Intent: Perseverance
The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t often overturn its own decisions, but it does happen. Since the court was established in 1789, it has written more than 25,000 decisions, which then became the law of the land. Of those decisions, only 146 — a mere one-half of one percent — have been overturned. Roe v. Wade is the most recent. In place for nearly 50 years, a generation of Americans had grown up with it. Perfect system? No, but imagine our nation without the Supreme Court. Just look at countries that do not have our democratic system!
The reason the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) gets involved is because where there’s a law there’s a lawyer. This is not a bad thing. It’s just how it works. Laws get tested. Unfair laws are reviewed. Unintended consequences may bring a law under scrutiny. A small business owner may decide to challenge the ruling of a lower court, shake her fist in the face of the magistrate, and vow to “take this all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.”
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is in conversation with the two leading religious communities of the day: the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Jesus has already embarrassed the former — black-robed dons who had challenged him with a question about who is married to whom in the afterlife.
Now, after huddling with his colleagues, a lawyer, who was also a Pharisee, stepped forward and “asked him a question to test him.” It was not an honest question. This attorney was hoping to trap Jesus like a rabbit in a snare. He hoped that Jesus would be forced to incriminate himself by saying something that ran counter not only to tradition, but also the Scriptures. So, the lawyer guy placed a wedge of Gouda on the trap, and set the trigger: “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Without hesitation, Jesus grabbed, absconded and made off with the bait faster than you can say, “Who moved my cheese?” He said, in effect, “The greatest commandment? Love God. And coming in at a close second is love your neighbor as yourself.”
Wow! If we’d been asked that question, how would we have responded?
If this were a modern-day courtroom drama, could the greatest commandment survive a court challenge?
The answer is “Yes.”
How do you overturn love? How do you argue that it’s more important not to love than to love? You don’t. You can’t. Jesus killed it, and everyone listening to him realized it immediately. “No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”
In fact, according to Mark’s Gospel, the same lawyer who posed the question said to Jesus, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength’, and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’, — this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’” (Mark 12:32-34).
So, our top priority in life, our greatest and most solemn duty — a religious and moral obligation enshrined in Mosaic Law for thousands of years — is this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And, far from being overturned, Jesus reinforced it emphatically with this utterance, and then, spectacularly, with his very life.
But what does it mean to love God? In our culture, to love something can mean many things, and there’s no end of objects to love or like. We love dogs and cats, shoes and hats, movies and artwork, music and photography, and sometimes, we even love people (yes, I might not like to admit it, but I do find that difficult sometimes).
We try to parse the differences. To like someone, we say, is to know the best of someone, and like them for it; whereas to love someone is to know the worst, and yet love them still. I once asked my mother about her relationship with my father. As some of you may know, my father was an alcoholic. He tried dragging my mother down the same path, and there were times I thought he might succeed. However, I asked her if she loved him. And her response was much along the lines of the differences of agape and eros type of love.
Her response was slow and calculated, but very instructive. She simply said, “I love him, but I do not like him.” I do not recall how old I was at the time. Probably my early teens. However, it has remained with me all these years and has been very instructive in so many ways. It was very instructive during my seminary years and the time spent on learning love as Jesus taught and as St. Paul taught. Yet, though she didn’t feel she “liked” him, she did love him. She also didn’t leave him, though I don’t believe divorce was even in my parent’s vocabulary anyway. So, she had to confront both agape and eros love, because even though she did not “like” him, she stayed by his side in a form of sacrifice.
What about loving God? We’ve never seen God. God is a spirit. Loving God is such a fuzzy, nebulous idea. Most of us are not against loving God. We’re just not sure what’s expected.
Loving God need not be without passion, but emotion is not the key element. The Greek word agape has nothing to do with passion, whereas the word eros has everything to do with passion.
That said, although loving God may be passionless, it is not passive. One cannot love God without being responsive to God. Jesus himself gave us the rubric to help us know and learn how to love God.
We live life in a way that responds to God … with our hearts and our souls and our minds. In other words, our love for God is not passive love; on the contrary, it is very active, visible and demonstrative. In fact, to use the words heart, mind and soul pretty much covers everything that we are — our total selves. This is how we are to love God: with everything in our being, all that we are, and the best versions of ourselves. When we love God, we’re all in. Nothing is held back.
But, to the details: heart, mind and soul.
The Bible is quite clear that we are terrible when it comes to loving God with our heart, mind and souls. Loving God is not easy because the forces of the world, our culture, sin and the devil are positioned against those who wish to give their lives to God.
Fortunately, all is not lost! A passage from Jeremiah 17:10: “I the LORD test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.” And the apostles Paul, James and Peter all say that we have armor and strategies to defend ourselves from anything or anyone who wants to keep us from loving God with all of heart, mind and soul. (See Ephesians 6, James 4:7 and 1 Peter 5:8-9.)
If one were seeking to overturn the first and second great commandments of Jesus, the first question one might ask is: “Who is my neighbor?”
In fact, in Luke’s Gospel, there’s an account of a testy conversation between an attorney and Jesus. “Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus” (Luke 10:25). They exchanged comments, and then the lawyer put it to Jesus: “But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Luke 10:29).
