Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity: October 3, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝
You know, there’s a lot of stuff to learn in the Bible. All those 66 books, from Genesis to Revelation, yield a mountain of content that truly takes a lifetime to absorb and reflect upon just a part of it. Those Pharisees, the most frequent nemeses of Jesus’ teaching, tend to look at the Bible and see a jumbled list of rules. In fact, their rabbis numbered 613 different laws out of the Scriptures, and categorized those commandments carefully in a hierarchy that was absolutely dizzying. Why all that effort? Each of them wanted to be able to say, “I’m a good person. I am doing just what God wants me to do.” That meant they also had to justify or make excuses for their words and actions when they might be called into question. You see, sometimes keeping one law put you in danger of breaking another law, and so they were constantly searching: what was the one Commandment that would supersede all the others? And once they identified one, of course there was another expert who could impeach it in favor of another more important statute. To the Pharisees, knowing God’s Word was all about keeping the outward rules well enough to earn a passing grade from God.
Do you ever find yourself thinking like that, and then being on the defensive and trying to justify yourself? You lose your temper and let someone have it and then justify yourself by thinking, “At least I’m in church on Sundays, unlike others I know.” I speed sometimes, but there are others who are always going faster and running the stop signs. I could probably do more to help others around me, but God knows how busy I am. Because we are self-centered by nature, it is very easy to see the Bible as God’s rules which we had better keep if we want to get to Heaven. The thinking is: “It’s all about me.”
Jesus’ answer, however, points in a completely different direction. Instead of seeing individual trees in the forest of laws, Jesus perfectly described the whole forest: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
It’s all about love. First of all, there is the vertical love for God. This is not a part-time, half-hearted love. This is a complete, all or nothing devotion. Think of what it means to throw your heart into your work or a project at home. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when you wake up. You give it all the time and effort you possibly can and you don’t mind. It is the last thing in your mind before you drift off to sleep. The Law commands all-out love for God above all else all the time. Along with that is the horizontal love for one’s neighbor, that is anyone whom we can help in any way. It is not the warm feeling we get when someone does something nice for us, but rather wanting to do good for another and then doing it.
The Pharisees and we too by nature want to pick certain trees in the forest as our favorites—laws which we think we keep fairly well. But when we fail to act from a loving heart, we have already torched the entire forest! “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). It’s foolish then to point to a few smoldering stumps, hang our hopes on them, and say, “It’s not too bad. I’ve done pretty well.” It is all about love in the heart not outward obedience to rules.
It’s all about love, but it is a love which we do not have in and of ourselves. None of us would dare to say before God: “I’ve done it. I have loved You with a pure and perfect heart every moment of my life, and it is evident in everything I have said and done. In love for You I have loved my neighbor and shown him every bit as much, if not more, care and concern than I have for my own wellbeing.” We know better. There is no one good, not a one! “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the Law; rather, through the Law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:20). “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). It is all about love: a love commanded by God’s Law, a love we don’t have in our hearts, and a love we have not practiced in our daily lives.
That’s why all the Bible, the Law and the Prophets and beyond, hangs on love like coats hanging in the closet. Take away the hooks and hangers, and the whole teaching of the Bible gets confused and ends up on the floor in a jumbled heap! Our salvation is all about love, but not our faulty love for God. Instead the love that matters for our eternal life is His perfect love for us. Notice again what the commandment says: “You shall love the Lord your God.” If God is known as “your” God then there must be a relationship, a connection. He is yours because you are His, named His own when you were baptized. He has made you that. His name “Lord” stresses that He is the faithful God of loving promise. When He promises to help, He does. He reminded Israel of that just before He gave them the Ten Commandments. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2)
We have come to know our gracious Lord in Jesus. “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known” (John 1:18). The Pharisees were looking for an earthly Messiah who would reestablish the golden age of David and Solomon when Israel was politically powerful and economically prosperous. They acknowledged the Messiah would be a descendant of King David according to the prophecies of Scripture. But Jesus showed them from David’s own words that David knew his descendant would be much more than a man. He would be David’s “Lord,” a divine Helper, God Himself.
He would come to establish not an earthly but an eternal, spiritual kingdom. And He would do it with love, not military force. He was born under the Law to redeem those who were under the law. The Law demands perfect love of each of us. Jesus took the place of each of us. In our place He loved the Father with all His heart, soul, and mind. He humbled Himself and was born an infant in the poorest of circumstances. Even though the Lord of all, He obeyed Mary and Joseph, His teachers, and the government. In obedience to His Father He allowed His enemies to arrest and crucify Him. In our place He loved His neighbor as Himself. He laid down His own holy life as the payment for the sins of all people. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He conquered sin, death, and Hell just as God had promised. When He hung on the cross all the Law and the Prophets hung there too. It is all about love. Through Jesus God sees us as having fulfilled His command to love. He pronounces us holy and pleasing to Him in every way.
Because Jesus has given us the free gift of that love, a day will come when you and I truly will be able to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbor perfectly too. We all like to dream of the wonders of Heaven and try to imagine the glories waiting for us there. One of the best things will be freedom from all sin, selfishness, and pride which mar our lives now. When Jesus raises us on the Last Day, our Old Adam will be left behind in the grave. We will finally be free to love God and each other wholeheartedly as we were meant to.
But there is more good news to this message. We don’t have to wait for the resurrection to start loving. Our new life in Christ has already begun, and it grows as we grow in God’s Word. Remember, it’s all about love. When we see that God demands pure and perfect love, not just outward obedience to rules, our sin is exposed and our excuses shot down. When we confess our guilt and throw ourselves on the Lord’s mercy, the Holy Spirit raises us to new life in Christ and produces fruits of love in our lives. Read 1 Corinthians 13 or 1 John for more insights on love’s fruits. John writes: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
Sure, there’s a lot of stuff to learn in the Bible. There are a lot of coats in the closet! But keep in mind that you have the hangers that all those details hang on, and the reason to be assured that all of God’s blessings are yours. It’s all about love: love commanded, love received, and love to live. It’s all about love, and it always will be!
In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Readings:
Deut. 10:12–21 what does the LORD your God require of you
Psalm 34:8–22 Who is the man who desires life
1 Cor. 1:1–9 called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord
Matt. 22:34–46 which is the great commandment in the law?