Focusing On God

This is the message given at the Oahe Manor communion service Thursday, October 13.  Sorry it took so long to post it, but I've been busy.  The scripture was Matthew 22:15-22.

It seems like politics plays a big part in our lives any more.  It used to be that “campaign season” came around every four years.  Now it seems to be non-stop.  We’re still over a year away from the 2012 election, and people are already starting to speculate about who might run in 2016.  If you watch the news on TV, or listen to the radio, or read the newspaper, it’s hard to get away from political talk these days.

As you hear all this talk, though, you may notice something.  Every once in a while, someone will try to promote their political ideas by citing scripture.  They’ll take some Bible passage and say that proves that God would want you to support their bill or vote for their candidate.

It seems to me that’s a misuse of scripture.  In the first place, there’s nothing in the Bible that suggests that God supports one political party over another.  More importantly, though, there are lots of times in the gospels when Jesus was invited to step in and give an opinion about a current political issue of the day.  Each time, he refused to do so.  One of those times is in our scripture for today.

The Pharisees asked Jesus about paying taxes.  We recognize this as a political question, but we don’t always realize what a big deal this was.  The nation of Israel had been taken over by the Roman Empire.  Israel did not like that, of course, and had dreamed for a long time of becoming independent again.  Every once in a while, they would actually drive out the Romans and get their independence, but that never lasted for very long.  The Roman Empire was just too strong.  Eventually, it would take over again, and Israel would be defeated.

Still, that dream of independence for Israel was still there, and one of the ways that showed up was in the payment of taxes to Rome.  The people who supported Jewish independence said Jewish people should not pay taxes to Rome.  If Jesus agreed with them, and said not to pay taxes, he’d be seen as opposing the Roman government and could be arrested.  On the other hand, if Jesus said that people should pay taxes to Rome, he’d be seen as opposing the supporters of Jewish independence, which could make him look bad to a lot of Jewish people.  What that means is that the Pharisees were trying to get Jesus to take a position on one of the really hot political issues of the day.

What’s really important, as we look at this scripture, is to note how the Bible describes what the Pharisees were trying to do.  It says they were trying to “entrap” Jesus by getting him to comment on this political issue.

That’s what politics can be for Christians.  It can be a trap.  Now, understand that I think it’s good for us to keep ourselves informed about what’s going on in the government.  Our society will only work if people pay attention.  We should watch the news, we should listen to the radio, we should read the newspapers, we should do whatever we can to keep up to date on current events.  I don’t want anything I’m saying here to be understood otherwise.

The thing is, though, that political issues are, by their nature, divisive.  When we take sides, we get set against each other.  When Christians fight against each other in political matters, we have a harder time working together to bring people to Christ.  We cannot make disciples for Jesus if we’re arguing with each other about politics.

Jesus understood that.  That’s why, when he was invited to take a position on this political issue, he would not do it.  In fact, not only did he not take a position, he changed the focus of the question.  He said, in effect, don’t be so concerned about what the government wants you to do.  Instead, be concerned with what God wants you to do.

That’s where our focus needs to be.  Again, it’s okay to follow politics, but don’t fall into the trap.  We need to make sure we don’t get sucked into arguing about political issues.  When we do, we miss chances to unite to work for Christ.

God is not telling us how to vote.  God is telling us to have faith:  faith in God, and faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ.  If each one of us trusts God, if each one of us lives our life they way Jesus wants us to live, if each one of us does what God wants us to do, then we can leave the rest of it in God’s hands.  When we do that, we will know that, ultimately, things will work out the way God wants them to work out.

A Part of Reality

            When I got home the other night, Wanda was watching a movie on the Hallmark Channel, something she likes to do.  Since the movie was almost over and the baseball game had been rained out, I watched the rest of it with her.

            The thing about Hallmark Channel movies is that you know what you’re getting.  You know that, by the end of the movie, the right woman is going to fall in love with the right man, whatever the kids’ problems are will be resolved, the bad guy (it’s almost always a guy) will see the error of his ways, and everyone will live happily ever after.  That’s just the way these movies work.

            This is not meant as a criticism.  People like Wanda, who watch movies on the Hallmark Channel, are not watching to see all the bad things in society. They’re watching precisely to get away from the bad things in society for a little while.  They want to watch a story in which things work out the way we want them to work out.  They want to see a world that is the way we wish the world was.  The predictability of these movies is a feature, not a bug.

