Posting two today, and I will try and be "current" from here on out! Next Sunday, as a favor to me Dale Carr+ will be preaching at the services where I will be presiding. Blessings to each and every one of you and keep us in your prayers as we journey down to our Diocesan Convention on Thursday through Saturday.

Twenty Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 25) Year A (RCL) 2008
Deuteronomy 34: 1 – 12; Psalm 90: 1 – 6; 1 Thessalonians 2: 1 – 8; Matthew 22: 34 – 46
St. Stephens Episcopal Parish, Portland, OR
Sunday, October 26, 2008

“LOVE ME – LOVE THEM”

Let us pray: God of love, you come among us as the Word made flesh and in that presence teach us the ways of love. In your manifestation of the Christ your commandment is that we love you with all our heart, and mind and soul; and that we love our neighbor as ourselves. Help us to be true to those commandments; teach us who is our neighbor and how we are to love ourselves and you with all our mind and heart and soul. Fill us this and every day with your Holy and life giving Spirit that we might reflect your love for all that you have created. All this we pray in the name of the Christ who is our teacher and our God. Amen.

(SUNG) A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE TO YOU,
THAT YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.

Let’s look at the context of the 21st and 22nd chapters from the author of Matthew’s account of the Good News of God in Christ. In the readings which we have been sharing for the past month or so, we have heard Jesus confronted by the Chief Priests and elders of the people – whom the author then describes as the Pharisees. They confront Jesus on several occasions, first asking by whose authority Jesus acts to destroy the money lenders tables in the Temple. Jesus responds to this grilling by sharing three parables about the judgment which will be forthcoming to those whose only concern is the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law, and exposes the current leadership’s failure to live out the vision of God’s Kindom among them. The Pharisees then try to entrap Jesus by asking if it is lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor Caesar. The Sadducees then try to entrap Jesus with a trick question about the resurrection from the dead. Then the Pharisees, having heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, try once again to have one more go at this troublesome radical. They want to see if they can discredit Jesus’ reputation with the crowds or perhaps if they can force a confrontation between Jesus and the Romans; either way they would like to silence this teacher who is definitely not one of them and threatens the power and status which they hold in the social and religious community of their time.

In that context, the Pharisees have one of their own, whom the author of Matthew’s Gospel describes as a lawyer (I’m going to resist the temptation to insert a lawyer joke here) ask a question of Jesus. Interestingly the author here uses the Greek word peirazon which is translated as “test” in the NRSV. That word was also used earlier in this Gospel when we find Jesus in the desert confronted by the spirit of evil, and there the word is translated as tempt. This same story which we heard read this morning is also found in the Gospel accounts from the authors of Mark and Luke/Acts. In the author of Mark’s retelling of this incident, the individual confronting Jesus with this question is described as a “scribe” who actually has a favorable opinion of Jesus, and to whom Jesus responds in kind, telling the disciples that this person is not far from the Kindom of heaven. Matthew’s author, however, has a different focus for this story. The author of Matthew’s gospel is writing after the fall of Jerusalem which had basically wiped out the influence of the Sadducees and Zealots and left the religious and social leadership firmly in the hands of the Pharisees. Those same Pharisees are actively persecuting the community of Christian believers; and Matthew’s author will have little to say about them which is good. So in place of the friendly scribe from the author of Mark’s account of this encounter, we find the unfriendly lawyer tempting Jesus with a question which it is hoped will lead to the embarrassment and ridicule of the Holy One of God. Note the difference in our own understanding between “tempting” and “testing”. When one test’s someone else it is usually with the intention of seeing the person tested succeed. On the other hand, when one tempts another, it is generally done with the intention of seeing that tempted individual fail. The one being tested or tempted here, does not suffer fools lightly.

(SUNG) A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE TO YOU,
THAT YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.

So this pharisaic lawyer poses the tempting or testing question to Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus, no slouch in scriptural interpretation, answers with the shemah that great statement of faith and belief of the Hebrew people. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.” This, Jesus says is the greatest and first commandment. This is the command given to the chosen people in the Book of Deuteronomy the 6th Chapter in the 4th Verse. In Jesus’ response, this statement becomes a lynchpin on which would hang all of the rest of the Judaic law. Then Jesus includes a piece offered from the Levitical code and tags it onto the shemah, “and a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The wise and learned scholars who put together the Revised Common Lectionary from which our scriptural lessons of both the Hebrew and Christian testaments are taken did a wonderful job in this 25th proper of setting up Jesus’ response in the Author of Matthew’s Gospel. Those scholars included an optional reading from the Book of Leviticus (yes, I admit it does have some valuable things to say). In that text which we did not read as this morning’s Hebrew scripture option a clear description, was given to the people of Israel about how they were to treat their neighbors. “You shall not render an unjust judgment…with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor…you shall not bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”

Jesus was more than familiar with what had been written in the Levitical code, and so was the lawyer. Can you not just vision what the author of Matthew’s Gospel records next? “Now while the Pharisees were gathered together…” I can just see them huddled in the room, whispering to each other and trying to figure out how they might be able to trap this upstart who has never even studied with a rabbi, how could Jesus possibly know more about the torah than they do? Well, I guess they don’t have the advantage of having heard the story about Jesus in the temple at the ripe old age of twelve, expounding on the scriptures and amazing those who were listening. So, Jesus decides to ask them a question. Having been tested or tempted, and passing the test or avoiding the temptation, Jesus poses a question about the Messiah – the chosen or “anointed one” whom everyone knew was to come of the house of David. Jesus then proceeds to turn the tables and put the question game to an end. Jesus has come to fulfill the role of “son of David” however more importantly Jesus fulfills the destiny of “son of God.” It is in that capacity that the machinations and legalisms of the Pharisees will fall far short of having any impact on Jesus, the disciples or those who will come to form Christian community after the culmination of Jesus’ earthly ministry. God is doing a new thing with the ministry of the Christ, God’s anointed one and that Christ will pave the way for the two greatest commandments to be lived out in accordance with God’s will.

(SUNG) A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE TO YOU,
THAT YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.

That is where the message of the author of Matthew’s Gospel can be applied to us, and how we might be expected to live out the two greatest commandments, which Jesus highlighted over two thousand years ago. “Love the Lord you’re God with all your mind and with all your heart and with all your soul, and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.” Notice please that the second commandment does not read love the world as yourself; rather love your neighbor as yourself. That would be the neighbor who mows their lawn or runs their washing machine at 8:00 on a Saturday morning, the neighbor who looks different than me – or thinks different than me. How much easier it is for us to drop a dollar in a basket to help feed the hungry on the other side of the world, and to walk past the hungry person sitting on the doorstep of this church almost every day. I see it morning after morning as folks scurry their way past those who are hungry and hurting. Jesus asks much of us who follow the way of the great teacher descended from the house of David. To those whom much is given, much is expected. The message is challenging and demanding yet full of grace and blessing to those who answer the call to follow the Messiah, the Holy One of God who challenges us to live the Kindom of God among us. The two greatest commandments which Jesus says support all of the rest of the law and the prophets can be made even simpler for us who carry so much on our minds and in our hearts in the “information age”. Jesus, the Son of God, the Word made flesh who dwells among us teaches that the two greatest commandments can be reduced to this: “Love me…Love them”! Amen.