This was an important question because, as God’s chosen people, the Jews were accustomed to acting with favor toward those of the covenant, toward those schooled in the Mosaic Law, toward those of their tribe, customs and traditions.
The Hebrews had to be taught that it is also important to be kind to and seek justice for the foreigner, the stranger or those who were non-Jews. This is why Moses decreed that some crops were to be unharvested “for the poor and the alien” (Leviticus 19:9-10). Further, every third year a tithe was to be shared with “resident aliens, the orphans and the widows in your towns” (Deuteronomy 14:28-29; 26:12-13).
Why this concern for the alien, the stranger, the sojourner, or the person Jesus might call the “neighbor”? Compassion for the sojourner neighbor was to be a reminder that Israel was also a sojourner at one time while in Egypt. Mercy and justice for the sojourner should also remind us that God loves the sojourner: “The LORD your God is God of gods and LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19).
When we love our neighbors, we are in turn loving God by expressing the same attributes of God: love, compassion, mercy and justice for the stranger.
Is there a chance these two great commandments of Jesus (borrowed from the law of Moses) could be overturned?
Yes and no.
There’s no chance that God is going to have a change of mind or heart on these matters, is there? Unlike a SCOTUS ruling, the obligation to love God and neighbor is not going to be lifted. So, no. There’s no chance.
But yes, if one considers how life is actually practiced. In some ways, we overturn God’s laws every day.
• We shout at people.
• We gossip about people.
• We’re reluctant to let go of our money.
• We might refuse to help someone not of our tribe, ethnicity or gender.
So, Jesus’ brief summary of the most important aspects of moral law challenges us to reexamine our own set of moral imperatives.
God’s law is immutable and eternal. We would do well to pray with the psalmist:
O that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
I will praise you with an upright heart,
when I learn your righteous ordinances.
I will observe your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me. (Psalm 119:5-8)
Amen. Let us pray.
In today’s Gospel Jesus reminds us that the greatest commandment for each of us is to love our God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind. We pray, that through good works and love of neighbor, we show our true love for our Heavenly Father. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for all who at this time feel isolated, abandoned and separated from their loved ones. We pray also that fractured relationships be healed, that families be reconciled and that those in need be the receivers of Christian charity and good neighborliness. We pray to the Lord.
For the family, friends and good people of Lewiston, Maine. May the Holy Spirit gather around them and fill them with love and comfort in this horrifying time. Help the residents to regain a sense of safety. We pray to the Lord.
May the family and friends of the perpetrator also find some comfort as they struggle to understand how one of their own could do such heinous things. We pray to the Lord.
For people who smother themselves in misery. May bitterness be washed away in love. May our youth and our elderly discover God’s abundant protection and peace. May we all find new reasons to live upon the earth. We pray to the Lord.
For us to wake from our sleep in these times of war. May we see anew the tragic treatment of children and civilians. May our hearts long for justice as we offer our lives in service to people who most need us. We pray to the Lord.
For people who live with mental and emotional illness. May we be patient among our loved ones who live with memory loss and severe decline. May we surrender to God’s abundant love for us all. We pray to the Lord.
We pray for our parish, that it will be a place of welcome, where all will feel the warmth of God’s love and that this love be reflected in all our daily lives. We pray to the Lord.
For generous benefactors who can help our tiny parish with needed repairs and better fiscal foundation. We pray to the Lord.
For those on our parish prayer list, that they may receive swift answers to their needs and that they may find consolation through Christ’s healing presence. We pray to the Lord.
We bow our heads and remember in silence our own personal intentions and the intentions of those who have asked for our prayers (pause). We pray to the Lord.
Father God, first we come to you with reopened wounds of gun violence in our country. Once again there appears to be a need to find ways to keep guns out of hands of those who have some emotional difficulties. Once again, we have weapons in the hands of someone that should not have them. Assault weapons should not be freely in the hands of someone who should not have them. Help to comfort us as we once again commiserate a shooting that should not have happened. We pray to the Lord.
Merciful God, you have called us to be imitators of your Son, who embodied the commandment to love you with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. Make our hearts tender to people whom you love, the “least of these” that we encounter each day. May the compassion of our souls well up within us and cause us to act on behalf of those who are marginalized, underage, infirm, poor, victimized and voiceless. Challenge us to use our intellect and education for the common good, not just for personal advancement. Grant us the strength to build, to meet needs, to encourage, to reach out, to give sacrificially and selflessly. Thank you for the example of Jesus and for the trust you have placed in us to continue to model the greatest commandment to the world. We ask all these things through Christ our Lord. Amen.
God Love You.
The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Chapel
San Diego, CA.
As a small parish, we come to you all as beggars! All non-profits compete for your support, and many serve the community’s great needs, and we do not ask you to stop giving to them. But maybe one week or month, we ask that you consider a small donation to our humble parish. Your generous support also allows us to continue these important projects that fuel the movement of progressive Christianity. God will look on your donation grant you his grace in abundance! Thank you and God bless you! +++
Go to payypal.me/stfrancischapel and type in the amount.
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