Life on the level
Commentary
Object:
I've been doing some around-the-house projects lately, and it seems each project has
required at least one more new tool. Not that I mind. I have discovered the truth that
having the right tool for the job can make all the difference. And I have found, too, that
the tool aisle in hardware and home improvement stores makes me feel like the toy aisle
used to when I was a boy.
One of the tools I have discovered recently is called a post level.
A level is a device that helps you detect whether an object is straight or not. A level can be fairly short or rather long, depending on its usage. At first glance, it might look like a heavy-duty yardstick. Whether long or short, this rectangular piece of wood or metal uses a bubble floating in a small, transparent case to identify whether the picture frame, the ceiling beam, the countertop, or whatever, is straight. When the bubble is left-of-center in the little transparent gauge, then you know that you need to raise the right side of the object, and vice versa.
The post level, meanwhile, is a slightly more involved device. Designed to help a builder guarantee that the fence post, the flagpole, or the baluster is properly upright, the post level features more than one bubble. As you hold the post in place in front of you, it needs not only to be straight in terms of its east-west orientation; it needs to be straight in terms of its north-south orientation, too. While an ordinary level is a rectangular object that rests along just one side of the object being straightened, the post level looks like half of a small box. It is designed to rest against two sides of a post to guarantee that it is upright in both directions.
It turns out that life requires a post level. It is insufficient to measure whether my life is upright in just one direction; I must be straight in two directions. For when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he didn't offer just one; he offered two. And those two commandments are the two bubbles we can use to detect whether our lives are on the level.
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Frederick William Faber, the nineteenth-century English cleric, wrote a hymn titled "There's A Wideness In God's Mercy" about the nature of God that includes this insightful line: "There's a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty."
We recognize that justice can be unkind. Our long-standing concern about "cruel and unusual punishment" reflects our recognition that justice can cross some undesirable line. We know that it can be unkind.
By contrast, Faber's witness is that God's justice has a certain kindness in it. That should not be confused with unvirtuous softness with compromised justice. Rather, it is the property of the wisdom of God that even his justice has a quality of kindness to it: as surely must be the case with a God who is love (1 John 4:8) and who disciplines like a loving parent (Proverbs 3:12).
So it is with this final chapter from Moses' life. He is permitted to see the promised land from afar, but he is not permitted to enter it. If we have followed Moses from his insecurity at the burning bush, through the painful vicissitudes of Egypt's pharaoh, amidst the complaining, ungrateful, and rebellious Israelites, and through the generation of wandering due to the faithlessness of other people, we will be inclined to feel sorry for Moses. If anyone deserves the reward of the land flowing with milk and honey, it is Moses. Yet, for what may seem to us a rather small and momentary lapse in faithfulness - - small, at least, in comparison to his larger body of work -- it seemed quite unkind that God would prevent him from entering the promised land.
Yet, "there's a kindness in his justice." For what awaits immediately on the other side of the Jordan is not milk and honey, but battles and blood. For Moses to cross over with the rest of the Israelites would not be to enter into his rest, but to embark on the long military campaigns described in the book of Joshua. That would have been no favor to the 120- year-old man of God.
You and I have known people, cities, lawns, and bodies of water that look better at a distance than they do up close. And for old Moses, the promised land would look far better from the panoramic view of Pisgah than from the battle lines of Bethel and Ai. There is, indeed, a kindness in God's justice.
Meanwhile, the epitaph for Moses that is provided here at the end of Deuteronomy invites a certain kind of looking back. How far removed is this strong and accomplished old man from the edict that would have had him killed as a baby? How much has God accomplished in this man, now regarded as a peerless prophet, who once stammered and resisted at the burning bush? And how far has he come from not even knowing God's name to knowing the Lord "face-to-face"?
Finally, we may want to observe the paradigm for succession that is reflected in this passage. Moses had not been popularly elected by the people, and neither would his successor, Joshua, be. Nor was this a matter of royal lineage. It is not Moses' son who will rise to become the next leader of Israel. Instead, "Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him." And we recall that a similar sort of method eventually brought the nation its greatest king, David.
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
The apostle Paul was originally from Tarsus, which was in the ancient region we sometimes call Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey. That region includes several of the churches to which Paul later wrote epistles (such as Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians), as well as the seven cities to which the letters in the book of Revelation are addressed.