            What’s interesting to me is that movies of this type are often derided as “unrealistic”.  There’s an extent to which they are, of course.  Nobody is pretending that, in real life, good always triumphs, people always do what they’re supposed to do, and we all live happily ever after.

            On the other hand, this is a criticism that never seems to be made of movies that depict drug dealers, spouse abusers, or serial killers.  Those movies are somehow considered to show “reality”.  Why?  Yes, they show a certain segment of reality, but so do Hallmark Channel movies.  Are there really more drug addicts in this country than there are kids who don’t use drugs?  Are there really more spouse abusers than there are couples who love each other?  Are there really more serial killers than there are people who may have started down the wrong path, but then were able to change their lives?

            Hallmark Channel movies may not depict all of reality, but they do represent a certain part of it.  There really are families in which both spouses love each other, in which the kids are basically well-behaved, and who live in communities where people care about each other.  Some of us live in those families, and most of us who don’t wish we did.

            A part of getting what we want is being able to envision what we want.  If we’re going to achieve a loving, caring society, we need to be able to envision a loving, caring society.  Hallmark Channel movies, and similar movies, help us do that. I’m not saying you need to watch them, but there are a lot worse things a person could spend their time on.

It's Different Because It's Perfect

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, October 9, 2011.  The scriptures are Matthew 5:38-48 and 2 Corinthians 11:30-12:10.

            Here are three truths of life:

            Number one:  God is perfect.

            Number two:  I’m not.

            Number three:  Neither are you.

            Now, that may all seem pretty obvious, and we’d probably all agree with each one of those statements.  Here’s the thing, though.  How do we square that with what Jesus said in our reading from Matthew?

            Here’s what Jesus says.  First, he says we should not strike back when someone attacks us.  Instead, if someone hits us on the right cheek, we should turn the other as well.  Then, Jesus says that we should not refuse someone who demands something from us.  Instead, he says if someone wants to sue and take our shirt, we should give our coat as well.  Then, Jesus says that if someone tries to force us to go one mile, we should not resist them.  Instead, we should go a second mile as well.  Finally, Jesus says we should not hate our enemies.  Instead, we should love them and pray for the people who persecute us.  Then, after telling us to do all these things that are not only really hard but are the exact opposite of what we’ve been told to do all our lives, Jesus says this:  “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.”

            Most of us have heard about all these things before.  Even people who are not Christians have heard the phrase “turn the other cheek”, although they may not know where it comes from.  How many of us, though, actually try to live that way?

            I think we can safely put these verses on the list of things we wish Jesus had never said.  We know them, but a lot of times, we tend to gloss over them.  We might think they sound nice in theory, but most of the time, we don’t even try to live our lives according to them.

            We‘ve been talking in this sermon series about what the church is.  We’ve said that the church is the people of God, and that the people of God should be enthusiastic about our faith in Christ.  Last week, we talked about how the church is founded on love of everyone, with no exceptions.

            This week, we flesh that out.  In these verses, Jesus gets specific.  He tells us just exactly what it really means to love everyone, with no exceptions.

            Now, Jesus knew how weird this was going to sound to people.  He knew this was going totally against the grain of what everyone was taught.  That phrase “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is usually just treated as a cliché now, but it was part of the law given by Moses.  It shows up in Exodus, it shows up in Leviticus, and it shows up in Deuteronomy.  The people Jesus was talking to would’ve known that.  Jesus knew he was telling people something completely different from what they’d heard all their lives.

            There’s a reason Jesus said these things, though.  Jesus told us what it was.  This is the part we tend to forget.  Jesus asks us, if we’re only friendly with people who are friendly with us, if we only love the people who love us, how does that make us, as Christians, any different from anybody else?

            See, that’s the thing about being the church.  The people of God are different from anybody else.  The people of God do not do what the rest of society does.  The people of God are supposed to be different, and that difference is what makes the people of God perfect.

            The thing is that very few of us like to be different.  Being different is not something that feels comfortable to us.  There’s something inside almost all of us that wants to fit in.  We talk about peer pressure all the time in regard to kids, but it’s not just kids who feel peer pressure.  We all do.  None of us wants to be looked at as odd or strange.  People might not like us.  People might look at us funny when we go downtown.  That does not feel good to us.  Most of us want to be liked.  We want to be thought of as normal.  We don’t want to be thought of us as different.

