There was an entertainer in the ‘80’s in Detroit that I
truly enjoyed. She had this song that
went I’m so happy I could blank…The car blew up. The dog ran away the bills are piling up and
there’s just no way to pay but I’m so happy….
As I reflect on today’s Gospel I first cannot help but think
upon what it is in response too. The
Sadducees have just tried to trip Jesus up on the law asking about marriage in
heaven and the resurrection. (Mathew 22: 23-33)
So The Pharisees figured they would have their turn, remember they are
seeking an excuse to have Jesus shut down.
So the Pharisees have a lawyer ask him a question on the
greatest of the law. When we think of
lawyers they may have a better profile then they had in the past, or not. We often think of TV lawyers such as Perry
Mason, or maybe even the current Annalise Keating in how to get away with
murder. Or perhaps with current events
our thoughts go to Ted Olsen and Davis Boies our Marriage equality super
lawyers.
Here the term lawyer has a specific context. This Pharisee who is also a lawyer is only a
lawyer for Jewish and temple law. His
concern is not about Roman law nor is he concerned with anyone who is not of
the Jewish faith. “Pharisees claimed Mosaic authority for their interpretation
of Jewish Laws, while Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly
privileges.”[1]
Forgive my Wikipedia reference, but it is true the Sadducees represented the
rich and the elite or the politically influential. Whereas the Pharisees represent the common
people. The reason I point this out is
so you can see the two groups who are often in opposition to each other are
working towards the same goal…eliminate Jesus and his movement!
Now when the Pharisee asks “Teacher, which commandment in
the law is the greatest?” He is really
hoping to trip Jesus up in a big way for you see in modern times when we think
of the law we think of the Ten Commandments but when a Pharisee reflects upon
the law he is looking at Probably 613 commandments.[2] These commandments come from Leviticus,
Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Kings.
These commandments refer to the worship of Yahweh, The temple and the Priests,
Sacrifices, Vows, Ritual Purity, Tithes and offerings in the sanctuary and
about 20 other categories.
Dan Clendenin clarifies this even
further he states;
The "holiness code" in Leviticus specifies in
minute detail clean and unclean foods, purity rituals after childbirth or a
menstrual cycle, regulations for skin infections and contaminated clothing or
furniture, prohibitions against contact with a human corpse or dead animal,
instructions about nocturnal emissions, laws regarding bodily discharges,
guidelines about planting seeds and mating animals, keeping the Sabbath,
forsaking idols, tattoos, and extensive decrees about sex. Leviticus 18
codifies about twenty types of (un)lawful sexual relations.
Some of
these ancient commands seem self-evident. We gladly follow them today and
neglect them at our peril. Honor your parents. Take special care of the poor,
the blind, the deaf, and the alien. Don't steal or lie. Don't have sex with
your parent, your child, or an animal. Don't cheat your employee or your
customers.
But side by
side with these timeless truths are other commands that are lost to a different
time and place, and we feel no compunction in ignoring them today — don't mate
different kinds of animals, plant your field with two kinds of seeds, cut the
hair at the sides of your head, or wear garments made of two kinds of
materials. Similarly, we rightly ignore some of the punishments for breaking
these "laws," like the death penalty for cursing your parents or
adultery.
Scholars debate how much or how little ordinary first-century
Jews concerned themselves with maintaining "ritual purity" by obeying
the holiness code in Leviticus, but the Pharisees about whom we read so much in
the Gospels certainly did. And so in the Gospel for this week a Pharisee who is
described as an "expert" in the law "tested Jesus with this question:
'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?'" (Matthew 22:36).
Dan Clendenin Goes on to ponder;
Maybe this
was a trick question designed to trap Jesus. If he privileged a single
commandment, didn't that mean he neglected others? How dare he imply that we
can wink at some of God's laws! Or if he suggested that all the commandments
were equally weighty, didn't that contradict common sense? Surely a tattoo
(Leviticus 19:28) isn't as morally weighty as child sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21)!
