SERMON TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST YEAR B LOVE YOURSELF MARK 12: / NOVEMBER 4, 2018

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1 SERMON TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST YEAR B LOVE YOURSELF MARK 12: / NOVEMBER 4, 2018 Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. We ve come to one of the most important passages in the Bible. Jesus reveals what he considers to be the most important commandment to love God with all your being. And he offers a second commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves. Now everybody has a different idea about what love is. As Forrest Gump said to Jenny, I m not a smart man, but I know what love is. What is love? Here are some children s definitions of love: Mary, age 4: Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day. Lauren, age 4: I know my sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones. Rebecca, age 8: When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So, my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That s love. 1

2 I really like these last two: Billy, age 5: Love is what s in the room at Christmas if you stop opening presents and just listen. Jessica, age 8: You really shouldn t say, I love you unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget. The context of our gospel passage is when Jesus is in Jerusalem just scant days before his crucifixion. The religious leaders were doing their best to trap him in trick questions so that he might get himself into trouble with the authorities or say something to offend his admirers. But Jesus is too wise. Finally, someone asks him a serious question. One of the scribes, a teacher of the law of Moses, asks him, Which commandment is the first of all? Jesus answers, The first is this, Hear, O Israel, Yahweh, our God is one: You shall love Yahweh, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Jesus combined a quote from Deuterononmy, Chapter 6 about loving God with a quote from Leviticus, Chapter 19 about loving your neighbour as yourself. In Matthew, Jesus says that all the law and prophets depend on these two commandments. In other words, loving God with all your being and your neighbour as yourself are the core, the essence of what it means to be faithful to God and God s way. 2

3 Now, we often speak of love of neighbour and love of God but not so much about love of self. That s what I want to focus on this morning. Love of self. Many persons have a difficult time loving themselves. I suppose we all do from time to time. That s natural enough. But sometimes it can become a predominant view for us. The fact is we need to have a healthy self-image of who we are in Christ. I imagine most of you looked at yourselves in the mirror this morning. When you saw that person looking back at you, what did you think about that person? Did you think how old, plain, or overweight you were? Were you happy with the person looking back at you? Among Christians, there are a couple of self-image mistakes you can make. First off, you can have an inferiority complex. That s actually a psychological term coined by Alfred Adler to describe people who think everyone else around them is better, prettier, stronger, and smarter than they are. Many of us do feel unworthy or worthless. Reminds me of the old Linda Ronstadt song from the 1970s whose lyrics are: You re no good; you re no good; you re no good; baby, you re no good. The other self-image mistake is the polar opposite. Let me take a stab at an official theological term: A pompous jerk who only thinks about me. Well, maybe not so theological. But a fitting description all the same. It seems to me that we live in a Narcissistic society. Our culture tries hard to get us to love ourselves but not in the way Jesus meant by loving ourselves. Our culture is constantly telling us to value ourselves, treat ourselves, love ourselves, be good to ourselves, believe in ourselves. But often such love 3

4 of self is competitive, superficial, consumer driven, selfish, and not connected at all with love of neighbour and love of God. Have you ever met someone who was in love with themselves? There s a difference between loving yourself and being in love with yourself. A person who is in love with themselves looks in the mirror and sings, How Great Thou Art! We ve all met arrogant, egotistical people who think they are better than everyone else. These people are ill, really, and pretty much make everyone around them ill. Abby, the advice columnist, once got a letter from a guy like this. He wrote: Dear Abby, I m a guy who has everything. I m smart and handsome. Women are always flocking around me and telling me how good-looking I am and what a marvelous personality I have. I m beginning to find this boring. How can I discourage these hopeful females? He signed his letter C.W. Abby wrote back: Dear C.W., just keep talking. Most of us live between these two extremes, and depending on life circumstances may fluctuate along the spectrum of self-love at different times in our lives. Certainly, I ve met more individuals who tend to find it hard to love themselves over against those who think they are God s gift to the world. This world is a harsh place at times and there are plenty of people around, as well as social pressures, and cultural norms that try to tear you down. It starts when you are a child in school. If there s anything 4

5 that s different about your appearance or how you look or speak, mean kids will make fun of you. When I was a kid bullying used to happen on the school playground. Sadly, it still does consider the recent story of the 10-year-old Indigenous boy in Sydney, Nova Scotia, who had been bullied by other students; the target of racial slurs, insults about his looks and even death threats until a motorcycle club came to his rescue escorting him to his school declaring that bullying is not okay. Loss of self-esteem, loss or self-love happens in so many ways. The 1989 movie Miss Firecracker is set in a small town in the state of Mississippi. Carnelle Scott dreams of becoming Miss Firecracker, the beauty queen chosen by the townspeople to reign over their 4 th of July festivities. As the movie unfolds, it becomes apparent why Carnelle feels so desperate to become Miss Firecracker. Orphaned as a young child, She was sent to this sleepy little town to be raised by her aunt and uncle who already have two grown children a son and a daughter. Years before, the daughter, Elaine, won the title of Miss Firecracker, and it catapulted her to popularity. Everyone in the town had a place in their hearts for Elaine. Her worth was confirmed on a daily basis. Carnelle, on the other hand, has been striving all her life to feel accepted, to have a place in the hearts of others and to become convinced that she is worth something. She believes the way to obtain what she so deeply desires is to win the title of Miss Firecracker. She knows she is not as 5

