A Reading from the Gospel of Matthew
When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet”’?
If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. ( Mt 22: 34-46)
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In our Old Testament reading today, it’s the end. Moses has brought his people to their new home, and now he is to die.
Moses is revered by Jews everywhere. No wonder. He brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He gave them The Law. He led them through the wilderness, and finally into their new home – the land promised to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob…. Even though he himself would not set foot there.
And to top it all, as everyone knows, he had the looks of a movie star ……………… he looked just like Charlton Heston .
Moses hadn’t always been a righteous man. He was a murderer. If you remember, he saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite unmercifully, and in his anger at the Egyptian, he struck him and killed him.
But God forgave him and decided to bring out in Moses, the leadership skills that were needed to rescue His people from slavery.
And Moses needed all his skills to deal with such a stubborn and stiff-necked people. They complained mightily, and often, to the degree that Moses was ready to give up on them on more than one occasion.
But he loved his God, and he loved his people. And he persevered. For forty long, hard years.
There’s a story which has been going around for awhile. It seems that George Bush died and went to heaven. He was having a great time. Everybody welcomed him and spoke to him, except for one white-haired, bearded old man. Bush couldn’t understand it. Every time he walked into a room, this guy would get up and leave. He couldn’t figure out what he had done wrong.
But Bush was determined to find out. And finally he found the opportunity. He snuck up behind him the old man one day, tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “ How come, every time I walk into a room, you leave? Why are you avoiding me?”
And Moses said, ” Hey, look at all the trouble I got into the last time I talked to a bush.”
Moses must often have wondered how he got into the business of leading people.
Just as Paul must have wondered how he got into the evangelism business.
As we can see in his letter to the Thessalonians, a portion of which we heard read today, he had to defend himself from people who had begun to attack him in his absence.
Some people had been saying that Paul preached in a way to curry favour with certain people. He says, “ We didn’t speak to please people, but to please God who knows our motives. “
We heard last week how the Pharisees put Jesus under attack. Now they are at it again, with a question about the law. As usual, he disarms them with his wisdom.
We all find ourselves under attack, at times, don’t we? And we don’t have the wisdom of Jesus to help us handle it.
It can come about just because you happen to be in the way of someone needing to vent their spleen. Those unfortunate people killed or injured in the last few weeks, just happened to be in the sights of a sniper’s rifle.
And when we feel under attack, and can’t do much about it, it’s frustrating, and we get angry, don’t we?
Some years ago, some enterprising person, recognizing a real need among drivers who felt abused by other drivers, came out with a button, labeled ‘Missile launcher. ’ You stuck this to your dash, and when some driver offended you, you just pressed that button.
I suppose it made some people feel better, even if it only was to smile at the foolishness of it all.
But it’s not funny when someone is doing it for real – shooting, that is.
It’s not funny when we think of hostages taken, of suicide bombings, all done in the name of addressing some real or imagined grievance.
Jean Chretien said something after the September 11th attack. I can’t quote him exactly, but it was to the effect that past policies, and the Western world’s having so much more than the rest of the world, had something to do with the rise of terrorism.
He was attacked for saying that, and it was pointed out that some of the 9/11 attackers were from affluent homes in Saudi Arabia. The fact is though, that Western economic policies over the last half century have alienated a large number of the people living in the Third World. Which is a real tragedy.
And that tragedy is compounded for us, when we realise there is nothing we can do to change the way things are. The problems are just too big and too complicated.
But we can change our world – the world around us, the world in which we live.
And I hate to tell you this, but the only way to change your world, is to love your neighbour as yourself.
Love the driver who cuts across you and then gives you the finger.
Love the Customer Service person on the other end of the phone who angers you with his or her unwillingness to listen to reason.
Love the surgeon who made a deadly mistake.
Love the sniper who shot and killed an innocent young woman as she loaded her shopping into her car.
Impossible!
Again, I hate to tell you, but they are your neighbors.
How do we turn hatred of neighbour into love of neighbour? Is it possible?
Jesus basically answered this question, when he said that the first and great commandment was to love God and the second, to love your neighbour as yourself.
He placed them in that order, because you will never be able to love your neighbour unless and until, you love God – with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
There are some of us here today who have wondered how God can love us with our history, our weaknesses, our wickedness.
And we wonder how God can love those we think are so much worse than us. We sure can’t!
But He can, because he sees a poor soul, wounded by life’s hardships, twisted by life’s lies, fooled by life’s false promises.
He sees a child, born into this world with all the hope that brings, and somehow, a beautiful baby grows up to be a liar, or a thief, or a cruel manipulator, or an addict, or just someone who can’t make it in life.
And he cries for what might have been – happiness, achievement, self-esteem, a thankfulness for God’s gifts.
And he cries for what is: – sadness, failure, self-hatred, and so on. Nothing to give thanks for at all.
And he cries for that lost soul.
And he suffers for that lost soul.
And he offers his love to that lost soul, and wants to forgive and heal, and nurture that soul back to health.
And He dies on the cross for that lost soul
You can’t help but love a God like that, can you?
You can’t help but love Jesus, the human face of a God like that.
But love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and you will find that you can also love your neighbour.
It’s the only way.
John F. Kennedy is credited with saying, “Don’t get mad, get even.”
Jesus tells us, “Don’t get mad – forgive!”
Oh, you might say, “I am not big enough”.
But you can be.
You might say, “I don’t have that depth of compassion in me.”
But you could have.
You see, the problem is, that we begin with the second great commandment; we are distracted by the command to love our neighbour – our enemy – rather than beginning at the beginning and focusing on loving God.
Because we can’t really love anyone until we first love God. If we can manage that, then the rest will surely follow.
During the Korean War, a South Korean civilian was arrested by the Communists and ordered shot. But when the young Communist leader learned that the prisoner was in charge of an orphanage, caring for small children, he decided to spare him and kill his son instead.
So the nineteen year-old son was taken and shot, right there in front of his Christian father.
Later as the fortunes of war changed, that same Communist leader was captured by UN Forces, tried, and condemned to death.
Before the sentence could be carried out, however, the father whose son had been shot came and pleaded for the life of the killer. He said that this Communist was too young and hadn’t really known what he was doing. This Christian said, ‘Give him to me and I will train him.”
His wish was granted, and the father took the murderer of his son into his own home and cared for him.
That father began not by loving his enemy, but by loving God, and doing so, he found the power of forgiving love.
Today, that young man, formerly a Communist is a Christian pastor, serving Christ.
It comes first from loving God, as we see Him in His Son Jesus.
It’s the beginning.
Amen.