When Paul and Barnabas set out on their first missionary journey together, they set an understandable itinerary: They went home. First they traveled in Cyprus, which had been Barnabas' home. Then they went into Asia Minor, which was Paul's old stomping ground.
Likewise, on Paul's second missionary journey, he returned to Asia Minor. But it was while he was there, in that familiar territory, that he had his vision of a Macedonian man saying, "Come over and help us." Paul left the familiar terrain of Asia Minor to cross the Aegean and enter into Macedonia. After landing at Neapolis, they traveled inland to Philippi. After Philippi, they went on to Thessalonica -- the home of the Christians to whom this letter is addressed. We read the eventful story of Paul's missionary visit to Philippi in Acts 16:11-40.
This background is important to our passage because Paul makes quick reference to it. "Though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi," Paul recalls. They did not leave their difficulties behind in Philippi, for they met with "great opposition" in Thessalonica, as well (see Acts 17:5-9).
Yet, "we had the courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God," Paul writes. That is a significant claim, and it deserves our attention.
We know the end of the story, and so we may be inclined to overlook the details in the middle. We know all about Paul's three missionary journeys. We know him as the greatest evangelist of his age and one of the greatest of all time. We know the impact that he had, not only on individual lives, but on the entire Christian church.
Paul did not know the end of the story. He was living in the middle of it and being mistreated on foreign soil by unresponsive and antagonistic people. It must have been a desperate experience. How many of us have been stripped, beaten, and imprisoned for sharing the gospel? Again, because we know the end of the story, we pass too lightly over the details in the middle. And yet, after such a debilitating experience in Philippi, still "we had the courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God." That detail -- that response to God instead of to circumstances -- is an example to us all.
Meanwhile, in the particulars of this passage, Paul is especially an example to you and me as preachers.
First, he refers to himself and his companions as having been "entrusted with the message of the gospel." The image must surely be seen against the backdrop of the time: a day when communication was not nearly so instant, so technologically enabled, and so legally guaranteed. If you wanted to get a message from here to there, you had to entrust it into the hands of some messenger.
What is the most important letter or package you have sent, say, in the past five years? Imagine if you had had to place that parcel in the hands of another human being, and then send him off, left only to trust that he would get it where it needed to go when it needed to get there.
Such is the confidence God had placed in Paul and his colleagues. God had a message -- the good news -- that needed to be delivered. It was of ultimate importance. And he entrusted it into the hands of Paul, and now, so much more recently, into your hands and mine.
Second, Paul notes, "We were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children." Is this how we would be characterized in our pastoral work? Are we like a tender nurse caring for her own children, or might we sometimes resemble instead a distracted teenage babysitter, impatient, and easily irritated by the brats she has to watch? The children are God's children, and they deserve therefore our care, not our exasperation.
Finally, Paul said that he and his companions were "determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves." That's a pricey calling. It's a rare Jonah who gets to walk in, deliver God's word, and then step back and watch the results. No, more often than not, being his messenger means a more demanding investment. To share the gospel is a somewhat easier task, for I can share it without it being diminished. But when I make the move to share of my own self, I make myself vulnerable to loss.
Matthew 22:34-46
In order to appreciate the passage, our people will need to know the larger context. Matthew 22 comes from the eventful final week of Jesus' life and ministry in Jerusalem. Palm Sunday is just past. Good Friday is just ahead. In between, we find an escalating tension between Jesus and the Jewish leaders who seek to do him in. A part of that tension is typified by the questions designed to trap him. The Sadducees had struck out in their attempt. In our selected passage, the Pharisees step to the plate.
The question posed to Jesus by one of their representatives was this: "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
The question is, at once, both daunting and harmless. Daunting because the scope of the law was so broad and the accumulated layers of tradition atop it so deep that it could not possibly be answered easily. The questioner might as well have asked which flower is the loveliest, which food the tastiest, or which sunrise the most brilliant. At the same time, the question seems harmless inasmuch as it is not as immediately tied to controversy as, say, the question about paying taxes (Matthew 22:15-17). Still, British scholar, R.V.G. Tasker, argues that "they hoped that Jesus in his reply would say something unorthodox and startling, which would render him liable to a charge of blasphemy."
