November 3, 2024 Sermon
Sermon title: “The Greatest Commandment”
Scripture: Mark 12:28-34
(Other lectionary suggestions include Ruth 1:1-18, Psalm 146:1-10, and Hebrews 9:11-14.)
Mark 12:28-34
The First Commandment
28One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; 33and ‘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.” 34When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
My thanks to Jill for reading my sermon today. The “usual suspects” I rely on weren’t available today, or if they were, I didn’t think of them soon enough. Anyway, thank you, Jill. I am away at the memorial service for a dear, sweet lady from my previous church. She was in her late seventies and a cancer survivor -- but the cancer returned. She was so generous in every way. As you know, I have visited a woman in prison, and this woman went with me and then even MORE times than I did. She has also brought her husband into practice, as well as one of their grown daughters. She was a dear, sweet person.
In a way, as I think about it, she embodied what Jesus said was the greatest commandment: she loved the Lord her God with all her might, with all her heart, and with all her mind and soul and strength. Oh yeah: and she took the second greatest commandment seriously, too: she loved her neighbor as herself. Quoting N. T. Wright, the New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham in England, “The Jewish law begins with worship, with the love of God, because if it’s true that we’re made in God’s image we will find our fullest meaning, our true selves, the more we learn to love and worship the one we are designed to reflect. No half measures: heart, soul, mind and strength -- that is, every aspect of human life -- is to be poured out gladly in worship of the one true God. Whatever we do, we are to do for him. If we truly lived like that for a single day, God’s kingdom would have come on earth as it is in heaven. And -- this is the point -- Jesus seems to think that through his kingdom-work this commandment is now within our reach.”
Did you notice in today’s reading how Jesus says what the SECOND Greatest Commandment is, even before the guy asking the question ASKS it? “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Again, says N. T. Wright, “If people lived by this rule, most of the world’s greatest problems would be solved overnight.” Jesus really expects his followers to live this Commandment out, “because he believes that God is now fulfilling his ancient promise to renew people’s hearts.”
That business of renewing peoples’ hearts: do you know where that comes from? The prophet Jeremiah, who looked for a NEW law, not one written in stone, but ON PEOPLES’ HEARTS. I think Jesus was expecting such a thing.
But if that’s true, that God has put a new law in peoples’ hearts, what does that mean for the Temple? Jesus doesn’t say so, but the author of the Gospel of Mark is suggesting it: “If these commandments are the primary ones; if this is what worshipping, loving and serving God is all about, then all that the Temple stands for, the daily, weekly and annual round of sacrifices and offerings, is virtually unnecessary. When a crisis comes, loving God and one’s neighbor still matters; sacrifices don't.”
Jesus saw that the guy who asked him the question “got” it. That’s why Jesus told him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
But what about us? Do we modern Christians embody the Two Greatest Commandments? Do our churches and the rest of society? Some have called us a “Christian” nation, but I’m not crazy about that term. In the words of N. T. Wright, “When the crisis comes, what remains solid in your life and the life of your community? Wholehearted love of God and neighbour? Or the mad scramble of everyone trying to save their own skins?” What do you think? Amen.
Pastor Skip
