Trinity 18
Mt
22:34-46
10/19/14
I started using Facebook in the
summer of 2009. I was a little late to
the game, as I tend to be on many technology issues. I am never going to be the on the cutting
edge with the latest things, but instead as they begin to establish themselves
and prove to be useful I take them up.
Now my relatively conservative
approach should not be confused with disinterest. I just don’t find that I am drawn to fooling
around with tech things the way some people are, like my brother for instance. There are so many things that I already know
that I really like and want to do, and so I don’t want to waste time on things
that don’t pan out.
By the summer of 2009 it was pretty
clear that description did not fit Facebook, and so I started using it. While I was slow to take it up, once I started
using it I enthusiastically embraced it.
Not too long after this, I got my first iPhone – I realized how easy and
fun it was to post pictures and I have never looked back.
However, it was been a process as I
have learned what you can do with Facebook and what you can’t – or
shouldn’t. Initially it was just fun to
use Facebook to reconnect with people from high school, college and the
seminary. Next I realized that it was a
way to share information – both news and also things I had written.
As I began using Facebook, I also
thought that here was a way to interact with people and discuss things. Here was a way you could engage in
conversation about serious things without having to be part of a university or
seminary community, or without being at some conference. I could be here in Marion and still have the
opportunity to interact with people all over the country, and even the world.
It took me awhile to recognize the
fact that this was simply not the case.
First, off, writing back and forth on the internet is not
conversation. You can’t see the
non-verbal signals or hear the tone of the voice. There is an impersonal character to the
interaction that makes it easier to say things in ways that you would not in
person. And because -unless you delete
it – there is a record of the conversation that people can read, you really
don’t want to admit that you are wrong on some point or misunderstood. Instead, people end up trying to have the
last word.
All of this is a recipe for some
very unpleasant outcomes, especially when you add in one other factor, namely
that you often end up disagreeing with more than one person at once. The conversation turns into a free for all in
which multiple people may take you on.
In an adversarial setting, you can find yourself responding to person
after person – one after another. The
truth is that Facebook is a great place to share things, but not to talk about
anything of real substance.
Our Lord Jesus is having that same
kind of adversarial experience in our text this morning. In the previous chapter he had entered
Jerusalem at the start of Holy Week.
During the time leading up to Maundy Thursday he engages in a running
dispute with the Jewish religious leaders.
First century Judaism was by no
means a monolithic entity. While basic
beliefs were shared, there was a great deal of variety. And so Jesus finds that he is challenged by
different groups – one after another.
Like a Facebook discussion he bounces back and forth as he responds to
different groups. First it was the chief priest and the elders. Next it was the Pharisees. Then it was the Sadducees. And now our text begins with the words, “But
when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered
together.”
The Pharisees and the Sadducees
didn’t like each other- and that’s probably putting it mildly. The Sadducees didn’t believe in the
resurrection of the dead, while the Pharisees did. The Sadducees had just asked Jesus a question
about the resurrection as they tried to trip him up. The Pharisees would have enjoyed seeing Jesus
defeat the Sadducees as he defended the resurrection. But while they didn’t like the Sadducees –
they disliked Jesus even more. And so they gather together in order to come at
him again.
We hear in our text, “And one of
them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him: “Teacher, which is the great
commandment in the Law?” Now we know
that Jews engaged in discussions about this very question. The Pharisee obviously thought that Jesus
might give an answer that could be considered wrong – an answer that could be
used against Jesus.
Our Lord responded, “You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You
shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the
Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus said the answer was easy. The first, the greatest commandment, was love
God with all that you are – Deuteronomy chapter 6. The second, the corresponding commandment,
was love your neighbor as yourself – Leviticus chapter 19. Jesus says that on these two commandments
depend all the Law and the Prophets. He says that the instructions given in the
whole Old Testament come down to this.
The answer is simple. However things get a little more complicated
when it comes time to do them because we have a basic problem that we never
really outgrow. Anyone who has been
around a baby or a toddler knows that as far as they are concerned, the world
revolves around them. The young child is
concerned about only one person: “Me.”
Now as we get older we get better at hiding this fact. We aren’t nearly as overt, and we do show the
ability to be concerned about others.
But ultimately, things don’t really change. We are going to put ourselves before everyone
else – including God. We are not going
to fear, love and trust in God above all things because that would mean putting
our wants and desires on hold. We are
not going to love our neighbor as ourselves, because do you have any idea how
much love we would then have to direct towards other people?
Left to ourselves this is who we
are. And the results are not pretty. It
is a life that cuts us off from God. It
is a life that inflicts harm upon others, and in turn harms us because of the
damage it does to the relationships in our family, in our church, in our school
and at work.
The Pharisee asked Jesus this
question about the law because he was testing him. He obviously thought he could use it to catch
Jesus in something. He probably thought
this way because Jesus often took a very different approach to the law. He said things like, “You have heard that it
was said …, but I say to you….” He
rejected common interpretations of his day that made the law easier to
keep.
Yet in the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus also said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Our Lord said that he came to fulfill the
saving purpose of the Law and the Prophets – of the Old Testament as a whole.
And this he did by loving God with all that he was, and loving his neighbor
more than himself.
At his baptism, the incarnate Son of
God showed that he loved God the Father with all that he was by stepping into
the role of the suffering Servant.
Obedient to the Father’s will he did not make use of his powers to help himself
as he faced temptation by the devil. In the
Garden of Gethsemane, as he faced not just physical suffering and death, but
damnation by God himself he prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And on the cross he loved us more than
himself when he gave himself as the sacrifice for sin. As Jesus said: “The Son
of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
many.”
By loving God with all that he was,
and by loving us more than himself, Jesus fulfilled the Law and the
Prophets. And then in the resurrection
on Easter, Jesus showed that by fulfilling the Law and the Prophets he had
begun something new. He had defeated
death and begun the resurrection of the Last Day. He had begun the new creation.
On Pentecost the risen and ascended
Lord poured forth the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit who moved upon the waters in the beginning at God’s act of creation, not
moves to give us rebirth through the water of Holy Baptism. Through the work of the Spirit we are made a
new creation in Christ. We are washed,
sanctified and justified.
And because this is so we begin to
make a new start. True, it will not be
fully completed until our Lord returns.
But we now seek to love God and put him first. We are in Christ and so we seek to fulfill
the law through love. Our freedom
becomes a freedom to serve because of Jesus.
As Paul told the Galatians, “For you were called to freedom, brothers.
Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love
serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.’”
Freed by Christ from sin, we are now
free to love God. And because we have
been loved by God, we seek to love our neighbor. We love our neighbor just as Jesus has loved by
his death. We follow the One who has
fulfilled the Law and the Prophets for us.
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