Meanwhile, apart from the tactics of the question, we must be stunned by the content of the answer. After all, how impractical is it to command love above all else? And how improbable is it that an almighty and eternal God should want that, above all, from his puny, erratic, mortal creatures?
At the practical level, I think I would have suggested "obey" in the place of "love." After all, if we were to obey the Lord our God with all we've got, wouldn't that cover everything? Doesn't "obey" serve as the most logical and most adequate catch-all commandment?
Evidently not, for the Pharisees prided themselves on their careful, deliberate, and thorough obedience to God. We gather from Jesus' critiques that they were clearly inadequate. Specifically, we think of the infamous Pharisee, Simon, who was quite attentive to matters of obedience and righteousness, but who lacked love (see Luke 7:36- 47).
Furthermore, while human logic suggests that all righteousness would flow out of simple obedience, Jesus posited that simple obedience flows out of love (see John 14:15). Perhaps this is why Jesus referred to the love commandment as "the greatest and first commandment." The lawyer had only asked about the greatest, but love is greatest, in part, because it must come first.
Also, we come eventually to recognize that there can be no greater obedience to the God who is love (1 John 4:8) than to love. Naturally, love would be the first commandment. And, we discover, it is the second commandment, as well.
Jesus is only asked for the greatest commandment, but he offers two for the price of one. "A second is like it," he continues. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Evidently it is insufficient to offer only the "love the Lord your God" commandment, for it is inseparable from its natural companion: love of neighbor. And it is inseparable, as we see from the preaching of the prophet (Isaiah 1:13-17) to the teaching of Jesus (Matthew 5:23-24) to the logic of the apostle (1 John 3:17; 4:20-21).
After offering the two-part answer to the Pharisees' question, Jesus observes: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." It is a testimony to the basic coherency of the word of God that all the elaborate and detailed instructions and corrections can be distilled down to two fundamental and complementary principles.
Finally, having been challenged by their various questions, Jesus turns the tables and asks a question of his own to his antagonists. It is a question that quotes the scriptures -- so he's playing on their field -- yet it is a question that befuddles them. They had not anticipated the doctrine of the preexistence of Christ, and so "from that day (they did not) dare to ask him any more questions."
Application
I come from the United Methodist tradition: We are heirs of the work and theology of John Wesley. Wesley was noteworthy, among other things, for his wholesome balance between personal piety and social gospel. We continue to see that balance reflected in our United Methodist hymnals, for right after 25 hymns under the heading of "personal holiness" we have 24 hymns under the heading of "social holiness." The first set features hymns of personal devotion, like "I Am Thine, O Lord" and "Close To Thee." The second set features hymns of challenge and social action, like "Forth In Thy Name, O Lord" and "Let There Be Peace On Earth."
Perhaps these are the two bubbles on the Christian's post level. Perhaps these are the two commandments that Jesus called greatest.
The individual (or church) who is entirely devoted to the love and worship of God but neglects the needs of his neighbor, is only halfway there. From one perspective, he seems entirely upright. Walk around to the other side, however, and you see how badly he is listing.
Likewise, the individual (or church) who spends himself in social causes but whose heart is far from God, does not fully pass the test, either.
The inquirer wanted to know which commandment was the greatest of all. He sought a simple level by which to judge and guide a person's life. But a simple, one-bubble level is not enough. Godly living has two dimensions, and we are called to be upright in both. Love of God and love of neighbor: This is the look of a life that's on the level.
Alternative Applications
Deuteronomy 34:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8. "Pastor And Preacher." Perhaps this Sunday we might try something new. And perhaps our people will appreciate it.
I expect that most of us do a fair amount of preaching that might broadly fall under the heading of "what our people ought to do or to be." There is no malice in this and perhaps no criticism, either. It simply comes with the territory: for if we are to preach faithfully the challenges of discipleship and godly living, then our people will sense the theme -- whether explicit or subtle -- that they are invited to do and to be more than they are.
This Sunday, therefore, we might do well to turn the tables. Perhaps this Sunday we might let them overhear a sermon that we preach to ourselves. This is not to say that we are exempt from what we preach on every other Sunday; not at all. They might be refreshed by our challenge to ourselves and our pledge to them to do better and to be more of what we are called to: namely, pastor and preacher.
The apostle Paul is our model for preacher. We have examined his example a bit above: the courageous perseverance, even in the face of frustration and hardship; the profound sense of privilege and responsibility that comes from being entrusted with an important message; the nurturing gentility with which we must conduct ourselves in our work; and the costly selflessness that is required to share the gospel effectively.
