The Many Faces of Love

Sermon: Matthew 22:34-46
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Oct. 23, 2011

In the Gospel reading Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment in the law. We should thank that Pharisees for asking the question because it provided the stage for this great teaching. I believe it is Jesus’s greatest teaching, encapsulating everything else He taught and lived. He answered “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.” He is quick to add “and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Okay, let’s go through this passage with a fine tooth comb. I used to think this was a brand new teaching by Jesus, but it is not. These two commandments are found in the Hebrew Scriptures, which we Christians call the Old Testament. The first, love of God, is found in Deuteronomy and the second, love of neighbor, is found in Leviticus. The wording in Deuteronomy is slightly different. It says Love God with “all your might.” In Matthew it reads “with all your mind.” I personally like “might” over “mind.” It implies that we love God with all our resources: money, power and energy. Whereas “mind” kind of implies just thinking love.

So, if these commandments are not new, what’s the big deal?

There are several big deals, really big deals. One big deal is that Jesus tied the two separate commandments together, coming as they did from separate books. He taught that you show your love of God by how you love your neighbor. In another place He asked “how can someone say they love God, whom they do not see and hate their neighbor, whom they see every day?”

Another big deal is the answer to the question “who is my neighbor?” The Old Testament meaning is that neighbor is my own people. Those writers of the Torah, the first five books, were talking about love of fellow Hebrews. Yes, we take for granted that parents, if they are at all normal, will love their children and the other members of their own family. The God that Moses represented was trying to get them to love their fellow Hebrews, those outside their own family, but still members of their own tribe. The aspect of God presented in the Old Testament is a god championing the Hebrews and helping them prevail against their enemies. The big deal about Jesus’ teaching is that He broadened the interpretation of neighbor, actually universalized it. When asked by a seeker “Who is my neighbor?” He told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Samaritans were the hated and avoided-at-all cost neighbors of the Jews, considered half-breeds and apostates from the true religion. So if Samaritans are my neighbor then everybody is. That’s the big deal; everybody is, no matter what their color, what language they speak, what religion they practice, or their sexual orientation. Everybody is. Sure, the people next door with whom we have so much in common that we even share child-rearing, those are our easy-to-love neighbors. But the people on the other side of the house, where we have the high fence, the ones who are so different? We hardly know them at all, but we know for sure we don’t approve of their life-style. They’re our neighbors, too, and we are commanded to love them. This is not just a suggestion; it is a commandment. That commandment is not just about the people next door, of course; it is about the whole world.

Now let’s look at that second commandment again. It say “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Which means we are commanded to love
ourselves. One way to look at that is that we first have to love ourselves before we are able to love anyone else. Another way to look at it is that by loving others we are able to arrive at a deeper love of ourselves.

A woman at the healing service this past Wednesday asked if it was wrong to pray for oneself. Holy Cow! I think that many Christians, myself included, have felt they are being selfish by looking out for their own needs. That can’t be true, unless we are the only ones we look out for. The commandment is we are to love both ourselves and others. That means we have to care for ourselves; otherwise we are no good for anybody else. One of the ways we care for ourselves is by caring for others. At least some of them will care back, will love back. Unless we love ourselves, we will not have the strength to practice tough love, that kind of love which motivates us to draw lines in the sand and to say no when it is clearly in our own best interest and that of the loved one in question to not do what they demand.

And finally, the love that Christ commands does not mean necessarily liking the neighbor, although sometimes when we do for or care for another or maybe just pray for them they somehow become more likable.

During the American League Baseball Playoffs, those who were following the Tigers on TV with great hope undoubtedly noticed this commercial. I know I did. In a light sort of way it exemplifies what I have been trying to say. There are a series of little scenes: oh, a guy has a good deed done for him; then at the market he steps back and let’s a young mother with a shopping cart full of groceries and a child in tow go ahead of him; then that young woman is later out in her yard raking leaves when she sees her older neighbor struggling with her leaves and goes over and helps her; this is witnessed by a man who goes to his office and cleans up a mess on the floor of the coffee room; this is witnessed by the secretary who would usually have to do that and she goes out and does a good deed for someone else. That chain reaction would change the world.