Transcription
Our old testament reading today is Psalm 1, and it can be found on page 433 of your pew Bible. Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path the sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers, but their delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do they prosper. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff, that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
And our New Testament lesson from the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 22, verses 34 through 46, on pew Bible page 798.
Hear God’s word this morning. When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it, you should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Now, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question, what do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he? They said to him, the son of David. He said to them, how is it that David by the spirit calls him Lord saying the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son? No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. This is the word of the Lord.
Let us pray.
Gracious, mighty, and wondrous God, we thank you. We thank you for your word that lights our path and guides us and leads us to be your servants in a world full of pain, hurt, and loss. We ask that you would guide us and lead us. Lead us to be the people you believe us to be. Guide us to be your servants in this world. Gracious Lord, through this word, may you bless us in your name we pray, amen.
As we begin our reading today, we see a little sliver of the animosity between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Pharisees are watching Jesus interchange with the Sadducees and they’re intrigued because if Jesus is willing to shut them down and correct their theology, maybe this Jesus guy is worth a second look for the Pharisees. But as we read this, and this enemy of my enemy must be at least not my enemy approach, it also has a feeling of a next batter up for Jesus. It seems like every time someone comes to him from these various groups, the Sadducees, the Herodians, all of them, there’s this moment where they’re both scratching to find out if Jesus is who he is, but they’re also trying to find out if they can knock the stool out from under him.
And so as they come, they ask questions. And sometimes we look at the relationships and we put them into automatically the antagonistic category, but not every question is antagonistic. Sometimes these questions that are asked of Jesus are also an attempt to find truth, to find answers, to perhaps answer the questions sitting in within their own hearts. And so we have to understand that the Sadducees, Pharisees are not all against Jesus. They might be looking to follow him if only in secret. And so as we look at this lawyer seeking to test Jesus, he is possibly doing so for one purpose or another. He is either asking antagonistically or he’s asking as a genuine wondering and a genuine seeker. Now you can imagine the problem that presents if he is seeking to antagonize because he’s talking about initially the Big Ten, not the football conference, but the Big Ten as in the Big Ten Commandments. Now if you want, let’s look at it mathematically a little bit on percentages.
If I were to tell you to pick one of the Ten Commandments and say which is the greatest, we might end up with ten different answers from ten different people. Depending on the day, I bet the parents in this room would love for the most important one to be honor your father and mother, right? For a minister, my answer, depending on the day, might be honor your father and mother. Oh, but maybe also keep the Lord your God as the first of all. That’s the first commandment, right? I’m paraphrasing. The reality is it’s a difficult thing to drill down with the original Ten Commandments. They cover such a wide area of life and living. It is not an easy thing to take all ten of those commandments and pick just one, just one that shall be the greatest. Now you could go with the opening, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
Or, the second commandment, you shall not make for yourself any idol. So which is number one of those two? One pairs with the other. They work together. And so what Jesus does here, what we have here is actually a quote from a prayer. Because God has also given Israel the ability to narrow down those ten into two. And if we look at the Ten Commandments, it really falls under two categories. Two main schools of living and thought, and if we successfully live out those two commandments, we have literally covered those ten. You’re going to give me cliff notes on Ten Commandments? All right, I’m in. But the problem is, we look at why Jesus does this.
Why does Jesus, instead of giving ten commandments, gives two? Well we can imagine everyone walking around with a tablet of the Ten Commandments every day of the week. The sheer number of back problems would be left, right, and sideways. But the other thing is, not everyone could read what was written on those tablets. We take for granted the literacy that exists in our world. If I can tell you to memorize ten commandments or two, which would you pick if you couldn’t read? Which would you choose? The ten or the two? Why do we have certain prayers when Jesus teaches us to pray the Lord’s Prayer? Why is it? So that we have a ready basis in prayer. When we learn the Apostles’ Creed, why did the early church teach us that? So that we would have a statement of faith ready to go in our heads that tells us what we believe.