Moses, meanwhile, is our model for pastor. His epitaph at the end of Deuteronomy reminds us of his core achievement: leading a group of people from where God found them to where God wanted them to be. He spent an entire generation doing it, often in inhospitable and thankless circumstances. He watched the older generation die; he watched the younger generation grow up. He felt every pain that they felt along the way. And he faithfully followed God, while the people fitfully followed him.
So let me preach to myself this Sunday, with my congregation eavesdropping on the sermon. Let me preach about Paul, about Moses, and about the kind of servant of God I ought to be.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
It was Rene Descartes who said, "I think, therefore I am." While not wishing to enter the questionable theological ground of this statement, it is interesting to note that such ability to reason has plagued humanity for centuries. We are capable of discerning our place in the universe and at once are both awed and overwhelmed by it. It is with similar confusion that we approach the comprehension of the reality of God.
From our finite and limited point of view it is virtually impossible to imagine God. Yet this psalm attempts it with beauty, calling up images of eons before mountains were formed, and even a nod to the formation of the earth itself. Mortality, dust, time, all of it enters into these few verses and spills forth with a sense of muted awe.
Even though the practice of pulling Christian images and thoughts from pre-Christian texts is frowned upon by scholars, there is a point to be made here.
It is this very inability to comprehend God that makes the incarnation in Jesus so very powerful. Even the beautiful language and poetry of this psalm does not give the heart a grasping place to touch the holy. But in Christ Jesus we have a God with handles. In his humanity, Jesus is accessible in unbelievably wonderful ways.
Jesus in the scriptures is seen as very human. One moment he is gentle, the next racked with frustration. Another time he rolls his eyes in vexation at his followers while yet another he pulls out a bullwhip and drives the money changers from the temple. This Jesus kneels in love to heal. This Jesus grows harsh as he condemns those who make a mockery of faith. This Jesus asks out loud if the cup can pass from him. This so very human reflection is someone that we all can relate to in deep and life changing ways.
While the psalm blazes with beauty in its attempt to relate the wonder of God, this writer is thankful for the revelation that has come to us in Christ. Still, God is unsearchable, unfathomable, unknowable. But now in Christ, he has come near.
One of the tools I have discovered recently is called a post level.
A level is a device that helps you detect whether an object is straight or not. A level can be fairly short or rather long, depending on its usage. At first glance, it might look like a heavy-duty yardstick. Whether long or short, this rectangular piece of wood or metal uses a bubble floating in a small, transparent case to identify whether the picture frame, the ceiling beam, the countertop, or whatever, is straight. When the bubble is left-of-center in the little transparent gauge, then you know that you need to raise the right side of the object, and vice versa.
The post level, meanwhile, is a slightly more involved device. Designed to help a builder guarantee that the fence post, the flagpole, or the baluster is properly upright, the post level features more than one bubble. As you hold the post in place in front of you, it needs not only to be straight in terms of its east-west orientation; it needs to be straight in terms of its north-south orientation, too. While an ordinary level is a rectangular object that rests along just one side of the object being straightened, the post level looks like half of a small box. It is designed to rest against two sides of a post to guarantee that it is upright in both directions.
It turns out that life requires a post level. It is insufficient to measure whether my life is upright in just one direction; I must be straight in two directions. For when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he didn't offer just one; he offered two. And those two commandments are the two bubbles we can use to detect whether our lives are on the level.
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Frederick William Faber, the nineteenth-century English cleric, wrote a hymn titled "There's A Wideness In God's Mercy" about the nature of God that includes this insightful line: "There's a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty."
We recognize that justice can be unkind. Our long-standing concern about "cruel and unusual punishment" reflects our recognition that justice can cross some undesirable line. We know that it can be unkind.
By contrast, Faber's witness is that God's justice has a certain kindness in it. That should not be confused with unvirtuous softness with compromised justice. Rather, it is the property of the wisdom of God that even his justice has a quality of kindness to it: as surely must be the case with a God who is love (1 John 4:8) and who disciplines like a loving parent (Proverbs 3:12).