6 physically attractive as Elaine, but she figures if she works hard enough, she can give such a dazzling performance she will claim the title. The day of the contest arrives and Carnelle is both anxious and excited. At first, things go well for her, but then as she parades across the stage in the evening gown competition, her feet become tangled up in her dress. She ends up falling flat on the stage with a heartbreaking thud. As the townspeople jeer and throw popcorn at her, she sprints off the stage in humiliation. Later that evening, reflecting on the day s disaster which she believes typifies her life, she tells an old friend that she constantly struggles to feel as if she belongs. Since day one she has been craving the assurance that she is loved, but she never obtains it. Many have similar feelings especially the very young and the very old. They question whether they are cherished and valued. Many put a herculean effort into accomplishing something impressive enough to win the admiration of others. They figure that if they can gain the esteem of others, they will feel secure within themselves. However, even a dazzling performance may not win the acceptance that proves their worth. The Christian faith says something very different. The Bible teaches that we humans are fearfully and wonderfully made. You aren t one-in-a-million; you are one-in-seven-billion. There is nobody else exactly like you alive on the planet. Take a moment and look at the tip of your forefinger. There is a series of swirls and ridges there. That pattern is unique in the world; 6

7 nobody else s fingerprint match yours. Jesus said the very hairs of your head are numbered. Now that s love. Opening up to God s love opens us up to loving what God loves starting with ourselves and then with our neighbours. We will never be truly able to love others until we love ourselves in spite of our flaws. It s kind of like when you re on an airplane and the flight attendants are giving a pre-flight briefing. They tell you that in the unlikely loss of air pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the panel above your head. They always say if you re traveling with a child, put your oxygen mask on first, and then help the child. We have to take care of ourselves, love ourselves first not in a worldly way, but in God s way before we can properly love another. You really can t love others until you see yourself as God sees you and love yourself. In 1985, Whitney Houston recorded a song that became a #1 hit. It was entitled, The Greatest Love of All. The last lines are: I found the greatest love of all inside me. The greatest love of all is easy to achieve. Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all. Although Whitney got her start singing in her church, the last few years of her life were pretty rough, and she probably didn t love herself very much. However, the last song she sang publicly, two days before her death was Jesus loves me. Contrary to her song, loving yourself is not the greatest love of all. Loving God is. But tied up inextricably in that love of God is love of neighbour and love of self. You can t truly and fully love God and neighbour until you love yourself. And you won t love yourself until you see yourself as God sees you, as God s dearly beloved child, made in God s 7

8 very image cherished, precious and one of a kind. As another great gospel singer, Ethel Waters, used to say, I know I m somebody, cause God don t make no junk. One final story which is fitting today in light of the terrible events at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Albert Friedlander grew up in Nazi Germany. As a child, he was anxious and upset by the vicious anti-semitic propaganda that portrayed Jews in such despicable ways. One night, when he was eight years old, he stayed awake in bed creating a list of his good qualities. He told himself that he was not what the Nazis said. He had special gifts and positive values that he enumerated one by one. Then he vowed that if he survived, he would use those qualities to build a better world. As an adult, he became a kind and committed rabbi who helped thousands. He always insisted that he could never have done it unless he had learned, at that terrible moment in history, to love himself. As you go from this place into the week ahead know just how precious God holds you, just how beloved you are love yourself and by that love help to build a better world. Amen. Major Sources: Three Levels of Love, Part 1 by David Dykes on January 28, 2018 Loving Ourselves by Gregory Knox Jones Westminster Presbyterian Church. November 4, A Little Humility For Heaven s Sake by Rodney Buchanan in e-rodney-buchanan-sermon-onattitude-general ?ref=sermonserps October 30,

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Everybody has a different idea about what love is. As Forrest Gump said to Jenny, I m not a smart man, but I know what love is. Do you?

Everybody has a different idea about what love is. As Forrest Gump said to Jenny, I m not a smart man, but I know what love is. Do you? Three Levels of Love, part I Mark 12:28-34 December 6, 2015 #1647 1 INTRODUCTION We ve come to one of the most important passages in the New Testament. Jesus reveals what He considers to be the MOST IMPORTANT