And so when Jesus gives us these two very, very specific commandments, it’s not because he’s throwing away the other ten. It’s because God has simplified and created it so that we can live these out better. Because those Ten Commandments have a problem and a risk involved. And we see it with the Pharisees. There’s this tendency to lean into and love the legalism of the Ten Commandments more than God. If you love the commandments of thou shalt not kill, thou shalt do all of the Ten Commandments more than God, what is the purpose of those commandments? But if we live into that first commandment that Jesus speaks, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, that is memorizable, it is rememberable, and most of all, it is a guidepost for each and every one of us to live. If we can manage to live and love God with everything that is within us, we are living fairly well.
But God doesn’t stop there. Jesus gives us a second answer as well. And the truth is, the first one is the easy one. But Jesus, as Jesus always does, gives us more than what’s asked for. Remember, the Pharisee lawyer asked, what is the greatest commandment? And instead, Jesus gives him the first and second greatest. Sort of like when Jesus feeds the 5,000 and everyone gets fed and there are extra baskets of food. When Jesus goes at the wedding at Cana and turns water into wine, what happens? Is it just regular wine that he turns the water into? No, it is the best wine that the guests have ever had. Jesus goes above and beyond, and here he is not just giving a religious guide for the people to love the Lord your God with all of your everything, no. He is giving us an interpersonal guide for how we are to live out as God’s people. How we are to live into the Ten Commandments through these two. And this second one, as the kid said, is the hardest of the two.
When we think of God and God’s love for us, it is amazing, magnificent. It is beyond our understanding. And yes, it is easy to try and love God. Will we fall short? Will we come up short? Yes. But it is an easy thing to love the God that gives us the sunshine, the earth, our families, gives us all things that are wondrous and amazing. That is easy. To love a God who forgives and gives us grace, that is easy. The doing part is hard. The doing and living it out part is hard.
But let’s talk about loving our neighbor. Because that is even harder. Because our neighbors hurt us. Our neighbors sometimes offend us. Our neighbors sometimes act in ways that we dislike. And yet, we are called to love them. The hard part is to love God is an easy thing when God does all these great things. But when the person next to us, we know. We know their blemishes, their issues. We know them. We know ourselves as well. And sometimes loving ourselves as much as we love our neighbors is even harder.
And God doesn’t exactly let us off the hook. These aren’t exactly suggestions that God gives. They are commands, commandments meant for us to live into and live out. And again, yes, the bar is steady. But it’s a high bar to love our neighbors and ourselves sometimes. When somebody is behind you tapping their foot at the grocery store line because you have one item over the express lane limit. Do we still have express lanes? I haven’t noticed. But that person tapping their foot, getting annoyed with you, is it easy to love them? If you are the person tapping your foot and the person in front of you is doing that, is it easy to love them? What about the person who constantly is playing loud music next door to you? Or the person who constantly has that really annoying offensive comment that they’re always throwing in? Is it easy to love one another?
No. It’s hard. It takes work. It takes our efforts. Because here’s the deal. If we are to love God, we must live into that commitment, that commandment to love one another no matter how hard it is. No matter how hard it is, it’s easy to love the lovable. It’s hard to love those who harm us. It’s hard to love those who offend us. It’s hard to love those at all times. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we should not live and struggle and strive to live into.
Because here’s the deal. God has commanded because we are capable. God commands not because God’s throwing up a goal that we will never reach. This is not God saying, guess what, Doug? You’re going to have to run as fast in a race as Usain Bolt. Russ, guess what? Here’s your job. You are going to have to do gymnastics like Simone Biles. OK? Jeannie, guess what? You are going to have to sing like Pavarotti. No, God doesn’t set the bars that high for us. God sets the bar at where we are perfectly capable of. But we have to struggle. We have to strive. We have to work to love one another. To love is to work. To love is to be willing to hurt, to willing to fail, willing to put others forward in our lives. It’s a challenge to follow God’s commandments. It is a challenge. But it is one that God knows we are capable of. But we have to work hard at it.
Faith is hard. Serving God is hard. But the reward is well worth it.
Brothers and sisters, let us respond to God through our gifts. Amen.