God amid gods A sermon on the 1st Commandment Mark 12:28-34 Rev. Matthew B. Reeves Ordinary 11; June 13, 2010 We begin sermon by saying the commandment:! I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no gods before me.! So here we are youʼre there, Iʼm here, no pulpit in between us. Itʼs a new look for the summer. It suggests openness and growth. We asked the pulpit if it wouldnʼt mind hiding behind that tree. Not to worry, weʼll invite it back.! Thereʼs a lot to be said for using a pulpit. It keeps the preacher from walking around too much. It hides the little dance the choir says Brian and I do when weʼre preaching. Itʼs a convenient place to put your papers, and paperclips, and matches, a glass of water, last minute prayer requests, cough drops, kleenex, the churchʼs Atomic Clock.! The pulpit is an important symbol. In our tradition, the Reformed tradition, when a preacher stands in the pulpit it says he or she isnʼt just giving a talk. The words arenʼt mere opinion. The pulpit conveys importance. It says the act of preaching is an act of the church, and that the Word of God is sturdy and enduring. Pulpits, and the Word preached from them, outlast pastors.! Yet in this question of whether to use a pulpit thereʼs something so deceptively obvious we might not think to consider it: Jesus didnʼt use a pulpit. Of course, neither did he use a microphone, take part in worship with organ or drums, or hold the Scriptures when he preached. There are cultural differences at play for one thing, the position of authority for teaching in Jesusʼ day was sitting, not standing. Even in the church, pulpits didnʼt show up in until the medieval years.! Yet apart from cultural and architectural differences, when we look at the preaching life of Jesus, we rarely see him speaking before a congregation in a place of worship. Heʼs more likely on a hillside or in a home, at the sea or on the road.! Jesusʼ preaching life is marked by its mobility. Jesus integrates preaching and teaching into the everyday. Even when Jesus teaches in the Temple, as he does in todayʼs passage in Mark, heʼs standing on the same level as everyone else, more a leading voice in a conversation than an orator high above. I suspect this mobile ministry that took place in the everyday is was informed by the Ten Commandments.! The Commandments are notable for their mobility. In those early years of Israel, the Commandments werenʼt locked up in a vault or displayed in the Temple. There was no Temple, no secure location. Israel was a people on the move, on their way out of
Egypt where they were slaves, and into freedom in the Promised Land. The commandments have their physical location in the Ark of the Covenant the people carry on their journey.! But thereʼs more to their mobility than being able to pick up the tablets and walk. These commandments travel through every nook of life. Life with parents and spouse and friends. Those crannies of the heart where lurk jealousy and hatred and lust and fear and the drive that keeps one from rest.! And they soar to the heights of heaven from where God sends love and expects from Godʼs people responses of honor and loyalty. These commandments were the heart of Israelʼs life their preaching, their teaching, their dealing with one another, and above all, their dealing with God.! So when the man who was God showed up at tables and Temple and talked with beggars and scribes, it isnʼt surprising his preaching life wanʼt confined to a box. Much like Godʼs mighty ten words instruction, Jesusʼ preaching marched everywhere and took up everything.! Take the talk he had with the scribe the day he was among the folks in the Temple. Which of the commandments, asks the scribe, is the first of all? Itʼs a good question. A much better question than what sometimes get asked about the Commandments, such as the one about whether they should be displayed in public, civic settings. Which, while not important to ponder, largely misses the point of why the commandments are there at all to be posted on the lives of the people God saves, those God would have live as Godʼs own. This scribe seems to get this.! He came to Jesus because he has noticed that Jesus gave good counsel. I take him to be a guy who wants his life with God to mean something. There are few things worse in religion than someone who majors in the minors and gets so caught in minutia that the weight of God is lost. This scribe was in for whatʼs heavy. Teacher, he seemed to be saying, you and I know that in life with God thereʼs a whole lot to consider, and that some things are more important than others. So give it to me straight. Whatʼs the heaviest commandment on the books?! What was he really asking about here? Was he asking about the Ten Commandments God gave Israel at Sinai? Or did he have have in mind the detailed Jewish law that flows from the primary 10? Whatever was Jesus responded short and sweet. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.! And he said some more about loving oneʼs neighbor, because you canʼt love God while putting yourself before those around you. Weʼll deal with the neighbor part plenty 2
