For the last few weeks, we
have been reading about the battle between Jesus and the religious teachers of
his day in the Gospel of Matthew. Since Jesus was very popular among the
ordinary people on the streets, these jealous religious leaders could not
attack him directly so they resorted to trying to trap him in his speech so
that they could have something to accuse him of should there be a religious heresy
or political sedition trial. They are determined to “get” Jesus, one way or
another, and they eventually succeeded in having him killed!
Last week, we read that they
thought they had Jesus cornered. First, they schmoozed him with false flattery
to get him to open up. “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and you
teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.” They then asked him whether
it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not. They thought they Jesus had boxed in with their
clever “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” dilemma. If he said “Yes, it
is lawful” he would offend and lose his followers who hated Caesar and his
taxes, but if he said “no it is not lawful” then the Roman government would
come after him for sedition. Jesus outsmarted their trickery
by answering, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is
God’s!”
Today they are back for
another try. The trick question today is: “What is the greatest commandment?”
They knew that scripture scholars could not agree on this so they thought they
could discredit him with somebody no matter what answer he gave. Again, Jesus
outsmarted them again by placing the love of God and love of neighboring on the
same plane - making them equal - rather than prioritizing them as they were hoping.
There you have it! Basic
Christianity is about fully and completely loving God, oneself, one’s
neighbors and even one's enemies. Does that mean I have to love God, myself and others with all my
heart, soul mind and strength if I dare to claim the name “Christian?” You mean
I am supposed to make God and others the most important considerations in my
life, even while truly loving myself? To be honest, most of us can’t say that
God is that important to us, much less ourselves and those
around us!
I would love to be able to
say that God is always at the center my life, that I truly
take care of myself and that I love all people all the time, but
sadly I quite often put myself ahead of God and the needs of others. Some days
I do better than others but, thankfully, God is very patient with me and loves
me anyway. He is always giving me as many second chances as I need! I
have always taken great comfort in knowing that my best is good enough for God.
Today, I want to say a few more words about taking these two commandments seriously. None of us will ever measure up completely to the Great Commandment – the one that summarizes all other commandments - but this is the brass ring for which we all should reach out for! To take God seriously, to seek to love him, ourselves and others with all we have, there are things we must do. To call ourselves “Christians,” there are some basic things we must strive for! Let’s all examine our consciences as I list some of them! As that famous quote asks, “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”
1. We
must want what God wants. To be able to even want what God wants, means we have
to understand the Scriptures, listen to the Spirit within us and stay
consciously connected to God through prayer.
2. We
must remember who we are. We are holy. We are holy, not because of what we have
done, but simply because we are “created in the image and likeness of God” and,
through our baptism, we are adopted permanently as children of God. If we are
to love ourselves properly, we must accept our holiness, neither exaggerating
who we really are nor denying who we really are!
3. We
must want to live by the same values Jesus lived by: having a loving kindness
toward everyone, especially the most weak and vulnerable, even our enemies;
striving to do God’s will no matter the consequences; using Jesus’ own life as
a pattern for our own.
4. We
must be in command and control of ourselves, have a handle on our addictions
and our passions, so that we can go in the way that God wants us to go. We must
constantly question our own motives, making sure that we not only do the right
thing, but also do it for the right reason.
5. We
must never give into hopelessness, whether it is about the future or about
other people because we know that the war against evil has already been
won. Even though we may continue to lose many more painful battles, the war is
already won! God’s kingdom will come and nothing we do, not
even the gates of hell, can stop it.
6. Regardless of our failures, loving God and each other with our whole heart, soul, and mind is something we should strive for, even though it is something we will never accomplish completely. God wants a relationship with us as long as we live, even if it is off-and-on, rocky and imperfect!
Today, we are challenged
to get serious about God, not in some loud, noisy, fanatic and superficial way,
but in a long haul and to the core-of-one’s-being kind of way. Loving God and
one’s neighbors with all our hearts, souls and minds does not translate into
noisy religious fanaticism. I, for one, cannot stand in-your-face religious
fanatics! The loving that Jesus talks about is about knowing that we are
loveable to God and about a simple way of living that places that love back onto
God, ourselves and everybody around us. That is the spirit of these two
commandments and that is what the spirit of God’s whole law is all
about!
How can we possibly hope to love this way? We can do it only with God’s help! Let us therefore go to that table to be fed and strengthened on the Body and Blood of Christ! With God’s help all things are possible!
