Good teacher which commandment is the most important of them all?

Transcription

1 1 24 Pentecost, November 4, 2018 Ruth 1: 1-18, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:11-14, Mark 12:28-34 It was about mid-morning. A scribe, meaning a practitioner of Jewish law, having enjoyed a late and leisurely breakfast, was taking his morning stroll. He had not walked far before he came upon Jesus and his disciples engaged in one of their favorite activities: disputation. It did not take the scribe long to decide that as a weaver of words and wisdom, in all Judea, Jesus would be first were it not, of course, for himself. Finding, or forcing an opening in the play of dialogue the scribe asked Jesus: Good teacher which commandment is the most important of them all? If this question seems reasonably innocent to you and me; that is only because we have not attended synagogue school. If we had we would know there were not just 10 but 603 additional commandments. The man s tone of voice and manner suggested to Jesus he was spoiling for an opportunity to show off. The catch is, anything Jesus said would just give the scribe more air time or so it would seem. Jesus paused a moment then said s0mething unexpected: Hear Oh Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your souls and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. As soon as Jesus said this, the scribe realized the pain shooting from his right foot was caused by the jaws of the trap he had laid for Jesus but had

2 2 sprung on himself. With nothing to contest the scribe could only save face by praising Jesus for his astuteness. You have truly said God is one, that besides him there is no other etc. He then adds: These things are far more important than all the sacrifices and burnt offerings one could imagine. Our gospel concludes: When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. After reflecting upon our gospel lection these past weeks I realized there was something important about Jesus final statement I did not understand. In the translations, commentaries, and Greek to English New Testament I consulted I found little variation in the words of this passage. I even consulted my nephew who is a classicist. My hunch turned out to be right. The interpretative challenge posed by this short passage comes less from translating Greek into English, and more from transitioning (which is also, I suppose, a kind of translation) from the written to the spoken word. The same, by the way, holds true for the English taken on its own. The meaning we assign to this passage turns not on case, person number, tense and all the rest of it, but on how we apply to it the folk maxim smile when you say that. For brevity s sake I will consider just two of the many ways we might place the emphasis in Jesus statement. If we say YOU are not far from the Kingdom of God, the needle of meaning shifts to first word. If we emphasize You are not far from The KINGDOM OF GOD the needle shifts to the Kingdom of God. What rests on this difference is what we take to be the meaning of the exchange between

3 3 Jesus and the scribe. The first choice we might call the Billy Graham option. You are almost there, but not quite. Decide right now to come the rest of the way. The second version is what I call the John Calvin meaning. THE KINGDOM is coming and that is a fact. Join it or be condemned and if that is your fate--you deserve it. Whichever of these meanings we choose reveals, or brings us to confront, our over-all understanding of the person of God. Where you and I place the inflection also reveals our view of the aim of Jesus ministry. Does God speak to and through the warmed or broken heart and inquiring mind? Or is G0d on his way right now and your choice is join him or face the music. Here is my own Billy Graham take away from option #1. Many of us may have never truly heard the gospel except for the Sunday morning lections. Our private study of scripture often tends to be hush hush. If you wish to hear what the living Word has to say to you personally, try reading parts of it aloud. You may be surprised to discover you will hear things that never crossed your mind when you read the same passage in the forested silence of print. We can now address a question on which our scriptures are silent. What do you suppose Jesus and his disciples were discussing when the scribe interrupted them? Given that Jesus ministry was always public and centered in his beloved community of disciples it would be remarkable if at some point he had not drawn from the book of Ruth. Ruth provides one model of the mutual good faith essential if there is to be a benevolent community let alone a beloved one.

4 4 The story of Ruth is usually told as a story of Ruth s fidelity to Naomi and as a parable of abiding love. In concentrating on Ruth we forget about Orpha s role in making the story of Ruth possible. In removing herself as Naomi s companion, Orpha also removed herself as Naomi s burden. By contrast Ruth s refusal to take History s NO for an answer raises questions that are rarely, if ever, asked. Given the harshness of their situation, the absence of protective husbands and the thin margin on which their survival hung Ruth s love for Naomi might equally be described as a self-destructive obsession. The best criterion I know for distinguishing self-giving and self-serving love is found in the words of our hymn Oh love that will not let me go. There is a great difference between a love we possess and a love which possesses us. The love that we possess, at least in part, is needy. The love that possesses us is ungrasping, effortless, and free. Authentic love is free because it comes from love s source. Orpa s love is authentic because Orpah is willing to sacrifice being with her dear friend Naomi because doing so will help preserve Naomi s life. In context Ruth s love makes no sense. If things are difficult enough in Moab where she has family; how could they be any better in Judah where she not only has no relatives but where Moabites are hated? Bear in mind Naiomi does not welcome Ruth or praise her tenacity or dedication. Since Ruth cannot be dissuaded Naiomi simply stops talking to her as the two of them trudge away in ambiguous silence.. No one would recommend the case of Ruth as a model of how to make a rational decision. But this may be to take far too narrow a view of reason. Pascal might

5 5 have been thinking of Ruth when he famously said The heart has its reasons which the reason knows not of. If Ruth s decision was mad then so was Abraham s. In following the voice of the unknown God on the promise of a new beginning in the land of promise Abraham was not following the voice of reason as it is usually understood. Similarly and consciously or not Naomi followed her heart and her tradition. In doing so she achieved a place among Jesus ancestors. In Ruth s insistence on following Naomi despite all odds we see an example of the faith of Abraham as he began a journey which foreshadowed the new beginning we know in Christ. This morning as we light our All-Saints candles celebrating the lives of those who have gone before us in faith let us be mindful that the goal of Christianity as the Orthodox put it the melding of the human into the divine cannot be accomplished by a single person, save the Christ known to faith, any more than it can be achieved by a single generation. Those who have preceeded us were and are not individuals forever separated from us. They are made present again in memory and through such tokens a ray of light through a familiar window, an object on a table-- which occasion it. As Christians we experience those who have gone before less as absent and more as yet participating with us in a joyous and continuing community of living speech, broken hearts, abiding love, abounding hope, wide and deepening wisdom, and vibrant song. Unlike other human communities to which we, and others belong, the community of saints is not bound by a contract for a set period, or to limited ends, or even to a single tradition. It is a continuing community of light bearers, never old, ever self-renewing, that transcends place and time. This broader

6 6 community of the partly righteous and gratefully forgiven unites in one, in a phrase from Edmund Burke, the living, the dead, and the yet unborn. JohnC

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