            When we look through the Bible, though, we see a whole lot of the greatest people there who were not liked when they were actually alive.  We see a whole lot of people who were thought of as different.

            That’s especially true when we read the New Testament.  John the Baptist was out in the wilderness wearing clothes made of camels’ hair and eating locusts.  You think people thought of him as normal?  You think people did not look at him funny when he came to town?  He was probably one of the strangest dudes around.  Yet, he was the one who was called by God to prepare the way for our Savior, Jesus Christ.

            How about Paul?  Paul had one of the strangest journeys to faith anyone ever had.  He started out as one of the greatest persecutors of Christians who ever lived.  Then he showed up one day and started telling everyone about this vision he’d had, and how he now believes in Jesus as the Messiah.  You think that made him popular?  For a while there, everyone was opposed to him.  The Jewish leaders hated him for being a traitor, and the Christians did not trust him any farther than they could throw him, because just a few days ago he’d been their worst enemy.

            Even after they got past that, Paul was still different.  Paul was saying Jesus was not just the Savior for the Jews, he was the Savior for everybody.  Paul was saying people did not need to follow the Jewish laws to be saved.  Those are things we take for granted now, because Paul’s views have been accepted as right, but they were really controversial at the time.  Paul was taking a stand that was not popular, a stand that was not the majority view.  Paul was never somebody who was considered normal.  Paul was different.

            And, of course, Jesus himself was different.  Here was this guy, who’d grown up in an ordinary home in an ordinary family, who looked and sounded just like everybody else.  Here was this guy who, as far as we know, went the first thirty years or so of his life just kind of fitting in, being normal, not doing much of anything to call attention to himself.  Then, all at once, he starts going around preaching and teaching and healing people and attracting followers and being called the Son of God.  Once he started doing that, he could never fit in again.  He could never go somewhere and just relax and be himself.  Everywhere he went, he attracted attention.  He was different.

            You and I are supposed to be different, too.  If we’re going to be the people of God, we have to be different.  We cannot claim to follow someone who’s different while we just blend in with the crowd.  We cannot claim to be disciples of someone who’s different while we just go along with everyone else.  If the one we’re following was different, then we need to be different, too.

            But in what way?  After all, there are lots of ways to be different.  Lady Gaga is different.  Casey Anthony is different.  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is different.  Being different is not always a good thing.  That’s why Jesus did not just tell us to be different.  Jesus told us to be perfect, just like God is perfect.

            But there’s that problem again.  We hear that, and we think, “That does not make sense.  I cannot be perfect.  I’m not God.  I’m only human.  I’m weak.  Why would Jesus tell me to do something I cannot possibly do?”

            That’s probably what Jesus’ disciples thought, too.  The thing is, though, that Jesus understood completely how weak humans are.  After all, he was surrounded by them.  In fact, when we read the gospels, we can see how he was constantly frustrated at our human flaws and weakness and limitations, including those of his closest disciples.  Still, he told them and us to be perfect, just like God is perfect.  Why would he do that?  What did Jesus really mean when he told us to be perfect like God is perfect?

            Let’s look at our reading from Second Corinthians.  Paul writes about how weak he is, too.  Instead of using it as an excuse, though, Paul says he will brag about his weakness.

            That’s kind of strange, don’t you think?  He’s going to brag about his weakness.  Most of us try to improve the things we’re weak on.  If we cannot improve them, we try to cover them up and hide the.  Yet, Paul says he’s going to brag about them.  What’s that all about.

            Listen to this part.  This is great.  Paul says he asked three times for God to take away his weakness, but God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.  Paul says that’s why his bragging about his weakness.  He says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

            Is that not great?  We’re right.  We cannot be perfect.  Not by ourselves.  The more we try, the more we fail.  The harder we try to be perfect by ourselves, the farther away from perfect we get.

            Jesus does not say, “make yourself perfect”.  That would be impossible.  Jesus says, “be perfect”.  How can we be perfect?  By trusting God.  By having faith in Jesus as our Savior.  Jesus, through his death and resurrection, took the punishment for our sins.  Even though we cannot make ourselves perfect, Jesus’ sacrifice makes us perfect.  When we confess our sins and believe in Jesus as our Savior, the Holy Spirit enters our hearts.  When we admit our weaknesses and acknowledge how much we need God, the power of Christ can take hold of us.  When we admit how weak we are, that’s when we become strong.  We’re not relying on our strength.  We’re relying on God’s strength.