Or maybe the expert was posing an honest inquiry: "Lord, so many commands!
How should we understand them all? Are some more important than others?"
Buried deep
in that holiness code was one, single command, Leviticus 19:18, that Jesus said
was more important than the 611 other commands. Jesus responded that the most
important commandment is this: "'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the
Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength' [Deuteronomy 6:4]. The
second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself' [Leviticus 19:18]. There is no
commandment greater than these." The questioner liked Jesus's answer and
affirmed that these two commands were "more important than all burnt
offerings and sacrifices."[3]
So here is Jesus, who they believe they will trip up because
there are so many laws and yet Jesus answers promptly with Deuteronomy 6:5 “You
shall love your God with all your Heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your might.” Quick and easy
answer…right???
How easy is it to love God with all your heart, soul and
might? I am sure you have heard me say, and I said it often when I worked with
hospice, it is okay to be angry with God.
It is also okay to struggle with what God has placed on your heart. The problem is sometimes we allow the anger
to consume us instead of allowing us to reach an understanding or
forgiveness. Sometimes we allow the
struggle to become the thing, the reality, instead of allowing ourselves to
learn and grow.
So Jesus is not only answering the question legally but I
believe in his ministry of words and deeds he is challenging us through this
scripture here and now. One of my favorite scenes in Jesus Christ superstar is
the agony in the garden. We have a Christ
portrayed as very human asking …then shouting at God tell me why I must die! I
have heard so many people say “God will not give you more than you can
handle” I am sorry to say it, but I must
ask, with freedom of choice how much of our own suffering has God given us, or
is it just the way the world works and God is with us through it all?
I tend to believe the latter. In other words…I am not saying all that
befalls us good or evil as it may be perceived is brought on by ourselves, yet
I do not believe that God is a mighty puppeteer controlling all that does
happen. Therefore when we get angry with
God because the car blew up and the Dog ran away etc. It’s okay to get angry
with God…Heck I would even venture to say it is okay to get angry with God with
all your heart, all your soul and all your might.
The trick is to move
through that and come to the other side.
The trick is to know there are things we have no control over. And after
we are angry, and after we have struggled, then we can turn and say I can’t do
this! I can’t get rid of this anger. I
can make no sense of this! God into your
hands I place this. God made us to be
fully human and fully alive and part of that fullness is there are moments when
we do not Love God or worse yet there are moments when we feel we are not loved
by God. In both of these the assurance
and the understanding come through our faith and the lessons that Christ has
taught us.
Speaking of lessons Christ has taught us brings me to the
second part of today’s Gospel that I want to focus upon. Jesus says the second greatest law is this
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” Leviticus 19:18. Yep taken right out of those 600 and some
commandments. Again Jesus is making it
clear and easy how to follow God. I’ll
just love you as I love and care for myself.
You see, this is easy, easy because I love you all, and I know how to
love and care for myself perfectly all the time. The pastor stated very sarcastically!
Okay who here can honestly say they love themselves all the
time. How many times have I gotten up
and looked in the mirror and said to myself I could have done better, I should
be better, and God help me I am no better!
Can I say it again….we are Human… we are made human and being human we
are flawed and we do not care for ourselves the way we should, therefore by
deduction, I definitely do not always care for my neighbor the way I should.
Actually how should I care for my neighbor and who is my
neighbor? Now there is a question often asked.
In Bread for the Journey Henri Nouwen reflects upon the Good Samaritan
and states;
“Love your neighbor as yourself” the Gospel says (Matthew
22:38). But who is my neighbor? We often respond to that question by saying: “My
neighbors are all the people I am living with on this earth, especially the
sick, the hungry, the dying, and all who are in need.” But this is not what
Jesus says. When Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan (see Luke
10:29-37) to answer the question “Who is my neighbor?” he ends by asking:
“Which, … do you think, proved himself a neighbor to the man who fell into the
bandits’ hands?” The neighbor, Jesus makes clear, is not the poor man laying on
the side of the street, stripped, beaten, and half dead, but the Samaritan who
crossed the road, “bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, … lifted
him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him.” My
neighbor is the one who crosses the road for me![4]
That is interesting…what do you think about that? Actually let me break that down further for
you. Your neighbor is the one you
believe hates you, despises you, has nothing in common with you, and someone
you would never talk to; yet….they would cross the road to help you. Your neighbor is the one you least suspect
and out of those least suspects, your neighbor is the one who would cross the
road to help you no matter who you are.