So it is with this final chapter from Moses' life. He is permitted to see the promised land from afar, but he is not permitted to enter it. If we have followed Moses from his insecurity at the burning bush, through the painful vicissitudes of Egypt's pharaoh, amidst the complaining, ungrateful, and rebellious Israelites, and through the generation of wandering due to the faithlessness of other people, we will be inclined to feel sorry for Moses. If anyone deserves the reward of the land flowing with milk and honey, it is Moses. Yet, for what may seem to us a rather small and momentary lapse in faithfulness - - small, at least, in comparison to his larger body of work -- it seemed quite unkind that God would prevent him from entering the promised land.
Yet, "there's a kindness in his justice." For what awaits immediately on the other side of the Jordan is not milk and honey, but battles and blood. For Moses to cross over with the rest of the Israelites would not be to enter into his rest, but to embark on the long military campaigns described in the book of Joshua. That would have been no favor to the 120- year-old man of God.
You and I have known people, cities, lawns, and bodies of water that look better at a distance than they do up close. And for old Moses, the promised land would look far better from the panoramic view of Pisgah than from the battle lines of Bethel and Ai. There is, indeed, a kindness in God's justice.
Meanwhile, the epitaph for Moses that is provided here at the end of Deuteronomy invites a certain kind of looking back. How far removed is this strong and accomplished old man from the edict that would have had him killed as a baby? How much has God accomplished in this man, now regarded as a peerless prophet, who once stammered and resisted at the burning bush? And how far has he come from not even knowing God's name to knowing the Lord "face-to-face"?
Finally, we may want to observe the paradigm for succession that is reflected in this passage. Moses had not been popularly elected by the people, and neither would his successor, Joshua, be. Nor was this a matter of royal lineage. It is not Moses' son who will rise to become the next leader of Israel. Instead, "Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him." And we recall that a similar sort of method eventually brought the nation its greatest king, David.
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
The apostle Paul was originally from Tarsus, which was in the ancient region we sometimes call Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey. That region includes several of the churches to which Paul later wrote epistles (such as Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians), as well as the seven cities to which the letters in the book of Revelation are addressed.
When Paul and Barnabas set out on their first missionary journey together, they set an understandable itinerary: They went home. First they traveled in Cyprus, which had been Barnabas' home. Then they went into Asia Minor, which was Paul's old stomping ground.
Likewise, on Paul's second missionary journey, he returned to Asia Minor. But it was while he was there, in that familiar territory, that he had his vision of a Macedonian man saying, "Come over and help us." Paul left the familiar terrain of Asia Minor to cross the Aegean and enter into Macedonia. After landing at Neapolis, they traveled inland to Philippi. After Philippi, they went on to Thessalonica -- the home of the Christians to whom this letter is addressed. We read the eventful story of Paul's missionary visit to Philippi in Acts 16:11-40.
This background is important to our passage because Paul makes quick reference to it. "Though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi," Paul recalls. They did not leave their difficulties behind in Philippi, for they met with "great opposition" in Thessalonica, as well (see Acts 17:5-9).
Yet, "we had the courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God," Paul writes. That is a significant claim, and it deserves our attention.
We know the end of the story, and so we may be inclined to overlook the details in the middle. We know all about Paul's three missionary journeys. We know him as the greatest evangelist of his age and one of the greatest of all time. We know the impact that he had, not only on individual lives, but on the entire Christian church.
Paul did not know the end of the story. He was living in the middle of it and being mistreated on foreign soil by unresponsive and antagonistic people. It must have been a desperate experience. How many of us have been stripped, beaten, and imprisoned for sharing the gospel? Again, because we know the end of the story, we pass too lightly over the details in the middle. And yet, after such a debilitating experience in Philippi, still "we had the courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God." That detail -- that response to God instead of to circumstances -- is an example to us all.
Meanwhile, in the particulars of this passage, Paul is especially an example to you and me as preachers.
First, he refers to himself and his companions as having been "entrusted with the message of the gospel." The image must surely be seen against the backdrop of the time: a day when communication was not nearly so instant, so technologically enabled, and so legally guaranteed. If you wanted to get a message from here to there, you had to entrust it into the hands of some messenger.
What is the most important letter or package you have sent, say, in the past five years? Imagine if you had had to place that parcel in the hands of another human being, and then send him off, left only to trust that he would get it where it needed to go when it needed to get there.
