Can We Love Too Much?
Sermon
Renewal of the New
Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost
Can we love each other too much? How much is too much? In a southern city newspaper there was an ad inviting people to a seminar entitled, "Women who love too much." Some time ago a young widow told her pastor how deeply she had loved her husband and that she sometimes felt guilty because maybe she loved him too much. She added, "Sometimes I wonder if I loved my husband too much. Could that be the reason God took him away from me?"
Can we love God too much? In a recent church magazine a retired pastor lamented that he gave too much time and effort to the church. He wrote, "I was a fool to give so much time and effort to the church to the neglect of my family and friends." Should love of family or friends come before love of God? Can love of God make you spend too much of yourself in church work?
Apparently, Moses, who wrote our first text, believed that we should love God with our whole beings. We are to love God with an "all" -- all our hearts, all our souls, and all our might. According to our second text, Jesus believed and taught the same. He repeated what Moses had said and added another dimension: "with all your mind." When you add up heart, soul, mind, and strength, what do you have? Is it not the total person, your whole self? It is not "all" of a part of us, but "all" of the "all" person! But that is a tough assignment. That is why Jesus called it the first and greatest commandment. If you and I obey it, all other laws will automatically be obeyed. Is it possible to obey it? If so, how? Let's take a look!
All Your Heart
Do we love God too much if we love him "with all our hearts"? Should we love him only with obedience? It is essential that we love him with our hearts, because love and heart are almost synonymous. Today we often see the heart used in place of the word "love." We see bumper stickers: "I (heart) sailing" or "I (heart) New York." The heart deals with feelings and emotions. To love with the heart means warmth and feeling. It calls for affection with hugs and kisses. It is this kind of love that we and God crave. It is the warm touch, the strong hug, and the tender kiss.
Do we express this kind of love in our churches? Are we too formal and dignified to express our feelings? Isn't the church a fellowship of lovers, lovers of God and neighbor? One of the chief complaints of visitors is that the church is cold and unfriendly. After a church service, a member asked a visitor, "Are you a stranger here?" She replied, "I have been a stranger here for the past four years!" To overcome this kind of aloofness, a pastor asked his worshiping congregation to turn to the next person in the pew and say, "I love you." Next to a beautiful young woman was a distinguished looking senior citizen who said to her, "You wanna just be friends?"
It may be hard for some of us to express heartfelt love, but it is much harder to love with "all" our hearts. It means that God is loved more than and above all other things and people. Do we really love God more than our family, or our money, or our job, or our pleasure? Whatever or whoever you love first is really your god. Are you sure your god is the God of Moses and Jesus? To love God with all our hearts calls for total commitment and dedication. To love is to please the person loved. Love is expressed in caring, in serving and in obeying. One of our hymns has us pray: "Let my heart be all thine own; let me live for thee alone." Jesus once said, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments." After the Resurrection, Jesus asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" When Peter said three times that he did, Jesus told him to feed and tend his sheep. Once again Jesus asks each of us, "Do you love me with all your heart?" What is your answer?
All Your Soul
Is it too much to love God "with all your soul" as the text says? Isn't it enough to love God with all our hearts? God calls for a love beyond the heart, beyond the emotions and feelings. He wants us to love him with all our souls. Do you ask, "What is a soul?" If we do not know what a soul is, how can we love God with it? Like Adam, each of us was created a living soul. The soul is our spiritual nature. It is our spiritual capacity to communicate with God. We are basically souls contained in physical bodies. We were created in the image of God. This means that since God is Spirit, we likewise are like him, spirits. That is why we are unfulfilled and unsettled until our souls rest in God, our Over-soul.
How does one love God with all the soul? One way is by worshiping him in spirit and truth. Because our souls love him, we want to be with him in his house, the church. We want to thank and praise him for his unending goodness to us. We want, out of love, to hear his Word in sermon and sacrament that we might know the truth to be free from falsehood. We say with the Psalmist, "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go into the house of the Lord.' "
Another way to love God with our souls is to hear the Word. The Word is proclaimed in preaching and teaching. It may be a personal Word in seeing and adoring the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Most of us can show love by reading the Word, the Bible. It can be read daily. The read Word becomes our daily guide and puts us in touch with God. In the words of the Bible we see the face of Jesus. "Oh, how I love thy Word" is the exclamation of one who loved God with all his or her soul. The worn and tattered pages of the personal Bible speak of that person's love of God's Word.
