniqueness of others and to find ways to recognize their belovedness, even—and maybe especially—when we don’t know, like, or understand choices they make.
I believe that Jesus was sent into this world because so many people in this world had forgotten all of this. God gave them so many opportunities to put their lives in order—to put God first and foremost in their lives, and if they did, everything else could fall into place.
The stories in the Old Testament, which is often referred to as the Hebrew Bible, are tales of human disobedience toward God. Stories of individuals who were called to help their fellow humans depend on and trust in God’s presence. These are told in poetry and narratives, to-do lists and to-avoid lists. They are cautionary tales, almost fairytales in some ways, to teach humanity what it means to Love God and Love your Neighbor as you do yourself. And what could happen when you don’t.
We tend, as Christians, to believe that God is love, and that we will be forgiven for our trespasses or debts, because we believe that Jesus is the source of that forgiveness. Sometimes that mentality seems pie-in-the-sky, or Pollyannaish, but when we follow the teachings and examples of Jesus, that is the image of God we are provided.
God is love. Period. How we treat that love is on us. And so, we have the two greatest commandments to guide our lives as we walk as people of faith, and particularly here, as members of the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement.
I cannot even begin to imagine how Jesus felt when people would come to him in this final week of his life, sure, but also throughout his ministry, to try to trap him into saying anything different than Love God and Love one another.
There were people throughout his ministry who would try to convince him that some people were worthy of God’s love, while others, obviously, were not. Yet over and over again, Jesus would show people what it means to love.
He fed hungry people. He healed people trapped in bodies that did not function well. He talked to women who were considered harlots. He touched people with contagious diseases and healed them. He brought the dead back to life. He ate with those who others would consider sinners and outcasts.
And he was killed because he was teaching everyone he met that every single person mattered. Unfortunately, there were some in that crowd who could not understand that. They wanted him to say, “but not that person,” or “not those people.” They did not want to be burdened with caring for those in need or talking with people who did not believe the same way they did.
They wanted what they wanted, not what God demanded: Love God, first and foremost, and show that devotion, build that relationship, by loving others, known and unknown, valuing their humanity, standing up for their dignity. Jesus was teaching and walking the walk, and these people did not like it.
We are reading stories from the last week of Jesus’s life. These stories help us better understand how some religious leaders felt challenged by this simple message of love. Some of them felt convicted when they realized that they were not living out the first commandment, especially when they reflected on all the ways they treated the people they were supposed to serve.
As the liturgical year draws to an end over the next month, these stories remind us why Jesus comes in the first place. We take time here to learn how upside down the world was then. We devote time to hearing the questions Jesus was asked, the pushback he continually received, and the pressure they placed on him, trying to get him to give them permission to continue doing what they were doing, and looking for anything he might say to make them feel good about themselves.
But he did not give in to their self-serving expectations. Instead, he continued to remind them of what their own Torah law required of them. To love God first, and to love God’s people with dignity and respect, with protection and promise.
At one of the times our Bishop Terry preached here, he reminded us that there are no asterisks following these two commandments. There are no lists of people who are not included in “love one another.” No exceptions to the breadth of God’s love for us.
Jesus came to say the same thing. And in today’s Gospel, he reminds the lawyer and everyone else who was listening, that Loving God and Loving Others have a lot hanging from them. He reminds them that what is hanging from them is their own Torah Law and all the messages from the Prophets. They have everything they need to know the meaning of and all the ways to Love.
And so do we.
Please turn to the first page of your leaflet to the Collect of the Day and pray this prayer with me.
Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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