28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”The lesson here was simple. These two commandments are irreplaceable, as we have talked about before. (Indeed, we've done it a couple of times.) Any other way you try to measure goodness, faith, following God ends up being like the burnt offerings and other sacrifices referred to in this scripture. Without love and service towards your neighbor you're following something else besides God's Word, calling it good in place of that Word. It's like needing something to eat and someone brings you a rock, someone else a fence post, someone else a distributor cap. Those are all good things, but not what you asked for! That's how God feels when we try to substitute some other way of pursuing our faith for love.
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
The Lenten spin on the lesson is how often we do just that, how short we fall of the love God asks of us...not just for him but for the world. You see so many churches flee to other means of sacrifice precisely because this one is so hard, demands such vulnerability, time, energy, service. We'd rather believe the Law saves us or our own righteousness or giving money or belonging to the right church. All of those are easier, less scary, than the idea that we are only saved because God loves us--not through any action of our own--and the only proper response God favors is to show each other that same kind of love.
Consider: most people think that evil put Jesus on the cross. That's not true. Love did. Yes, our sins fell upon his shoulders but he was powerful enough to shrug them off. Yes, misguided and treacherous men accused, tortured, and then executed him and laughed while doing so but he could have summarily disposed of them all. No nails could have held him to that wood. Love was the real power fastening him there. He loved us enough to accept our sins...even the sins of those horrible men. He loved us enough to take them into death with him. He loved us enough to walk that dark path for us even though he was the one person born on this earth who could have avoided it. Righteousness, fulfilling the Law, having a bunch to give, having the right lineage...those were the easy parts. Love cost him everything.
We're afraid of that. We see Christ on the road to the cross, knowing love is driving him there, and we say (even as his disciples did), "Not me! I don't even know this man! I follow the God of [insert burnt offering flavor here]!" And yet those words from the mountaintop come echoing down on us (the ones that brought those same disciples to their knees in fear), "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"
We cannot avoid the cross and call ourselves Christians. We cannot forsake love and call ourselves godly. We cannot turn from love and claim we are still following Christ. We, too, must bear this burden...not with the weight of the world on our shoulders as he carried, but at least with the weight of the burden of a neighbor or two shared and eased. It's not our responsibility to create or bring salvation. Jesus took care of that. But it is our responsibility to proclaim salvation. That can only be done through love.
As we journey through Lent we repent of the times where we've followed other paths than the loving one, failed to show as much love towards our neighbors as God has, and substituted other kinds of righteousness for the one God commanded. We also ask God for the strength to reflect on our lives, to make them more loving, and to echo his self-giving love among the people he sends to us.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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