            When we rely on God’s strength, we can live the way Jesus told us to live.  We don’t need to take revenge on people who’ve wronged us, because we’re not relying on our strength, we’re relying on God’s strength.  We can give generously, because we’re not relying on ourselves, we’re relying on God.  We can love everyone, even our enemies, knowing that God will take care of us and reward us.

            The church is different, because the church is perfect.  The church is perfect, not because it’s full of perfect people, but because it is full of weak and imperfect people who rely on God’s strength and God’s power.  When the church relies on God’s strength and God’s power, it will constantly look for ways to show God’s love to all people, and it will enthusiastically find ways to do it.  Then, the church will truly be the people of God.

The Complacency Trap

This article appeared in the October, 2011 newsletter of the Wheatland Parish.

            I wrote last time about all the things this parish is doing.  I wrote that we should celebrate those things, and we should.  We should always celebrate the positive things that are going on, both in our lives and in the life of the church.

            There is a danger, though.  The danger is that, in celebrating what we’ve done, we’ll start to get complacent.  We’ll start to think, well, what we’re doing is good enough.  We don’t really need to do any more.

            That’s a trap.  Sometimes I think that’s one of the biggest traps Satan lays for us as Christians.  You see, one of the facts about life is that we can move forward or we can move backward, but we are never allowed to stand still.  As soon as we say we’re doing enough, we’ve stopped ourselves from moving forward.  Once we do that, we’ve guaranteed that we’re going to start moving backward.  We may not see that right away, but eventually we will.  When we stop going forward, it’s inevitable that we’ll start going backward.

            How do we keep from thinking we’ve already done enough?  By making sure that joy is a part of the things we do.  By making sure that we stay enthusiastic about the things we’re doing, that we enjoy them and find satisfaction in them.

            When our service to God is joyful, when we have fun and feel satisfaction from serving God, we don’t feel like we’ve done enough.  We want to do more, because we want to keep feeling that joy and satisfaction.  We want to keep finding more ways to serve, because we want to have more fun doing it.

            Any time our service to God seems like a burden or a chore, we’re in trouble.  We may finish that project we’re working on, but we won’t take on another one, because no one wants or needs to take on more burdens and more chores.  If you’re working on a project that starts to feel that way, something needs to change, because that’s not how our service to God is supposed to feel.

            God wants our service to be loving and joyful, not reluctant and depressing.  Let’s keep finding more ways to have fun and serve God.  If we do, this parish will keep moving forward, and it will be the parish God wants it to be.

We Got It Going On!

This is an article which appeared in the October issue of the Wheatland Parish Newsletter.

            I wrote last month that, while we think of spring as the time when everything becomes the new, the new church year really starts in the fall.  Over the last month, we’ve had lots of things happening in our parish, and we need to take a little time to acknowledge them.

            What follows is not a complete list by any means.  If I left something out that you’re a part of, don’t think that I consider it unimportant.  These are just some things that came to my head as I was writing this article.

            The annual Mission Fair was last month.  Over half of the value of the mission kits collected at that Mission Fair came from this Parish.  That’s tremendous.  People worked very hard to make that happen, and it’s wonderful.

            The Gettysburg church will host a concert by the Black Hills Gospel Quartet next month.  This will be a wonderful chance to hear the word of God in music.  We’ll be having a supper ahead of it, so this will also be a wonderful chance to have some food and some fun.  Best of all, it’s all free, with just a free will offering asked by the Quartet.

            The Onida church hosted the Community Christian Youth Group in September.  This is an amazing group.  They put on a contemporary Christian worship service once a month that is incredibly well done.  If you have not attended one of those services yet, be sure to do so next month.

            Our churches will be collecting for Shoebox Christmas this month.  This is a chance to help make sure kids without much money can still have a really happy Christmas.  There’s a list of recommended items elsewhere in this newsletter.  Please give as much as you can for this project.