Such is the confidence God had placed in Paul and his colleagues. God had a message -- the good news -- that needed to be delivered. It was of ultimate importance. And he entrusted it into the hands of Paul, and now, so much more recently, into your hands and mine.
Second, Paul notes, "We were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children." Is this how we would be characterized in our pastoral work? Are we like a tender nurse caring for her own children, or might we sometimes resemble instead a distracted teenage babysitter, impatient, and easily irritated by the brats she has to watch? The children are God's children, and they deserve therefore our care, not our exasperation.
Finally, Paul said that he and his companions were "determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves." That's a pricey calling. It's a rare Jonah who gets to walk in, deliver God's word, and then step back and watch the results. No, more often than not, being his messenger means a more demanding investment. To share the gospel is a somewhat easier task, for I can share it without it being diminished. But when I make the move to share of my own self, I make myself vulnerable to loss.
Matthew 22:34-46
In order to appreciate the passage, our people will need to know the larger context. Matthew 22 comes from the eventful final week of Jesus' life and ministry in Jerusalem. Palm Sunday is just past. Good Friday is just ahead. In between, we find an escalating tension between Jesus and the Jewish leaders who seek to do him in. A part of that tension is typified by the questions designed to trap him. The Sadducees had struck out in their attempt. In our selected passage, the Pharisees step to the plate.
The question posed to Jesus by one of their representatives was this: "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
The question is, at once, both daunting and harmless. Daunting because the scope of the law was so broad and the accumulated layers of tradition atop it so deep that it could not possibly be answered easily. The questioner might as well have asked which flower is the loveliest, which food the tastiest, or which sunrise the most brilliant. At the same time, the question seems harmless inasmuch as it is not as immediately tied to controversy as, say, the question about paying taxes (Matthew 22:15-17). Still, British scholar, R.V.G. Tasker, argues that "they hoped that Jesus in his reply would say something unorthodox and startling, which would render him liable to a charge of blasphemy."
Meanwhile, apart from the tactics of the question, we must be stunned by the content of the answer. After all, how impractical is it to command love above all else? And how improbable is it that an almighty and eternal God should want that, above all, from his puny, erratic, mortal creatures?
At the practical level, I think I would have suggested "obey" in the place of "love." After all, if we were to obey the Lord our God with all we've got, wouldn't that cover everything? Doesn't "obey" serve as the most logical and most adequate catch-all commandment?
Evidently not, for the Pharisees prided themselves on their careful, deliberate, and thorough obedience to God. We gather from Jesus' critiques that they were clearly inadequate. Specifically, we think of the infamous Pharisee, Simon, who was quite attentive to matters of obedience and righteousness, but who lacked love (see Luke 7:36- 47).
Furthermore, while human logic suggests that all righteousness would flow out of simple obedience, Jesus posited that simple obedience flows out of love (see John 14:15). Perhaps this is why Jesus referred to the love commandment as "the greatest and first commandment." The lawyer had only asked about the greatest, but love is greatest, in part, because it must come first.
Also, we come eventually to recognize that there can be no greater obedience to the God who is love (1 John 4:8) than to love. Naturally, love would be the first commandment. And, we discover, it is the second commandment, as well.
Jesus is only asked for the greatest commandment, but he offers two for the price of one. "A second is like it," he continues. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Evidently it is insufficient to offer only the "love the Lord your God" commandment, for it is inseparable from its natural companion: love of neighbor. And it is inseparable, as we see from the preaching of the prophet (Isaiah 1:13-17) to the teaching of Jesus (Matthew 5:23-24) to the logic of the apostle (1 John 3:17; 4:20-21).
After offering the two-part answer to the Pharisees' question, Jesus observes: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." It is a testimony to the basic coherency of the word of God that all the elaborate and detailed instructions and corrections can be distilled down to two fundamental and complementary principles.
Finally, having been challenged by their various questions, Jesus turns the tables and asks a question of his own to his antagonists. It is a question that quotes the scriptures -- so he's playing on their field -- yet it is a question that befuddles them. They had not anticipated the doctrine of the preexistence of Christ, and so "from that day (they did not) dare to ask him any more questions."