Loving God with all our souls is expressed in our prayer life. Because we love God, we daily spend time with him in prayer. It is a sacred time when God speaks to us through his Word and when we respond through prayer. Prayer is more than speaking. It is more than asking. Prayer essentially is being in God's presence and holding a conversation with him. If you should ever ask what makes a good Christian tick, the answer would be in this daily tryst with God. Some months ago Mother Teresa was interviewed in Time magazine. She was asked, "What did you do this morning?" Answer: "Pray." "When did you start?" Answer: "Half past four." You want to know the secret of a great saint like her? Here it is -- prayer! How many of us treasure prayer to the extent that we would get up at 4:30 in the morning to pray? That is what it means to love God "with all your souls."
All Your Mind
Isn't it enough to love God with all our hearts, souls, and might? Apparently, it was not for Jesus. In the Gospel Lesson for today, Jesus added to the commandment which he said was the most important in the Bible. He added, "with all your mind." Since the mind is an essential part of the human makeup, it is natural that Jesus would have added it. If the mind were omitted, we would not love God with our whole beings.
Jesus emphasized the mind. He was usually called "Rabbi" or "Master," which mean "Teacher." Like no other man he taught with authority. He constantly emphasized truth and knowledge of God. Both of these demand a mind. He ordered his disciples to be as wise as serpents.
Maybe some of us wish Jesus had not added "with all your mind," because we do not want to think. It is claimed that seventy-five percent of us do not think, fifteen percent think that they think, but only ten percent of us really think. We often want a preacher to tell us what to think and believe. We may go to a Bible class and insist upon a lecture rather than a discussion group lest we be forced to think. Some flock to fundamentalist churches where everything is spelled out in black and white. They like the certainty that does not require them to think about whether it is true or not. This is not God's way. He does not send down specific directions and easy answers to life's perplexing questions. One of Jesus' characteristic methods of teaching was to ask questions and to challenge his hearers by asking, "What do you think?" The reason God does not answer all our questions is that he gave us minds with which to think, reason, evaluate and decide. When we use our minds, we show our love for God.
We love God by using our heads. Think things through. Use common sense. Not to use our minds is foolishness. The virgins in the parable were foolish because they did not think that they would need more oil for their lamps. The rich man who built bigger barns and then retired was a fool because he did not think of his mortality. When a person turns to astrology to get direction from a distant dead star a million light years away, that is plain foolishness, even if the guilty person once lived in the White House! To blame everything on God is not using one's head. To say a tragedy is God's will can be foolish. When a drunken driver runs into a church bus and kills twenty-seven youths, it is stupid to say that their deaths were God's will.
It is possible not to love God with the mind. In that case the mind is used in the service of Satan. The mind can cook up terrible ideas. It can accept heresy. As a person thinks, so she or he is. Thus, Paul writes to his people that they should "think on these things" -- whatever is good, true and beautiful.
All Your Might
Is it not enough to love God with all your heart, soul and mind? According to Moses and Jesus, perfect love includes "might" or "strength." We are to love God with all our emotional, spiritual, mental and physical strength. This calls for energy spent in the service of God. It means a complete expenditure of effort in God's behalf. God will have no loafers nor lackadaisical workers.
Strength is needed to serve God in both church and world. To extend the Kingdom of God on earth calls for sacrifice of strength. We yield ourselves to God to work in and through us that his will might be done in our society. Work is indispensable to success. It is said that genius is the result of an infinite capacity to work. Recently Irving Berlin died shortly after his 100th birthday. He wrote words and music for 1500 popular songs including "God Bless America" and "White Christmas." As a child he came to the United States as an immigrant from Russia without a penny. He did not finish grade school and never learned to read music. In an interview he was asked for the secret of his success. He said it was due to "work, work, WORK."
To accomplish anything worthwhile demands hard and long work. It is true of athletes as well as artists. It is the case in the world as in the church. It applies to an individual as well to a group. Often we may wonder why our Protestant churches are declining in membership or why our congregation is not growing. The answer is in not loving God with all our strength. Many church members are more interested in air-conditioned churches with cushions on the pews. They want comfort and ease and to be entertained. We consider it a sacrifice to go to church and we want it over within an hour.
To be a good Christian, you have to work at it through prayer, worship and Bible reading. To have a growing church, you have to get to work. It means calling night after night upon prospective members. It means giving generously of time and money. It calls for hours of study to teach a church school class or to lead an organization's program. It may mean hours in your kitchen preparing a dish for a church supper. It could mean paying the price to be a Good Samaritan. Maltbie Babcock challenges us:
Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle -- face it; tis God's gift.
And why should we love God with all our strength? Why work so hard for him? One time an American tourist watched a Christian missionary nurse in India tending to the stinking sores of a leper. The tourist remarked, "I wouldn't do that for a million dollars!" "Nor would I," she explained. "I do it only for Jesus' sake." It is the same with those who love God with all their strength. There is not enough gold in all the world to pay them to do it.