            October is domestic violence month.  The Gettysburg church will be collecting items to give to Safe Harbor, a domestic violence shelter based in Aberdeen which covers Potter County.  The Onida church will be collecting items to give to Missouri Shores, a domestic violence shelter in Pierre which covers Sully County.  Domestic violence is a much greater problem than most of us probably realize.  Please give generously to this project as well.

            The Onida church is resuming its women’s Bible study this month.  Details will be given later, but it’s open to the community.  This is a wonderful chance to get together with people from other Christian faiths, to get different perspectives, and learn more about God.

            The Gettysburg church is donating a room in the education building for use as a food pantry.  This is another problem that is probably much greater than most of us realize.  People don’t generally advertise their need for these services, but the need is still there.  We’ll let you know when the food pantry is up and running.  Once it is, please help spread the word about it so those in need can use this valuable service.

            In mentioning these things, I don’t want those of you who are part of the Agar church to feel slighted.  The Agar church contributed to the Mission Fair and contributes to other mission projects as well.  It has special music nearly every week, has strong lay involvement in the worship service, and is a dedicated group of believers.  The Agar church is a very valuable part of this parish.

            Again, this is not a full list by any means.  Space prevents us from mentioning the Sunday school, the youth groups, the U. M. W., some of our other Bible studies, and a lot of other things.

            The point is that lots of things are going on in this parish.  Let’s celebrate them!

The Most Important Thing

This is the message given at the Oahe Manor service Sunday, October 2, 2011.  The scripture is Philippians 3:4b-14.

             I would like you to think of the most important thing in your life right now.  I don’t know what it is.  I’m sure it’ll be different things for different people.  I want you to take a minute right now and think about what it is.

            Got something?  Okay, now think about this.  Think about how you’d feel if you lost that thing.  Think about how you’d feel if that thing that’s most important in your life was somehow taken away from you right now.

            How would you feel?  Pretty bad, probably.  In fact, most likely “bad” does not really cover it.  That would be about the worst feeling we could have, to lose the thing that’s most important to us in our entire lives.

            Now listen again to what Paul says.  “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.  More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”

            What Paul is saying there is that no matter what else happens, no matter what else we may have in our lives, nothing is or ever can be more important than our faith in Jesus Christ.  Nothing is or ever can be more important than having the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our lives.  That’s not to say other things are unimportant, necessarily, but they all pale in comparison to knowing that Jesus is our Lord.  Paul says that if he had to give up everything else in his life, it would be worth it.  In fact, he says that all of that other stuff is just trash compared to the eternal life we can receive by God’s grace and mercy through our faith in Jesus.

            Now, we hear that, and we tend to nod our heads in agreement.  I suspect that, if we were asked, most of us would say the same thing Paul does:  that we’d be willing to give up everything in exchange for the life we are promised in Jesus.

            The thing is, though, do we really live our lives that way?  Do we live our lives in a way that shows that the number one thing, the most important thing in our lives, is Jesus Christ?  Or is our faith just one of the things that’s going on in our lives, something that’s certainly important, but no more important than lots of other things we have going on.

            I hope we’ll take these questions seriously.  It’s really easy not to.  It’s easy for us to say, well, of course I know that Jesus is the most important thin.  Of course I’d give up everything for my faith.

            It’s easy to say, but it’s not so easy to mean.  That’s why I asked you to think about what the most important thing in your life is.  Would you really give it up for your faith?  What if the most important thing in your life is your health?  What if the most important thing in your life is your kids, or your grandkids?  Would you really be willing to give them up in exchange for knowing Jesus is Lord?

            Now, you may be thinking that God would never ask you to do something like that, and you’re probably right.  On the other hand, some of you probably remember the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, a son Abraham had waited years and years to have.  God did not tell Abraham why he was supposed to do this; God just told him to do it.  Abraham obeyed.  He got everything ready for the sacrifice and was going to go through with it until, at the last moment, God told Abraham he did not have to do it.  God tested Abraham to see if Abraham’s faith was strong enough to do what God wanted, no matter what it was, even when he did not understand it, even when it did not make any sense to him, even when it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.  Abraham’s faith was strong enough to pass the test.

            That’s the kind of faith God wants from each of us.  A faith strong enough to do whatever it is God wants us to do, no matter what it is.  Even when we don’t understand it.  Even when it does not make any sense to us.  Even when it’s the last thing in the world we want to do.

            Is your faith that strong?  Is mine?

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.