Lighthouse: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE Mark 12:28-34 What is the one principle that gives meaning to life? A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. William O. (Bud) Reeves First United Methodist Church Fort Smith, Arkansas January 22, 2017
I remember teaching a confirmation class several years ago. This is the class we do for our young people, usually in about the 6 th or 7 th grade, to help them make an informed decision about their faith and church membership. (We re starting our confirmation class for 2017 in a couple of weeks.) This was the first class that year, and I was explaining the purpose and calendar for the class. I stopped and asked if they had any questions. In any given group of 10 or 15 middle schoolers, there is going to be a smart-aleck. So one of the precocious little darlings raised his hand and said, Brother Bud, what is the meaning of life? My response was, Let s go through this class together, and I bet you can tell me the answer to that question. I don t suppose there is a bigger and broader question to ask, is there? What is the meaning of life? Perhaps more importantly, what s the meaning of your life? Does your existence have a purpose, or is it just a random accumulation of chance occurrences? Is there a principle or a mission that drives your life, that gets you out of bed in the morning, that keeps you focused, and that gives you satisfaction? Philosophers and theologians and comedians have reflected on that question for years. What is the meaning of life? Filmmaker Mel Brooks said, Hope for the best. Expect the worst. Life is a play; we re unrehearsed. The late humorist Lewis Grizzard wrote, Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain t the lead dog, the scenery never changes. The physicist Albert Einstein answered, There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. 1 How do we live our lives so that they have some meaning? For centuries the best minds have tried to figure out the one rule of life, the first principle that is greater than all other principles, the categorical imperative an ethical mandate that can be applied in any given situation. In Jesus time, the rabbis energetically debated this same issue. One day while he was teaching, a Jewish scribe asked Jesus his
opinion on the matter: Which commandment is the first of all? 2 In other words, which of the 600-plus commandments in the Law of Moses is the most important to follow? Which one gives life meaning? Jesus answered with a two-part statement that we have come to know as the Great Commandment : The first is, 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. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. 3 This is the great commandment, the first principle of Jesus, the categorical imperative of the Christ, the meaning of life in a nutshell. But what does it mean, really? The first part of the Great Commandment is the basic affirmation of faith of the Jewish people. It is called the shema y Isroel. We read it in Deuteronomy 6:4. Jesus simply quotes it: 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 strength. Jesus adds with all your mind, but he s the Son of God; he gets to do that if he wants to. The point is this: there is one God, and only one God, and you need to love him totally and without reservation. As Eugene Peterson says it in The Message, Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy. 4 Love is the fundamental principle of life. The love that everybody is looking for is found in a relationship with God. You find that love by loving the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Does that sound attractive to you? Or does it just sound exhausting? I don t know if I can do all that. So here s the thing: You don t have to do it on your own. You have help. The One you are supposed to love the Lord your God already loves you. It s not a one-sided relationship. You don t have to earn his love; he loved you
first. He proved that in Jesus Christ. I John 4 explains, In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 5 When we commit ourselves to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, we find that all our love is actually a response to the God who loved us first, before we were even born. He has been wanting to love us and be loved by us since the beginning of time. Your heavenly Father thinks you are something special. Several years ago, Edward Farrell of Detroit took his vacation to Ireland to celebrate his favorite uncle's 80th birthday. On the morning of the great day, Ed and his uncle Seamus got up before dawn, dressed in silence, and went for a walk along the shores of Lake Killarney. Just as the sun rose, his uncle stopped and turned and stared straight at the rising orb. Ed stood beside him for 20 minutes with not a single word exchanged. Suddenly the elderly Irishman began to skip along the shoreline, a radiant smile on his face. After catching up with him, Ed panted, "Uncle Seamus, you look very happy. Do you want to tell me why?" The 80-year-old birthday boy turned around, and tears were washing down his face. "Yes, lad, he said. You see, the Father is fond o me. Ah, me Father is so very fond o me." 6 Isn t that great? The Father is so very fond of you and me, so we can love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. This love gives meaning to life. Victor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist in the 20 th century who wrote the book Man s Search for Meaning, based in part on his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp in World War II. He had already been researching and writing about the meaning of life when the Nazis arrested him and stripped him of everything valuable in his world his home, his family, his possessions. They even destroyed the manuscript of his book, which he had hidden in the lining of his coat. Suddenly Victor Frankl was confronted with the possibility that he would leave this world without
