Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

For many centuries before Jesus the rabbis had debated which commandment was greatest, or (in another version of the same game) in what way could all the commandments be summarized into one - theological gymnastics, to be sure, mostly for the classroom. When they invited our Lord to enter that ancient debate and name the greatest commandment, he didn't pick one of the Big Ten. He didn't even choose one of the 613 derivative commandments, which, according to the rabbis, were logical extensions of the Big Ten. He turned to Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and named two, not one. But, he said (and this is what we're going to focus on today) - he said they were like each other. Love God with all your powers. Love neighbor as yourself.
How are they alike? They share the verb "love." And let us remind ourselves that love is a verb for Christians. It implies actions not feelings. It's just the opposite of sentimentality. It doesn't mean, "My heart goes pitty-pat." How old do we have to be before we learn that lesson? How many mistakes do we have to make? It's not a bad rule to learn in regard to all kinds of love: true love is what we do, not simply what we think or feel, or even say.
If a woman were to love a man, would it be enough just to love him in her heart, just to nurture a feeling about him? Of course not! If her love is true, she will spend time with him, she will listen to him and learn his thoughts, she will give him gifts, she will try to please him. To love God is not just to nurture a feeling about God. If our love for God is real, we will want to spend time with him, listen to and learn of him, give him gifts and try to please him by our actions.

Now, if that same woman were to discover that the man she loves has children, she would make every effort to love them (because of her love for him). She would spend time with them, listen to them, learn from them, give them gifts and try to please them - for love of their father. If she did not love their father, she probably would not love them. But she knows that in loving them she expresses love for their father.
God brings baggage with him - a family, no less. To love him is to love his children, some of whom are bad actors. But, conversely, to love his children (as difficult as that may be) is also to express our love for him. The two commandments are alike. That is, they are of equal value and inseparable. The Bible says, "If anyone says he loves God, and hates his neighbor, he is a liar." And the good news is this: the one word that summarizes our duty to God and neighbor, "love," also summarizes God's promises to us. Love is mutual. Love is everything.

It's not simply that "people who love people are the luckiest people in the world." People who love people are more than lucky; they are the survivors. Walt Whitman said, "Whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral wearing his own shroud." Such people, who cannot sympathize with the needs of others, who know nothing but judgement, who cannot stop and help a neighbor, are dead men walking. Because a callousness toward our neighbors indicates a callousness toward God, and God is life. An old Korean legend tells of a good man who died and, before going to heaven, asked if he might visit hell - "just to see what it's like." When the gates of hell swung open, the man was surprised to see huge banquet tables, laden with sumptuous food. But the people sitting around the tables were gaunt and emaciated. He saw immediately what the problem was: their chop sticks were longer than their arms. They could pick up the food, but they couldn't get it into their mouths. The man said, "I've seen enough. Take me to heaven," but there, when the gates opened, he saw also banquet tables, spread with good food, and people with chop sticks longer than their arms. But they were strong and healthy, because in heaven they were feeding each other. Love is how we survive. It's not just icing on life's cake. Without love life is murder.
Surely we saw that in these last three weeks. Two individuals from whom all love, all human empathy, was somehow gone, reeking death and fear on millions. A person wholly without love is a terrible thing to see. He destroys others and, eventually, himself. Love is a survival strategy. It transcends all divisions. And, if true love exists, at least by Christian measure, it encompasses both God and neighbor. If whatever it is you're feeling, and perhaps calling "religion," does not encompass both, it is not true love and it's not true religion, either.

In the Old Testament, "neighbor" usually meant another Israelite. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expands that, making sure that "neighbor" includes one's enemies, a radical idea. But it is in the Parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus tears down all remaining fences around the word, "neighbor," and defines neighbor as "anyone to whom I can be a neighbor." In other words, anyone who it is possible to love I must love….or be guilty of passing by on the other side. Why? Because that is the way God loves us: with a love that is willing to make itself vulnerable. That kind of love binds the universe together. "Love God" and "love neighbor" - what else is there? In the Christian scheme of things, love the core.

One thing we are saying, I guess, is that love of neighbor is really self-love, because we can't survive as individuals or as communities without it. That may be why Jesus said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." C. S. Lewis remarked that before he came into God's presence, "kicking and screaming," he would hear his Christian friends say we should "hate the sin but love the sinner." And he always thought that was ridiculous hair splitting. Until he realized, one day, that that was precisely how he had always loved himself. His inner survival (today we might say his "self-esteem"), what kept him from imploding spiritually, was his ability to love himself while overlooking all his faults. That is self-love, but it is not self-fish. In fact it is saintly. For it is the way God loves us, and the way he calls us to love one another. If we apply the same self-love to others that we apply to ourselves, if we "love our neighbors as ourselves" (caring for them and overlooking their faults), we will be, as Martin Luther said, "little Christs.". And love will have come full circle. In a sinful world that's the only kind of love there can be. Only Jesus' love was pure. Ours always contains self-interest. But it is still a wonderful and powerful love, and it changes things for the better. Who cares if Andrew Carnegie gave all those libraries to avoid taxes. It's still better than not giving them. It's far better for him and for the world. Love is action. It's not so important for us to feel it as it is for us to do it. Love binds us together with God and our neighbors. It makes life possible. It makes life good. It is the greatest commandment, for it is the stuff of which the Kingdom of God is made. Brethren, let us love one another even as Christ has loved us.