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Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Main Thing is Love

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 2, 2011.  The scriptures are Deuternomy 11:1-15, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, and Luke 10:25-37.

            This is the third week of our sermon series “What is the church”.  We’ve talked about how the church is the people of God.  We’ve talked about how we need to make the decision that we’re a living church, doing what God wants us to do, and how we need to be enthusiastic about our church and about our faith.  So far, though, we have not really addressed the critical question:  what is our church really all about?  What is it that the Christian church is actually built on?
            The answer may not be as obvious as you think.  We’re tempted to say, “Well, the church is built on the word of God.”  That’s true, of course, as far as it goes, but what does that mean?  After all, Jewish people would say that their church is built on the word of God.  Muslims would say that their church is built on the word of God.  Pretty much every religion says that it’s built on the word of God; that’s kind of a part of the definition of religion.  Saying it may be true, but it really does not get us anyplace.
            Another answer might be, “The church is built on faith in Jesus Christ.”  That’s true, too:  remember, as soon as Peter says to Jesus “you are the Messiah, the son of the living God”, Jesus says to him that this is the rock on which he will build his church.  So it’s certainly true to say that the church is built on faith in Jesus, but again, what does that mean?  Pretty much every religion has some great leader that it has faith in, too.
            What we’re really asking when we ask “what is the Christian faith built on” is what is it that makes the Christian church different?  What is it about the Christian faith that separates it from other religions?
            Well, let’s look first at our reading from Deuteronomy.  Now, as some of you may know, the book of Detuternonomy is mostly a book of law.  In fact, the word “Deuteronomy” means “second law.”  It’s a restatement by Moses of laws that are given in other places in the first few books of the bible.  Listen, though, to what Moses says is the reason for all this law.
            Moses says, “You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always”.  Then, a little while later, Moses says, “If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today—loving the Lord your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul—then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil.”
            There are a lot of laws in the Old Testament.  The thing is that those laws are not what the church is built on.  They’re important—I’m not saying that they’re not—but they’re not what the church is built on.  The church is built on the love of God.  That’s the basic commandment that Moses gave the people in the book of Deuteronomy.  Obeying all those specific Old Testament laws was a secondary thing.  The main thing was to love God and serve God with all our heart and with all our soul.
            Then, we look at our lesson from the gospel of Matthew.  Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is.  He says “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  Then Jesus adds, “And a second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Then, in closing, Jesus says this:  “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
            Again, Jesus is saying that the specific laws are not what the church is built on.  Now again, he does not say those laws are unimportant—after all, Jesus also said that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  What Jesus is saying, though, is just what Moses said:  the law is not what the church is built on.  The church is built on the love of God. 
Now, Jesus adds that it’s also built on loving your neighbor, but Jesus says that’s the same thing.  When we think about it, that makes sense.  After all, how can we claim to love God if we don’t love the world that God created?  Specifically, how can we claim to love God if we don’t love the other people whom God created, people who were created to be our brothers and sisters?  Jesus said just what Moses said:  obeying the specific laws is a secondary thing.  The main thing is to love God, which also means loving others.  That’s what the church is built on.
The Apostle Paul says the same thing.  In our reading from First Corinthians, he says that if he could speak in the tongues of angels, but did not have love, he’d just be making noise.  He says that if he was a great prophet and could understand all the mysteries of the universe, but did not have love, he’d be nothing.  In fact, if he had enough faith to move mountains, but did not have love, he’d be nothing.  Finally, he says that if he gave away everything he had, and even sacrificed his own life, but did not have love, it’d all be for nothing.  Again, Paul did not say that prophecy and knowledge and faith and self-sacrifice are not important, but again, he says they are secondary things.  The primary thing, the main thing, is love.  The church is built on love.
When we look at these scriptures, and when we think about it in that way, it seems so simple.  And it is simple.  So why, when we go to live this out, does it seem like it gets so complicated?
Well, it’s not God’s fault.  God made this as simple as possible for us.  We’re the ones who make it complicated, not God.
That gospel lesson from Matthew has a counterpart in Luke.  Remember what happens there?  After we hear that the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord and to love our neighbor, we’re told that the person he’s talking to asks Jesus “and who is my neighbor”?  This is the question that led Jesus to tell the parable of the good Samaritan.
Now, when this guy asks “who is my neighbor”, this is not an honest request for clarification.  He was not looking for information from Jesus when he asked that question.  We’re specifically told that he was “wanting to justify himself.”  In other words, this question was asked by someone who was looking for an out.  He was hoping for a way to excuse himself, so he would not have to do what Jesus said.  He was asking, “You know, when you say to love my neighbor, you’re just talking about the good people, the people I like, right?  I mean, surely you don’t mean I have to love absolutely everybody.”
That’s what we tend to do, too.  We want to justify ourselves.  I’m no different; believe me, I can justify myself with the best of them.  We agree with loving everybody in theory, but then we run into people who are hard to love, or people who don’t seem worthy of our love, or people for whom loving them would require a lot of us, and we think, “I don’t really have to love those people, do I, Jesus?  I mean, when you say for me to love my neighbor, you surely don’t mean I have to love absolutely everybody.”  We want an excuse.  We want an out, just like the man who talked to Jesus wanted an out.
Jesus refused to give him one.  Jesus refuses to give us one, too.  We say to Jesus “Surely you don’t mean I have to love everybody” and Jesus says, “Yep, that’s exactly what I mean.”  We want to complicate it, to find exceptions and loopholes, and Jesus won’t give us any.  Jesus keeps it simple.  He tells us to love God, and he tells us that if we love God, we’ll love all the people whom God created.
That’s what the Christian church is built on:  love of God and love of others.  Love of all others, even our enemies, with no exceptions.  That’s what makes it different from all other religions that I know of.  That’s what separates it from all the rest.  As Christians, we believe that no one, no matter who they are and no matter what they’ve done, stands outside of God’s love.  And, as Christians, we also believe that no one, no matter who they are and no matter what they’ve done, stands outside of our love.
Remember what we said a couple of weeks ago, when we started this sermon series?  We said that the people of God don’t stand by when someone needs help.  The people of God don’t wait for someone else to do something.  The people of God act.  The people of God do whatever they can to provide help for whoever needs it.
Well, this is why.  The reason the people of God act that way is that the people of God are loving people.  The people of God don’t look for exceptions.  The people of God don’t try to find loopholes.  The people of God don’t make excuses.  The people of God just feel love for God, and the people of God do everything they can, in whatever way they can, to show that love to all the people God created.
God made it simple.  It’s not always easy, but it’s simple.  The Christian church is built on love:  love of God and love of others, all others.  If we keep that in the forefront, God will bless what we do.  Our church will grow, because it will be the church God wants it to be.

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