a mark, nothing significant to pass on in terms of descendants or contributions. His life might be ultimately meaningless. A few days after his arrest, the Nazis took away Frankl s clothes and gave him the dirty, worn-out rags of a man who had died in the gas chamber. Inside the pocket of the ragged coat, Frankl made a surprising discovery. There was a single page torn out of a Hebrew prayer book, and on the page was the shema y Isroel: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength. Years later in his book, Frankl reflected, How should I have interpreted such a 'coincidence' other than as a challenge to live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper? There is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life....he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." 7 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. This is the second half of the Great Commandment; it s a quote from the Holiness Code in the Book of Leviticus; this is Judaism 101. But really it s just the other side of the same coin of love. We love God, and we love God s children with the same intensity with which we love ourselves. Most of the time we don t have any trouble thinking pretty highly of ourselves. But even if we are low on self-esteem, all we have to do is think of how highly God esteems us, and then love our neighbor as God loves us. It all works out the same. In fact, the commandment Jesus gave to his disciples on the night before he died was to love one another as I have loved you. 8 It s all a piece of the same cloth God loves us; we love God; we love our neighbor; we love God by loving our neighbor. So who is my neighbor? A neighbor is anyone we have an opportunity to love in any circumstance. A neighbor can be a family member, a friend, a stranger, even an enemy. A neighbor can be as far away as a starving child in a foreign country who is fed by our
contributions to a missionary. A neighbor can be as near as the person who sits at our table or shares our bed. I read a story this week about a Christian man who had a casual relationship with his next-door neighbor. They talked over the back fence, borrowed lawn mowers, stuff like that. But the neighbor had no relationship to any church and never spoke of spiritual things. Then his wife was stricken with cancer, and she died three months later. Here's part of a letter he wrote afterward: I was in total despair. I went through the funeral preparations and the service like I was in a trance. After the service I went to the path along the river and walked all night. But I didn't walk alone. My neighbor afraid for me, I guess stayed with me all night. He didn't speak; he didn't even walk beside me. He just followed me. When the sun finally came up over the river, he came over and said, "Let's go get some breakfast." I go to church now. My neighbor's church. A religion that can produce the kind of caring and love my neighbor showed me is something I want to find out more about. I want to love and be loved like that for the rest of my life. 9 Love is why we live. Real love, Godly love, is more than an emotion. It s a mission to live with a commitment to God and the neighbors in our midst. It s a decision we make and make again and make over every time we fall short throughout our spiritual journey, until we are perfected in love in the presence of our heavenly Father. That s why God created us to live a life of love. Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Graham s daughter, has a ministry of speaking and preaching all over the world. In her book, The Vision of His Glory, she wrote about a time when she had been traveling and teaching non-stop for weeks. She became aware that she had to drag herself to every quiet time with God, and her heart no longer seemed to be uplifted in worship. She didn't feel any real joy in her ministry. She thought she was just tired, maybe suffering from the extended consequences of time and food changes, kind of a prolonged jet lag.
Then one morning, in her devotions, Anne read from the Book of Revelation God s message to the church at Ephesus: I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. 10 These Ephesians were good people; they had a good church; they were keeping things going despite their difficulties. They were the Methodists of the ancient world. But then the Lord says, I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. 11 Suddenly Anne heard the voice of Jesus speaking to her, I know your deeds. I know all about your teaching [around the world]. I know your hard work. Thank you, Anne, for all you are doing to serve me. Yet I hold this against you: You are losing your love for me. Anne wrote, I would have denied it and strongly argued except it was Jesus who was speaking to me! With tears streaming down my cheeks, I asked, 'Lord, what would you have me do?' Then I read in verse 5 his reply. 'Remember the height from which you have fallen!' He was saying, 'Anne, remember what it was like to love me with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.' "Then he said, 'Repent and do the things you did at first.' I needed to return to Calvary, where the burden of my sin and guilt had been so great that I had confessed it and plunged beneath his blood to receive cleansing. I needed to return to Calvary and take a good, long look at what it had cost him to take away my sin. I needed a fresh vision of his first love for me." 12 Do you need a fresh vision of God s love for you today? Do you need to make that decision again that first brought you to the foot of the cross of Calvary? Do you need to renew the love that once burned hot in your heart?
We were made for this to be a people of love. God made us to be a community of compassion and caring for others. Jesus challenges us today to be a community of faith in Fort Smith, Arkansas, that is famous for the way we love God and God s people. Jesus says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the greatest commandment of all. This is your mission in the world. This is the meaning of life. 1 John Winokur, The Traveling Curmudgeon (Sasquatch Books, 2003) 2 Mark 12:28. 3 Mark 12:29-30. 4 Eugene Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorade Springs: NavPress, 2002), p. 1835. 5 I John 4:10. 6 Brennan Manning, The Wisdom of Tenderness (Harper San Francisco, 2002), pp. 25-26 7 Victor Frankl, Man s Search for Meaning, quoted in Leadership, Vol. 4, No. 3. 8 John 13:35. 9 Terry Muck, in the March 29 entry of Men of Integrity (March/April 2009). 10 Revelation 2:2-3. 11 Revelation 2:4-5. 12 Anne Graham Lotz, The Vision of His Glory, quoted in Dave Stone, Let s Talk About Love, PreachingPlus.com