Oct. 29, 2023

I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

As humans, we have a desire to understand how things work.  When something’s complicated, we look for operating principles or interpretive keys.  Physicists, for example, have spent years trying to develop something called a “theory of everything” or a “unified field theory” – a theoretical framework that fully explains how all the aspects of the universe are linked. 

This isn’t new.  Over the centuries, Jewish rabbis and scholars have debated how to interpret the Torah, or Jewish Law.  Tradition says Rabbi Hillel summarized the Torah as “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah.  The rest is commentary.”  And the prophet Micah famously tackles this by telling us to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

It’s unsurprising, then, that the Pharisees ask Jesus for his take on this.  They’re fishing for an answer that might help them oppose his preaching of the Kingdom of God.  And in response to the question of which of the over 600 laws in the Torah is the most important, Jesus gives the Pharisees two answers.  He quotes a portion of Deuteronomy that observant Jews recited twice a day to assert the importance of loving God with our entire self.  But he also draws on Leviticus, instructing that people love their neighbors as themselves.  And setting these two commandments together, he declares that love is the test of whether we truly understand what the Law is all about.

So if love is the key to the grand unified theory of understanding the Law, then the question for us becomes – what does it mean to love God and love our neighbor?  Or maybe more importantly, what does it mean to love?

Love is a tough concept to nail down.  In large parts because it can mean so many things.  We can crave a cheeseburger, desire a romantic partner, feel a warm connection to a family member, or be willing to give of ourselves.  Love isn’t a one-size-fits-all word.

The Greek word Matthew uses for “love” in this passage is “agape”.  That’s one of several words Greek speakers in that time could have used for “love”.  Every so often, preachers want to differentiate between these words, but the fact is that Scripture sometimes uses the words interchangeably.  So when Christians use the word “love” with reference to God, or to our deepest human relationships, or to the stance we’re supposed to take toward the world, we miss the point if we try to define “love” with the supposedly distinct meaning of a Greek word. 

Instead, our definition for love needs to come from our understanding of God’s nature as the God of Love.

One of the key messages of Matthew’s Gospel is that Jesus’ life and teachings demonstrate how to fulfill the law.  In other words, Jesus isn’t just a teacher who talks.  Through his ministry and his self-giving love on the Cross, Jesus shows us who God is – a God who loves everyone, indiscriminately.  Jesus gives us the interpretive key to understanding how God calls us to live.  Not loving in the way that God does – because that’s idolatrous – but loving the things that God loves.

And Jesus setting these two commandments together links them as one.  So if we love what God loves, then we can’t love God first, and then, as a second task, love our neighbor.  To love God is to love our neighbor, and to love our neighbor is to love God.  It’s all one thing.  But here’s where Jesus throws down the gauntlet for us.  Earlier in Matthew, he’s made it clear that our “neighbors” include our enemies.  So if the Law’s aim is to orient us toward this kind of love, then as followers of Jesus we’re called to turn away from slander, hate, vengeance, and grudges. 

It doesn’t take long to look around the world and realize that love doesn’t seem to be our basic operating principle.  If anything, it’s the opposite.  We live in a fractured society.  Broken relationships are a reality in the world – each of us has been touched by them in our communities and our families.  The greatest sadness I’ve had during my time here is to see how broken relationships are a reality in this place, too.  And broken relationships limit our ability to join in the Spirit’s work in the world.  Limit our ability to see others as God sees them.  Limit our ability to love the things God loves.

There’s something I need to be clear about.  We’re too often told that passages like this mean we have to let toxic people into our lives.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Loving people does not require us to put ourselves into unsafe situations.  Sometimes – as humans – loving people simply means we open our hearts and trust that the Spirit will do the rest.

The powers of mistrust, alienation, self-centeredness, and estrangement lie too deep within us, personally and communally, for anything other than God’s deliverance to free us from them.  But the Good News this morning is that we don’t need to be trapped in this brokenness.  Our choice to make these love commandments the key to living our lives opens us to the Spirit, and her work to nourish our desire for the wellbeing of all Creation.  Work that produces the fruits of reconciliation, and peace, and abundant life.

All of us will have someone with whom we want a closer relationship.  As I close us with prayer, I want you to hold them in your mind.

Lord, it is too easy for me to harbor resentments and hatred against others.  Help me to see my neighbors – those who are easy to love, and those who are difficult to love – as you do.  Send your Spirit to breathe new life and reconciliation into each broken person, each broken relationship, and your broken creation.  We ask this all in Jesus’ name.  Amen.