Let’s play a game – raise
you hand when you hear a phrase you have heard before:
- Knowledge is
knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting tomato in a fruit salad
- Penny wise, pound
foolish
- An apple a day
keeps the doctor away
- A stitch in time
saves nine
- Early to bed and early
to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise
- Let go or be
dragged
- No good deed goes
unpunished
- An early bird gets
the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese
- Never let your hair
be brushed by a woman who is mad at your father
- Don't squat with your
spurs on!
- Nothing cuts so
deep as the lash of guilt
- The devil makes use of idle hands
When I first looked at
the Gospel for this morning, I was so excited!!
In my first glance, I thought “Wow – the Golden Rule! “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.” Then I looked closer at the reading & realized that this is not the
Golden Rule – that’s actually Matthew 7:12
- Oh well, at least I was I the right book! But it got me thinking about these phrases we
hear so often that they might be too familiar to us to actually hear; phrases
that may have lost some "oomph" in the familiarity.
Over the month of
October, we’ve been looking at the ways the Chief Priests, Pharisees, and the
Herodians have tried to trip up Jesus – they’ve been asking tricky questions
left & right, trying to get him to misstep so they can trip him up on his
own words. Today’s Reading continues in
that same vein. The Pharisees send a
lawyer in to do the dirty work this time.
The first thing to know as we explore this passage is that the lawyers
in this time period were experts in Jewish Torah Law – they debated the
question, probably daily, about which commandments were the greatest. I imagine that this particular lawyer was
probably the best & the brightest that they could find at debating the
importance of the commandments – so that no matter how Jesus answered, the
lawyer could jump in & argue against it.
You also have to realize that the Ten Commandments were not the only
ones on the table – by their count, there were 613 commandments – so Jesus had
a lot of ways to go with this question.
The lawyer starts by addressing Jesus as “Teacher” – sounds respectful,
but we know he’s only putting on a good face for the onlookers – he’s out to
embarrass & discredit Jesus. So he
asks the question “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” I imagine
that Jesus sits back a little & looks at him intently before quoting two
commandments out of the Old Testament.
First He quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 – except that He changes one word. The original scripture in Deuteronomy reads “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with
all your might.” The commandment
goes on to say that we should keep those words always in our hearts, talk about
them when we are at home & away, when we lie down & when we get up,
teach them to our children, bind them as a sign on our hand, fix them as an
emblem on our forehead, and write them on our doorposts & gates. Our devout Jewish friends say this every day
in their prayers even now. No one was
going to argue that one with Jesus that this was the first & greatest
commandment – he was pretty safe there.
BTW – the word he changed was “might” to “mind” – there has been lots of
debate over the wording change which we won’t get into today, I like to think
that in all of His work with the crippled & infirm & forgotten people,
He knew that sometimes those with the smallest amounts of might (strength), had
the largest amounts of faith. I
personally like the translation in the Message: Love the Lord your God with all
your passions, imagination, muscle and intelligence.
Then Jesus went out on a
limb & quoted another commandment from Leviticus 19:18 “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.” He weights it the
same by saying it is “like” the first.
Then He continues by stating that on these two commandments hang the Law
& the Prophets. Who can argue with
that? If you follow these two
commandments every second of every day, you’re in good with God – all of the
other commandments fall into place then.
If you are practicing these, then you don’t have to worry about all of
the “Thou Shalt Nots…” Our own Book of
Common Prayer calls this the Summary of the Law – that’s a great description –
it is the Law in a nutshell. It is also quoted in the Rite 1 Penitential Order
– you hear it every Sunday during Lent.
“Love our neighbors as ourselves” – that sounds easy, right?
Here’s the part I want
you to think about this next week as you go about your daily business – Love
your neighbor as YOURSELF. I see so many people who do not love themselves –
and it turns them into very bitter, judgmental people. I know that in my life,
I have learned that when one person drives me absolutely nuts, it is because
there is something about them that reminds me about something about me that I
do not like. It calls me into deeper self-reflection. How can I love that
person if I cannot love myself? Try it. Look around. People who are
mean-spirited and petty are not people who are peaceful in their hearts. They
do not love themselves and therefore they cannot love others fully.
Because here’s the thing:
once you love yourself, you see how we are all connected, how we are all
children of God, trying to do the best we can, trying to sleep well at the end
of the day. Once you love yourself, you realize that hurting the other person,
or group of people, only hurts you too. Love yourself – Love your neighbor –
and you will find yourself loving and serving God with all your passion, and
intelligence, and muscle and imagination.
Amen.
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Please be graceful with me and others!