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“One of the teachers of the law
came and heard them debating.
Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, ‘Of
all the commandments, which is the most important?’ ‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus,
‘is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love
your neighbor as yourself.’ There is
no commandment greater than these.’” (Mark. 12:28-31).
Sooner
or later in 8th grade confirmation class, an eager hand will
shoot up from a student that typically isn’t so eager, and out will come
one of those grand hypothetical cases, a “what if question”. “Pastor, what if, in the Lord’s Supper,
they used Mountain Dew and Doritos instead of wine and bread . . . would it
still be the Lord’s Supper?” (Of
course, one only asks such a question to try to impress your classmates with
your cheekiness and irreverence. I
find it usually helps to glare at the one who asks such a question.) Luther was once asked, “What was God doing
before he created the earth?” Luther’s response? “He was creating hell for the people who
ask questions like that.”
In Mark chapter 13, the Sadducees
had decided they wanted to argue with Jesus about marriage. They’ve conjured up a hypothetical case,
and it’s a whopper: “Suppose a woman
marries a man, and that man later dies, leaving her childless” they say. “Now, Moses says the man’s brother should
marry the widow, so she can have children.
Suppose the brother dutifully fulfills this role, but then he dies,
and she’s still childless. Just suppose
this happens seven times. This poor
woman has gone through seven husbands, all brothers, and still has no
children to show for it. And suppose
this woman then also dies. “At the
resurrection” they ask, “whose wife will she be, since she had seven
husbands?” They smirk at their
cheekiness and irreverence.
Now remember, Sadducees
didn’t believe there would be a resurrection, so they’re not genuinely
interested in any answer Jesus might give.
They’re just pestering Jesus, while, at the same time, mocking his
steadfast belief in the resurrection from the dead. (By the way, I’ve always wondered why
brother number seven, after marriage to this woman proved fatal to six of
his brothers, didn’t decline the honor.)
In any event, Jesus answers them, defending both
marriage and resurrection. All the
while, a lawyer is listening in on the conversation, and he is genuinely
impressed with Jesus. He poses
another question, a sincere inquiry.
“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” In answer, Jesus quotes the great Shema
from the book of Deuteronomy: “Hear,
O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord
is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Every Jew had that one memorized. They kept it in their heart. They wore it in a little pouch around
their wrist or forehead, nailed it to the front door of the house, recited
it, and taught it to their children.
God is one. Love him with
heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Love him with everything in you.
And . . . Jesus added a second commandment. The man asked for one and got two. “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.” That’s in the Bible too,
the book of Leviticus. So it’s not
new. What is unique is that Jesus
puts them together – the love of God and the love of neighbor – in a way
that makes one commandment. That is
new. If you love God, you will also
love your neighbor. Get the first
commandment right (“You shall have no other gods”) and all the other
commandments will fall naturally into place. (1)
If you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength you
won’t have any trouble with (2) misusing his name and (3) keeping the
Sabbath. If you love God, you won’t
be (4) disobeying those he sets in authority over you, or (5) murdering, or
(6) committing adultery, (7) stealing, (8) slandering, and (9-10) coveting. Jesus has, in effect, put the
commandments together, so there is now really just one to worry about, one
to love, one to serve: the
Godneighbor. That is, we serve God
by serving our neighbor. For the
love of God, we love our neighbor.
The lawyer
understood exactly what Jesus was saying.
To love God and neighbor is more important than all burnt offerings
and sacrifice he says, more important than rituals and processionals and
ceremonies. That is, you can attend
every service the church offers, participate in every Bible Study, open and
close the day by opening and closing your devotional book, pray seven times
a day, and still not love God because you are not loving your neighbor.
This is why in Matthew 25 Jesus taught that on
the Last Day, the King is going to surprise many by saying to them, “Depart
from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil
and his angels. For I was hungry and
you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did
not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after
me.” People will protest, “But Lord
when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or
sick or in prison and not help you?”
Remember his response? “Whatever you did not do for one of the least
of these, you did not do for me.”
“Depart from me.”
This is why Jesus taught “Not everyone
that says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” They will plead, “‘did we not prophesy in
your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many
miracles?’ Then I will tell them
plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away
from me, you evildoers’” (Matthew 7:21)!
