Sermon Proper 25 A

Proper 25 A

Transcribed from a sermon given at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

October 23, 2011

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Matthew 22: 34-46

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all you mind, with all your strength - with all your whatever. And love you neighbor as yourself. Even though it is translated different ways we’ve heard it so many times. It is the essence. It is simple. It is easy to remember. It is a wonderful little sound bite.

It’s really hard to remember the hundreds, thousands, of rules that the Pharisees tried to follow. Even the Ten Commandments can get intimidating. Do you remember all ten? But love God and love your neighbor - that you can remember. That’s simple. It’s clear. It’s not confusing - until you start thinking about what does it mean to love? How do you love someone? What does it look like when you love God? And how in the world can you be commanded to love? You can be invited to love, but no one can command you to love. We know of the dictators in the world who demand that their people love them; well you can be made to say I love you but nobody can force you to actually love. In fact commanding someone to love you is the best way to get them to not love you. So how can there be a commandment to love God? What does love look like in the every day?

And then the other question that comes up as you read this passage is why the writer of Matthew put Jesus asking about this obscure thing from scripture about David saying the Lord said to my Lord? Why is it right there, after the great commandment? So there are lots of questions. Something that seems so simple ends up looking a bit more complicated.

This particular question that Jesus asked the Pharisees is using the way the Pharisees thought and turning it on them. They went through scripture and took what they wanted to try and explain things. One of the issues was what was the Messiah to be like. Now the Jews did not expect the Messiah to be divine. The Jews expected, and still expect, the Messiah to be a great human being. Like we heard about Moses, who was a friend to God and could do marvelous and amazing things and fully human. Yet Jesus was talking in ways that didn’t quite fit with that. Which disturbed the Pharisees. So he says to them, well look back at your own scriptures. One of the passages hat is seen as predicting the coming of the Messiah was this particular passage from Psalms. The understanding then was the psalms were written by David. Scholars now are pretty sure that David did not write most of the Psalms, maybe he wrote a few, but most of them he didn’t. But then there was no disagreement about who wrote them - David wrote them all. So how could David be referring to the messiah as his lord if the messiah was to be his son? Remember that the prediction is that the Messiah would be a descendant from David. So Jesus is bringing up this issue this question, to leave it open that maybe the Messiah is more than you imagined. Maybe the messiah is more than you ever dreamed - not what you thought.

For us the important issue is how do we come to love. If you have ever met someone who had no love as a child you realize that as an adult they are a very damaged human being because we learn how to love by being loved. We respond to love with love. It has been said that you don’t teach love, you don’t command love, you catch love. It’s almost like a virus, if you get around it and you catch it then it grows in you and then you give it to others. But it is a good kind of virus.

So if love is something that we catch from being loved how are we to love God? By knowing that God loves us. That is the power of the incarnation and the sacrifice of Christ. Some of us have a difficult time feeling a love relationship with an abstract deity in whom we live and move and have our being. For some of us it is easier to feel loved and to love in return when it has a human face - human flesh. So in order for us to obey the command to love God we need to know that we are loved by God. It is God’s love that empowers us and strengthens us to be able to love in return and to be able to love others - to be open to that love.

But what does it look like. What is every day life like when you love someone? Most of us here, probably all of us here, have at some point felt deep love for someone. Whether it was a spouse or a child or a friend. When you were feeling that deepest kind of love, when you went to grocery story the one you love was with you, even if they weren’t physically there because as you walk down the aisle you think “Oh, she would love that!” Or, “He loves doughnuts. I’m going to get the chocolate ones with the sprinkles which is what he likes the most.” Or for your children you may go “Oh, there’s the kind of cereal he loves the most. Well, that’s not good for him but I’m going to get the healthy one he likes the most.” Because love is not always doing what the person wants, but what is best for them. But when you are feeling love, when you are loving, when you are in love, you naturally want to do things for the other person.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend recently. She had a difficult patch in her marriage including a short period of separation. After working hard on their issues when they got back together the marriage was better then it ever was before. She told me that it was interesting that before the separation when it came time for her husband’s birthday or Christmas she couldn’t figure out what to get him. But after they got back together when it was Christmas time she wanted to buy him six or seven different things. She just spontaneously wanted to do things for him.

 You know the difference when you go Christmas shopping and you have to buy things because you ought to, say for aunt so and so. You can’t figure out what you are going to get her this year. Compare this to when it is not even any special day and you go “Oh, this person would love that. I’m going to pick it up and give it to them.”

When we are feeling that love relationship we just want to give. It becomes natural to give. It becomes what our hearts and minds and souls want to do. And so when we are in a relationship of love with God when we know God’s love for us and we open to that, we just want to give to God. And the only way we can really give to God is giving to other people. So we spontaneously want to give not just things, but of ourselves. We want to express our love. And the more we do that the more we feel God’s love, and the more we feel God’s love the more people around us feel the love that we have for them. It magnifies itself.

So we have this wonderful, succinct summary of all the Law and the Prophets - all that a Christian really needs to know. Love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your spirit, with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.