It wasn t that long ago that I thought myself to be a very good preacher. I can

Transcription

1 Matthew 22:23-40 My Purpose It wasn t that long ago that I thought myself to be a very good preacher. I can remember a couple of times in the past someone coming up to me and saying, That was the best thing I ever heard ; and a friend recounted to me conversations with persons from two different congregations in which she was told, they were the best sermons we ve ever had in this church ; and a year or two back, I was introduced to a New Testament professor at UMHB as the best preacher in Belton. Still, in some ways I m beginning to have doubts. Of course, there have been many times I ve heard other responses to my preaching, and sometimes Brother Max repeats to me, Well, you did the best you could ; that usually keeps me in line. The things that I learn from scripture, what I sense in the world about us, what I think about, my experiences, frustrate me because I am unable to communicate them to you as I wish. But I try not to take myself too seriously: I read somewhere recently this quote, which seems to state my current feelings, A monkey could do this job- but I got here first! Now, I m taking a big chance here, speaking this way to you, and I don t mean it as a complaint or a grab for attention or sympathy. And please don t come to me after church and say you think I m doing a great job. I am saying these

2 things only as an introduction to this: that I know the accolades I may have received in the past for my preaching have come not because I am eloquent or am an impressive clergyman, to borrow a description from a popular movie from a couple of decades ago ( The Princess Bride ), but because I may have presented a new way of seeing a passage of scripture, or perhaps a deeper and more meaningful way of understanding our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. As a preacher, that is my purpose- to help you understand so that you may mature in your faith, coming to appreciate more and more God s goodness, finding joy in God s love for you and for others, finding God s grace even in your hurts. The irritating part is that there are times- for whatever reason, I am unable to speak as clearly as I want. But the good news is that God s Spirit is with us and guiding your hearing- so it is helpful for me to remember you may gain something even when I think I have failed. And so I ll do the best I can today, and next week we ll give it another try. Actually, today, I feel pretty good. I feel like I can t miss, even with this text that is so profound in many ways. I will merely repeat Jesus words to the lawyer, or scribe, of the Pharisees, Love God with all your heart and soul and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. Here is where we find our purpose as

3 followers of Jesus: in loving God and loving others. But if we honestly look into our own hearts we may see that there are times we try to find our purpose in obeying the rules, not in loving- we may be so concerned about keeping the Sabbath and not killing, not committing adultery, not stealing or cheating, not bearing false witness, not coveting, so that we forget those commands, too, are all about love; we may get so caught up in fear of disappointing God or losing our place in paradise that we forget people- and refuse to love them, because loving is so complicated and dangerous and messy. There are tendencies in Christianityand I guess in all faith systems, the Pharisees being prime examples- to love and worship God, while at the same time, neglecting people; that s the easier way, to separate ourselves from the unholy, to find or create reasons to ignore or neglect people, or even hate them- because they are sinners, and we can t get involved in all that. We may catch ourselves doing this once in a while, we can hear it in some pulpits, and we surely can see this from so many poplar religious writers and televangelists who have blamed natural disasters and terrorist attacks and the socalled spiritual malaise of America upon homosexuals and socialists and foreigners. They talk a lot about loving God, but there is no love for others in their speech.

4 But our purpose in life is not to overcome our insecurity by perfect obedience to every commandment in the Bible (that s a losing proposition!) and not to feel good about ourselves by tearing down others, but simply to keep this great commandment. So perhaps this means a new way of 1) understanding scripture and 2) a new way of understanding God. My purpose then is to point out the ways this passage may help us do that. 1. Let s be honest, every grown person knows that we cannot take all the statements of scripture as literal facts. Ask a literalist whether Jesus really meant for us to pluck out eyes and cut off hands! What literalism does, it causes people to treat the Bible as a rule-book, to be memorized and idolized- with the effect that, if it is God s perfect and infallible words, then each word is of equal value. Which is nonsense; in this very scripture, Jesus says this is the greatest thing (which means the other things are lesser!) to love God and the thing like it- equal to loving God- is loving your neighbor as yourself; it is one commandment in two parts, and each part is the expression of the other, and just so, the other commandments show us the ways we can express our love for God and for one another. One more thing here. This is not something spelled out for us in scripturethis greatest commandment in two parts is not a verse Jesus memorized, but rather

5 he has joined together two separate passages (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). Nor is there any place in the Old Testament where they are called the greatest commandments. So, instead of a literal reading of the Old Testament, Jesus read and understood the ultimate meaning of scripture, all the stories and laws and prophecies, and saw that they point us to loving God and loving our neighbors. In the same way, we too, must approach scripture in a particular way, with intellect and gratitude and humility and honesty, and interpret it. And if we do, it will direct us to a love for God and other people. 2. We may ask, loving which God? I think this confrontation with the Sadducees helps us here. The Sadducees were a very politicized religious group, who, you can read, did not believe in resurrection, thinking that only the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, were authoritative and the true word of God- and there is nothing there about resurrection. But Jesus doesn t get into an argument of scriptural proof texts, or a theoretical discussion about heaven. (And make no mistake, there are countless questions we could ask about the afterlife and angels and resurrection.) These are men who likely could quote verse by verse with Jesus, but he understood that scripture points to this God who is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. So when Jesus says, You are wrong, it s not

6 because they are wrong about resurrection, but because they are wrong about who God is. I am God means that here is the God of love and covenant, of promise, of life, God of power. It means that God is in relationship, even now, with those from long ago- I Am- present tense- just as God is in relationship with us today. It means that whatever else resurrection is, it is a relationship that is never broken. It means that resurrection is not about us- not about getting saved or getting into heaven- but it is about who God is. So, if the great commandment says to love God, which God does it mean? The God watching to catch you at something, the God of commandments, who will condemn for one step out of line? No, that s got it wrong. The God of resurrection is the God with power to rule over death, and the God of life who brings those who love into unending relationship with him, the God of mercy who loves the world. This is the God calling to us. And if the commandment says to love others, what does that mean? That God is calling us all- like and unlike in this big world of people- into relationship with one another. According to census estimates, sometime tomorrow the seven billionth person will be born. That s a lot of people, and a number that seems to me a reason to believe

7 Jesus words and obey this great commandment in two parts. For a long time we may have thought of religion as merely piety and morality, as only a list of rules to keep; and thus, the dividing of people into right and wrong, saint and sinner, acceptable and unacceptable. That s Pharisee and Sadducee religion; and it is hypocrisy- the religion of God twisted by pride and a sense of one s own rightness, which Jesus says is wrong. God forbid that could be the way we express our faith! Rather it is time now for loving- seven billion people, after all! Time for coming together instead of separating; time for reaching out instead of alienating; time for unity and welcoming. Let our purpose be to love: to see those others as God s beloved; to think well of them and to speak well of them; to pray for them; to be merciful and to seek to understand; to see us in them and to strive for peace.