in other sermons in this 10 commandments series. But for today weʼll just look at the first part. Jesus gets right to the point. Most important commandment? Love God.! Jesus quotes directly from Deuteronomy 6. Theyʼre words the scribe would have known since he was able to say any words at all. Jesus essentially served up the first of the Ten Commandments. The first commandment God gives Israel has a negative spin, You shall have no gods before me.! The positive spin that Jesus gives is simply, Love God. Love God with all youʼve got. With you firing synapses and the marrow of your bones. Your biceps and triceps and reason and even the deep down parts that modern science hasnʼt got the words to describe, love God. Life priority #1. Get that straight and other things have a way of falling into place.! What a gift, the commandment? The simplicity. The portability. Itʼs something you can say all through the day, Love the Lord with my heart, love the Lord with my soul, love the Lord with all my strength, love the Lord with all my mind. Yet as with lots of things that sound quite simple to this is hardly simplistic. And as with most things that are important it isnʼt very easy.! At this point, Martin Luther, the reformer, clears his throat and wants to speak. He says, Thereʼs a question about this command that we have got to discuss. Now, when Martin Luther wants to talk, it doesnʼt matter that he hasnʼt got a Facebook page and that he doesnʼt tweet. When Martin speaks you listen, and Martinʼs saying, If youʼre talking about loving God you better think about what having a god really means.! See, as they came out of Egypt, Israel knew, and I think that we know with them, that when it comes to having a god there is more than one option before us. When Luther took up the first commandment in his Large Catechism one of the first things he asked is, What does it mean to have a god? So letʼs listen.! To have a god, he said, is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. When we start to be honest about what gives us comfort, what makes us feel secure, where we think weʼll find help in life, where weʼll find happiness, then weʼre being honest about what our gods really are. Oh, the gods that are out there. We donʼt have time to name them all. We could call them job, bank balance, new car, cat thatʼs curled on our lap, prime time TV. Not that any of these are bad. Theyʼre just wimpy when we look to them for life and health and peace. Weʼre so good at setting our hearts things that ultimately fail us.! But enough about false gods. Letʼs talk about the real God and listen to Luther. To have a God, says Luther, meaning the God of heaven and of earth, does not mean to grasp him with your fingers, or to put him into a purse, or to shut him up in a box. Rather, you lay hold of God when your heart grasps him and clings to him. 3
! It sounds kind of like a love song, doesnʼt it? I want to hold you. I want to be close to you. The first thing about having a God, the first thing about living by the Commandments God gives, is falling in love. Not love as a crush or a passing fancy, but love that is life consuming loyalty. Love beyond emotion love with heart, soul, mind, strength.! The Commands God gives to Israel at Sinai, the commandments Jesus gives to the scribe in the Temple are not just a moral code. They are a way of life. They are a lived expression of trust in the God who saves. The 10 Commandments are more than a list of doʼs and donʼts. They are a way of worship for the people that God has loved and set free.! God begins the commandments by reminding Israel of how much God has loved them: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Itʼs kind of like the time my dad sat me down and said, Matt, Iʼm saying this as your father. Or when your boss says, As your employer, I need to let you know... Or when someone says, Iʼm telling you this as a friend: that guy youʼre thinking of marrying is CRAZY!! You hear things differently when you remember the relationship you have to a person. God says to Israel, This is God speaking here. The one without whom youʼd be hauling bricks in Egypt. This is the Lord thatʼs talking, the one whoʼs set you free and been faithful to you.! This is to say the 10 Commandments arenʼt just kindly suggestions. Theyʼre not advice that Israel or we are free to take or leave, at least not if we have any respect for or trust in the God who speaks them. These 10 words are words of life given by God in love. They are good for us.! Martin Luther dared to say, Anyone who knows the Ten Commandments perfectly knows the entire Scripture. Which is another way of saying God uses these commandments to help us life free, to keep us in the life that really life.! That scribe in the Temple, he asked about life. And Jesus responded with the commandments that would enable him truly to live it. Wouldnʼt it liberating, wouldnʼt we feel so alive, if every day we did the things we knew mattered most? Not just what matters most to us, but what matters most to God. Wouldnʼt there be a freedom, a lightness of being, to living for what that God stands up to applaud?! Weʼll be thinking on this way of life over nine more sermons. Today weʼve attended to the command that frames the life of freedom. You shall have no gods before me, says God. Or, as Jesus puts it, Love God. Love God with heart, soul, mind, strength.! In the end, the question isnʼt so much whether we will have a god, but whether we will trade all those gods that are lesser and false for the God thatʼs living and true. 4
! I have sense of the lesser gods that tend to call my name. I trust you have a sense of yours. One of the best ways to get rid of a wimpy god tries to be more a slave driver than a redeemer is to turn to God the God Jesus shows and say I love you. I love you. I love you.! And then to live showing this is true. 5