Can we love God too much? Is "all" too much for you? You see, it is all or nothing when it comes to loving God. He asks our all in all aspects of our being: heart, soul, mind and strength. To be a total Christian is to love God totally. Is God asking too much? He gave us all we are and have. He gave his all in Christ who died for us. Does he therefore not have the right to ask us to give our all to him in return?
Can we love God too much? In a recent church magazine a retired pastor lamented that he gave too much time and effort to the church. He wrote, "I was a fool to give so much time and effort to the church to the neglect of my family and friends." Should love of family or friends come before love of God? Can love of God make you spend too much of yourself in church work?
Apparently, Moses, who wrote our first text, believed that we should love God with our whole beings. We are to love God with an "all" -- all our hearts, all our souls, and all our might. According to our second text, Jesus believed and taught the same. He repeated what Moses had said and added another dimension: "with all your mind." When you add up heart, soul, mind, and strength, what do you have? Is it not the total person, your whole self? It is not "all" of a part of us, but "all" of the "all" person! But that is a tough assignment. That is why Jesus called it the first and greatest commandment. If you and I obey it, all other laws will automatically be obeyed. Is it possible to obey it? If so, how? Let's take a look!
All Your Heart
Do we love God too much if we love him "with all our hearts"? Should we love him only with obedience? It is essential that we love him with our hearts, because love and heart are almost synonymous. Today we often see the heart used in place of the word "love." We see bumper stickers: "I (heart) sailing" or "I (heart) New York." The heart deals with feelings and emotions. To love with the heart means warmth and feeling. It calls for affection with hugs and kisses. It is this kind of love that we and God crave. It is the warm touch, the strong hug, and the tender kiss.
Do we express this kind of love in our churches? Are we too formal and dignified to express our feelings? Isn't the church a fellowship of lovers, lovers of God and neighbor? One of the chief complaints of visitors is that the church is cold and unfriendly. After a church service, a member asked a visitor, "Are you a stranger here?" She replied, "I have been a stranger here for the past four years!" To overcome this kind of aloofness, a pastor asked his worshiping congregation to turn to the next person in the pew and say, "I love you." Next to a beautiful young woman was a distinguished looking senior citizen who said to her, "You wanna just be friends?"
It may be hard for some of us to express heartfelt love, but it is much harder to love with "all" our hearts. It means that God is loved more than and above all other things and people. Do we really love God more than our family, or our money, or our job, or our pleasure? Whatever or whoever you love first is really your god. Are you sure your god is the God of Moses and Jesus? To love God with all our hearts calls for total commitment and dedication. To love is to please the person loved. Love is expressed in caring, in serving and in obeying. One of our hymns has us pray: "Let my heart be all thine own; let me live for thee alone." Jesus once said, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments." After the Resurrection, Jesus asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" When Peter said three times that he did, Jesus told him to feed and tend his sheep. Once again Jesus asks each of us, "Do you love me with all your heart?" What is your answer?
All Your Soul
Is it too much to love God "with all your soul" as the text says? Isn't it enough to love God with all our hearts? God calls for a love beyond the heart, beyond the emotions and feelings. He wants us to love him with all our souls. Do you ask, "What is a soul?" If we do not know what a soul is, how can we love God with it? Like Adam, each of us was created a living soul. The soul is our spiritual nature. It is our spiritual capacity to communicate with God. We are basically souls contained in physical bodies. We were created in the image of God. This means that since God is Spirit, we likewise are like him, spirits. That is why we are unfulfilled and unsettled until our souls rest in God, our Over-soul.
How does one love God with all the soul? One way is by worshiping him in spirit and truth. Because our souls love him, we want to be with him in his house, the church. We want to thank and praise him for his unending goodness to us. We want, out of love, to hear his Word in sermon and sacrament that we might know the truth to be free from falsehood. We say with the Psalmist, "I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go into the house of the Lord.' "
Another way to love God with our souls is to hear the Word. The Word is proclaimed in preaching and teaching. It may be a personal Word in seeing and adoring the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Most of us can show love by reading the Word, the Bible. It can be read daily. The read Word becomes our daily guide and puts us in touch with God. In the words of the Bible we see the face of Jesus. "Oh, how I love thy Word" is the exclamation of one who loved God with all his or her soul. The worn and tattered pages of the personal Bible speak of that person's love of God's Word.
Loving God with all our souls is expressed in our prayer life. Because we love God, we daily spend time with him in prayer. It is a sacred time when God speaks to us through his Word and when we respond through prayer. Prayer is more than speaking. It is more than asking. Prayer essentially is being in God's presence and holding a conversation with him. If you should ever ask what makes a good Christian tick, the answer would be in this daily tryst with God. Some months ago Mother Teresa was interviewed in Time magazine. She was asked, "What did you do this morning?" Answer: "Pray." "When did you start?" Answer: "Half past four." You want to know the secret of a great saint like her? Here it is -- prayer! How many of us treasure prayer to the extent that we would get up at 4:30 in the morning to pray? That is what it means to love God "with all your souls."