Isn’t this what James taught? Show me your faith without deeds, and
I’ll show you what a dead faith looks like (James 2).
And so Luther writes, “If
you find yourself in a work by which you accomplish something good for God
. . . but not for your neighbor, then you should know that that work is not
a good work” (WA 10, 41). That is,
good works reach down, and not up.
Good works seek to help the neighbor. “To use a rough example” Luther writes,
“If you are a craftsman you will find the Bible placed in your workshop, in
your hands, in your heart; it teaches and preaches how you ought to treat
your neighbor. Only look at your
tools, your needle, your thimble, your beer barrel, your articles of trade,
your scales, your measures, and you will find this saying written on them .
. . they will shout this to your face, ‘My dear, use me toward your
neighbor as you would want him to act toward you with that which is his’”
(WA 32, 495-496). In this way, good
works reach down, not up.
Good works are earthy, not heavenly. You get your hands dirty doing good
works, and maybe your spirit too. To love the Lord your God with all your
heart, soul, mind, and strength is usually tactile, physical, and sometimes
even odious. It can mean scrubbing
the toilette of your elderly neighbor and washing his dirty dishes. It can mean changing the diaper, rocking
the baby, reading the story when you can barely keep your eyes open. You love God with all your strength when
you care for your aging parent, brother, or sister, when you stay late to
finish the job, when you go over it one more time to get it right. You love God with all your strength when
you do what God has called you to do, what God has gifted you to do, with
everything in you.
The Bible
talks a lot about loving God and neighbor, but it’s not so much interested
in love as an emotion, but rather love as an act, as a commitment, doing
what needs to be done however inconvenient, and doing it very well, even
though the one you’re serving doesn’t know how to return thanks and cannot
return the favor.
Today, five are being
commissioned to serve as Stephen Leaders.
These five are not the Stephen Ministers themselves, but the ones
who will organize, train and supervise the Stephen Ministers. Stephen Ministers are lay men and women
who provide one to one Christian care for those who are hurting. Stephen Ministers are not
counselors. Their role is not to
give advice or psychotherapy. They
listen, they strive to understand without judging, and they pray with those
who are working through a rough time.
Now that would be easy if people were always at
their best. However, when people are
suffering, they are not always loveable.
Often they are turned inward.
When they’re suffering they’re not the most good-humored, positive
people they want to be. They need
someone to care anyway. As a pastor,
I can do that, but I cannot give the kind of time and attention that some
really need. People need ongoing
care long after I have moved on to the next funeral or the next
crisis. That’s the most important work of a
Stephen Minister. What do Stephen
Ministers do? They show up. They show up after the last casserole
dish is returned, after the last family member has returned home, after the
pastor has moved on to the next funeral or hospital call, after the cards
and well-wishes have stopped coming . . . that’s when the Stephen Minister
shows up. The most important tool
they bring with them is themselves; not so much what they say or do, but
who they are . . . Christian brothers and sisters who care.
When all goes well, they
give us a little glimpse of Christ, who also showed up just when and where
we needed him the most. In the
person of his Son, he showed up in Bethlehem,
just as promised long before, and he showed up in the wilderness to be
tempted by Satan, and on a hillside by the sea to teach and preach. Just when all the townspeople had given
up on a demon-possessed man named Legion, Jesus showed up there, and when
the crowd of mourners was beginning to thin following the death of Lazarus,
Jesus showed up there. And at Golgotha, on the center cross, he’s there too, for
those who need him the most. After
they buried him, when all believed him to be irrevocably, irreversibly dead,
Jesus showed up.
He doesn’t just show up to twiddle his thumbs, or
to love the Father with all his heart and strength. For Jesus, there is never a disconnect
between love of God and love of neighbor.
There is never an instance when Jesus is all faith and no works. There is never a moment when his good
works are reaching up rather than down, when they are just heavenly, and
not earthly. Jesus loved the Father
with everything he had, by loving you with all his heart, soul, mind, and
strength.
Still today, Jesus shows up,
in the Word that is proclaimed, in his body and blood that is put into your
mouth, in the love we receive from our brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus shows up when and where we need him
the most.
Our response?
“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 “Love your neighbor
as yourself.” Amen.
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