So how do you know who that is?
How do you know who your neighbor may be? Simple answer is you don’t.
Therefore, since you don’t know who your neighbor might be…to be on the safe
side…we must treat all as our neighbor.
We must become the man who no matter what will cross the road to bandage
and care for the stranger because we must assume they would do that for us. If we are willing to do that for someone who
we don’t know and perhaps even fear how much more should we be willing to do
that for each other?
The other side of that is being the good neighbor when the
Samaritan does come along. When someone
offers help, a kind word, or a smile…how do we respond? When the stranger, the one who challenges our
well taught prejudices and fears offers a kind gesture do we respond with
kindness or suspicion? To make it a little broader when we hear of pain or trouble
on the other side of the world do we judge by categories or do we take to heart
the pain and suffering of all involved and pray for peace and
understanding? When we here people
speaking in fear and anger of marriage equality do we pray that their hearts
may soften to the loving word of God or do we condemn them as bigots and hate
mongers?
Jesus gave a clear and concise answers to today’s challenges
right? I say no! Jesus knew that these
commandments though they may sum up all of God’s law are anything but clear and
concise. Every day we are challenged by
what it means to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul and with all
your might or mind depending on which translation you read. We, as humans, do not know what is best for
us, let alone how to love and care for ourselves. So how, in all of God’s
names, are we to love our neighbor as ourselves? Honestly? I wouldn’t want to be cared for by
another if it depended upon how well I cared for myself.
So where do the answers to all these questions and
challenges rest. Where can I learn to
care for myself in such a way that is pleasing to God? In such a way that I wouldn’t terrorize a
stranger? How do I become accepting and caring of the one I most fear? I can’t,
not alone, I must engage in prayer. I
must develop spiritual practice, a daily seeking of a life closer to God.
Thomas Merton Said; “In order to find God in ourselves, we
must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the
mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in Him and to do whatever He
wills, according to our limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our
own illusions, but in the light of His reality which is all around us in the
things and people we live with.” - From “No Man is an Island”[5]
It is through a life
lived with compassion in action. It is
through a life lived with a spiritual practice that you are comfortable with,
that draws you closer to God. Your
Knitting on the loom can become a simple spiritual practice by saying a short
prayer with every loop. Jesus come
closer. A morning walk can be a
spiritual practice by repeating the same simple prayer with every step.
Some need a quiet time to center themselves to connect to
God others may need a big noisy crowd.
Each of you need to find your own way to connect to God every day. The thing that we often forget is like the
fish in the water asking; what is the ocean?
We are literally swimming in God all we have to do is take time to pay
attention.
The more attention we pay to God around us and through us,
the better equipped we will be to recognize God. We will be equipped to recognize God when we
are challenged by who is my neighbor. We
will be equipped to recognize God so that we can Love God with our whole
hearts, soul and mind even in the most challenging time. We will be equipped to follow two simple
commandments.
[1] wikipedia,
Pharisees, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees (accessed October 20, 2014).
[2] Gospel Outreach
Ministries online, The Law: All 613 Commandments,
http://www.gospeloutreach.net/613laws.html (accessed October 20, 2014).
[3] Dan Clendenin,
Humanizing Holiness:Are Some Commandments More Important Than Others,
http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20081020JJ.shtml (accessed October 20,
2014).
[4] J.M. Henri
Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith (San
Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 1997), sec. July 20.
[5] Qoutes from
Thomas Merton, http://www.octanecreative.com/merton/quotes.html (accessed
October 20, 2014).