All Your Mind
Isn't it enough to love God with all our hearts, souls, and might? Apparently, it was not for Jesus. In the Gospel Lesson for today, Jesus added to the commandment which he said was the most important in the Bible. He added, "with all your mind." Since the mind is an essential part of the human makeup, it is natural that Jesus would have added it. If the mind were omitted, we would not love God with our whole beings.
Jesus emphasized the mind. He was usually called "Rabbi" or "Master," which mean "Teacher." Like no other man he taught with authority. He constantly emphasized truth and knowledge of God. Both of these demand a mind. He ordered his disciples to be as wise as serpents.
Maybe some of us wish Jesus had not added "with all your mind," because we do not want to think. It is claimed that seventy-five percent of us do not think, fifteen percent think that they think, but only ten percent of us really think. We often want a preacher to tell us what to think and believe. We may go to a Bible class and insist upon a lecture rather than a discussion group lest we be forced to think. Some flock to fundamentalist churches where everything is spelled out in black and white. They like the certainty that does not require them to think about whether it is true or not. This is not God's way. He does not send down specific directions and easy answers to life's perplexing questions. One of Jesus' characteristic methods of teaching was to ask questions and to challenge his hearers by asking, "What do you think?" The reason God does not answer all our questions is that he gave us minds with which to think, reason, evaluate and decide. When we use our minds, we show our love for God.
We love God by using our heads. Think things through. Use common sense. Not to use our minds is foolishness. The virgins in the parable were foolish because they did not think that they would need more oil for their lamps. The rich man who built bigger barns and then retired was a fool because he did not think of his mortality. When a person turns to astrology to get direction from a distant dead star a million light years away, that is plain foolishness, even if the guilty person once lived in the White House! To blame everything on God is not using one's head. To say a tragedy is God's will can be foolish. When a drunken driver runs into a church bus and kills twenty-seven youths, it is stupid to say that their deaths were God's will.
It is possible not to love God with the mind. In that case the mind is used in the service of Satan. The mind can cook up terrible ideas. It can accept heresy. As a person thinks, so she or he is. Thus, Paul writes to his people that they should "think on these things" -- whatever is good, true and beautiful.
All Your Might
Is it not enough to love God with all your heart, soul and mind? According to Moses and Jesus, perfect love includes "might" or "strength." We are to love God with all our emotional, spiritual, mental and physical strength. This calls for energy spent in the service of God. It means a complete expenditure of effort in God's behalf. God will have no loafers nor lackadaisical workers.
Strength is needed to serve God in both church and world. To extend the Kingdom of God on earth calls for sacrifice of strength. We yield ourselves to God to work in and through us that his will might be done in our society. Work is indispensable to success. It is said that genius is the result of an infinite capacity to work. Recently Irving Berlin died shortly after his 100th birthday. He wrote words and music for 1500 popular songs including "God Bless America" and "White Christmas." As a child he came to the United States as an immigrant from Russia without a penny. He did not finish grade school and never learned to read music. In an interview he was asked for the secret of his success. He said it was due to "work, work, WORK."
To accomplish anything worthwhile demands hard and long work. It is true of athletes as well as artists. It is the case in the world as in the church. It applies to an individual as well to a group. Often we may wonder why our Protestant churches are declining in membership or why our congregation is not growing. The answer is in not loving God with all our strength. Many church members are more interested in air-conditioned churches with cushions on the pews. They want comfort and ease and to be entertained. We consider it a sacrifice to go to church and we want it over within an hour.
To be a good Christian, you have to work at it through prayer, worship and Bible reading. To have a growing church, you have to get to work. It means calling night after night upon prospective members. It means giving generously of time and money. It calls for hours of study to teach a church school class or to lead an organization's program. It may mean hours in your kitchen preparing a dish for a church supper. It could mean paying the price to be a Good Samaritan. Maltbie Babcock challenges us:
Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle -- face it; tis God's gift.
And why should we love God with all our strength? Why work so hard for him? One time an American tourist watched a Christian missionary nurse in India tending to the stinking sores of a leper. The tourist remarked, "I wouldn't do that for a million dollars!" "Nor would I," she explained. "I do it only for Jesus' sake." It is the same with those who love God with all their strength. There is not enough gold in all the world to pay them to do it.
Can we love God too much? Is "all" too much for you? You see, it is all or nothing when it comes to loving God. He asks our all in all aspects of our being: heart, soul, mind and strength. To be a total Christian is to love God totally. Is God asking too much? He gave us all we are and have. He gave his all in Christ who died for us. Does he therefore not have the right to ask us to give our all to him in return?