Application
I come from the United Methodist tradition: We are heirs of the work and theology of John Wesley. Wesley was noteworthy, among other things, for his wholesome balance between personal piety and social gospel. We continue to see that balance reflected in our United Methodist hymnals, for right after 25 hymns under the heading of "personal holiness" we have 24 hymns under the heading of "social holiness." The first set features hymns of personal devotion, like "I Am Thine, O Lord" and "Close To Thee." The second set features hymns of challenge and social action, like "Forth In Thy Name, O Lord" and "Let There Be Peace On Earth."
Perhaps these are the two bubbles on the Christian's post level. Perhaps these are the two commandments that Jesus called greatest.
The individual (or church) who is entirely devoted to the love and worship of God but neglects the needs of his neighbor, is only halfway there. From one perspective, he seems entirely upright. Walk around to the other side, however, and you see how badly he is listing.
Likewise, the individual (or church) who spends himself in social causes but whose heart is far from God, does not fully pass the test, either.
The inquirer wanted to know which commandment was the greatest of all. He sought a simple level by which to judge and guide a person's life. But a simple, one-bubble level is not enough. Godly living has two dimensions, and we are called to be upright in both. Love of God and love of neighbor: This is the look of a life that's on the level.
Alternative Applications
Deuteronomy 34:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8. "Pastor And Preacher." Perhaps this Sunday we might try something new. And perhaps our people will appreciate it.
I expect that most of us do a fair amount of preaching that might broadly fall under the heading of "what our people ought to do or to be." There is no malice in this and perhaps no criticism, either. It simply comes with the territory: for if we are to preach faithfully the challenges of discipleship and godly living, then our people will sense the theme -- whether explicit or subtle -- that they are invited to do and to be more than they are.
This Sunday, therefore, we might do well to turn the tables. Perhaps this Sunday we might let them overhear a sermon that we preach to ourselves. This is not to say that we are exempt from what we preach on every other Sunday; not at all. They might be refreshed by our challenge to ourselves and our pledge to them to do better and to be more of what we are called to: namely, pastor and preacher.
The apostle Paul is our model for preacher. We have examined his example a bit above: the courageous perseverance, even in the face of frustration and hardship; the profound sense of privilege and responsibility that comes from being entrusted with an important message; the nurturing gentility with which we must conduct ourselves in our work; and the costly selflessness that is required to share the gospel effectively.
Moses, meanwhile, is our model for pastor. His epitaph at the end of Deuteronomy reminds us of his core achievement: leading a group of people from where God found them to where God wanted them to be. He spent an entire generation doing it, often in inhospitable and thankless circumstances. He watched the older generation die; he watched the younger generation grow up. He felt every pain that they felt along the way. And he faithfully followed God, while the people fitfully followed him.
So let me preach to myself this Sunday, with my congregation eavesdropping on the sermon. Let me preach about Paul, about Moses, and about the kind of servant of God I ought to be.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
It was Rene Descartes who said, "I think, therefore I am." While not wishing to enter the questionable theological ground of this statement, it is interesting to note that such ability to reason has plagued humanity for centuries. We are capable of discerning our place in the universe and at once are both awed and overwhelmed by it. It is with similar confusion that we approach the comprehension of the reality of God.
From our finite and limited point of view it is virtually impossible to imagine God. Yet this psalm attempts it with beauty, calling up images of eons before mountains were formed, and even a nod to the formation of the earth itself. Mortality, dust, time, all of it enters into these few verses and spills forth with a sense of muted awe.
Even though the practice of pulling Christian images and thoughts from pre-Christian texts is frowned upon by scholars, there is a point to be made here.
It is this very inability to comprehend God that makes the incarnation in Jesus so very powerful. Even the beautiful language and poetry of this psalm does not give the heart a grasping place to touch the holy. But in Christ Jesus we have a God with handles. In his humanity, Jesus is accessible in unbelievably wonderful ways.
Jesus in the scriptures is seen as very human. One moment he is gentle, the next racked with frustration. Another time he rolls his eyes in vexation at his followers while yet another he pulls out a bullwhip and drives the money changers from the temple. This Jesus kneels in love to heal. This Jesus grows harsh as he condemns those who make a mockery of faith. This Jesus asks out loud if the cup can pass from him. This so very human reflection is someone that we all can relate to in deep and life changing ways.
While the psalm blazes with beauty in its attempt to relate the wonder of God, this writer is thankful for the revelation that has come to us in Christ. Still, God is unsearchable, unfathomable, unknowable. But now in Christ, he has come near.
