Part of our lives as Christians is to share how God has been active in our lives. I think that it is very sad that people have made their faith so private. In fact, it has become so private that sometimes people even seem ashamed to talk about believing in God. I am not talking about trying to convince someone else, because we should be inviting not persuading; and we certainly should not behave like we are ashamed.
When I worked in business, we used to talk about always being ready with a 30 second commercial about your job or yourself. You never know when someone might ask, Tell me about you.. If you are interviewing for a job it is really important to have an answer ready. In a clear and concise manner, you need to be able to state things like who you are, what makes you who you are, you have done, what skills you have; things of that nature. We call this a 30 second commercial because thirty seconds is the average time of an elevator ride from one floor to another.
Back then, when people asked me about my job, I would ask them if they had ever seen or used an HP printer. Almost always, the response would be Yes. So I told them that my team was responsible for everything that they see on an inkjet printer, the colors, the texture and type of plastic, the location of the buttons, the size of the display, the location of the battery and all of the input devices, everything that they see and physically interact with on the printer, my team worked on.
Jesus had a 30 second commercial. If someone asked Jesus about himself, I suspect that typical of his style, he would not answer the question directly. I suspect that he would respond with an answer that would make you think. I think that he might say something like;
You really do not want to know about me, and that is OK, but what you need to know about yourself is how to be the best self that you can be. That’s God’s plan for you. And to be the best self that you can be, you only need to do two things. Love God and Love Your neighbor as yourself. That’s it. Love God, Love Your neighbor as yourself. (Sle 1)
That’s a pretty potent commercial. You ask Jesus about him, and he proceeds to talk about how God wants you to be the best that you can be, and then Jesus tells you exactly how to do it. What’s your 30 second commercial? Does your faith fit into it?
In our text today, we have another situation where the temple priests are trying to make Jesus say something that they can use to either arrest him or diminish him in the eyes of the crowd. If there was ever a group of people who approached life and religion differently than Jesus, it was the temple priests. These temple priests were all about systems and rules. We have the term Bible literalists in our society, and these folks were Torah literalists. For the temple priests, the essence of religion was obeying the rules and regulations of the Bible.
On this day, the priests have gather to debate and discuss the 613 Laws of Moses. So you might be wondering, what are these 613 Laws. Well, if you go through the Old Testament and you count up all of the laws and commandments in the Old Testament, you will come up with 613 laws and commandments. A side note is that there are more laws written in the negative, You shall not, then those written in the positive, You Shall. There are 365 negative commandments in the Old Testament, and there are 248 positive commandments.
So the priests are discussing which laws are the most important or the least important, or are the laws all valued the same. And so a scribe asks Jesus about the laws; are the laws all valued the same, or are some more important than others.
Of course Jesus does not give them a straight answer. Instead, he shows these Torah literalists that he knows that Torah as well, if not better than they do. He responds with a commandment written in the book of Deuteronomy; love God with all your heart, mind and strength. And then, he goes even deeper into the Torah and shares with them a commandment from Leviticus, love your neighbor as yourself.
If we had to give a 30 second commercial as to what the Bible is about, and what we as Christians are to be about, Jesus told us. Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself.
When the priests and scribes heard Jesus’ response, no one in the crowd would have disputed, "Love of God," as the greatest commandment. But Jesus goes deeper linking love of God to love of neighbor as oneself. These pious Jews would have thought that only another Jew could be their neighbor. But Jesus was showing them that these two commandments are inseparable. Unless love for God is expressed in love for neighbor then love for God is empty and hollow.
We are reading Mark’s version of this story, but there are also version in Luke and Matthew’s gospels. Luke’s gospel follows this story with the story of the Good Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan makes it clear that my neighbor is not just another Jewish person, or another Christian, or another person that looks and behaves like me. My neighbors are all of my sisters and brothers in the human family.
People often have a tendency to spend too much time on minor points and miss the major point about what it means to have a personal relationship with God and with one another. Jesus understood this. What Jesus did in very few words is to lift the importance of the welfare of one’s neighbors. The welfare of the neighbor is second only to love of God. More important than money, or possessions, or even family. And keep in mind where Jesus is. He is in the belly of the beast; in the midst of a group of temple priests in Jerusalem, site of the temple. He is standing amongst these priests and scribes and telling them that love of neighbor is more important than any of their laws, their sacrifices or their burnt offerings. This is a bold Jesus speaking bold words.
In our previous stories, Jesus has been quiet about his healings and his mission. But remember last week with the Lazarus story we reached a turning point. Jesus goes on the offensive. He boldly tells the priests and scribes the most important commandments. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. And at least one of the scribes gets it. Perhaps this scribe is remembering the words of the prophet Hosea “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6 (slide 2)
This scribe understands. Who would have guessed that a temple scribe would be the one to understand Jesus’ proclamation of the greatest commandment? The scribes and Pharisees had started their discussion with the idea that they as teachers of the Law were entitled to approve or endorse Jesus’ teachings. But now, Jesus has reversed that role showing them that unless their teachings fall under the greatest commandment, they are empty.
So the question is, what does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? What does this look like? And if I am to love my neighbor, who is my neighbor, and how do I learn to love them? (slide 3)
For Jesus, love of God and love of others is the core of our lives of faith. Jesus is talking about love that prompts and shapes behaviors in order to help that person to become what God desires.
Love of God is about worshipping that one who leads us beyond ourselves into the world of need. Clean hands lifted up to God in worship must lead us to get our hands dirty in service to the world. If what we do here when we are gathered together like this doesn’t compel us to scatter about in society spreading the unconditional love of God through acts of compassion, justice and mercy with our neighbors, then we are just resting. We are merely hearers of the word and not doers.
The prophet Isaiah says that our appropriate response to the love of God is to “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” Do works of love. Show mercy. Stand up for the disadvantaged regardless of the cost. This is how we love our neighbor.
This is what God wants. It is great when we find our time here during worship to be emotionally uplifting and intellectually stimulating; but if it doesn’t translate into a loving, compassionate lifestyle that courageously identifies with the suffering and downtrodden ones of the world then its all so many words that don’t bring about God’s intended response. Loving God compels a response.
While many of us can get on board with the idea of loving God, loving our neighbor can be challenging. Sometimes we don’t want to love the one who sinned against us or the one who we feel owes us something.
Perhaps that is why five of the initial Ten Commandments spoke about bearing no ill against our neighbor. Jesus does give us some specifics on loving our neighbor. We need to be prayerful, we need to forgive as we have been forgiven, and we need to love as we are loved.
Jesus goes on to talk about the kingdom of God. Our message here is that when we embody the greatest commandment, we are in the kingdom of God. It is the vision of the world as God intends it to be. It’s what the world would be like if God’s will for humanity was faithfully carried out. It’s the world of peace and justice envisioned by the prophets. It’s a world of equal opportunity and lavish grace and radical hospitality; a world of respect and truth and both personal and institutionally integrity. It is a world where God’s goodness permeates everyone and everything.
So what is your 30 second commercial? Does it inform anyone about your love of God and your love of neighbor? Does it say anything about the most important things in your life? Does it show our solidarity, our commitment and our participation in the kingdom of God which teaches us to see and think in a new way?
God loved each of us into existence, with no reservations. As we receive God's best, we have to be prepared to offer our best, our love of God and our love of neighbor. May it be so. Amen.
Queen Anne 
