"Embodying Love"
A sermon preached by the Rev. Christopher E. Yopp at Edgemont Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) based on Matthew 22:34-46.
Just for fun, this past week I did a Google search for the word “love.” And I found that there were at least 54,700,000 websites attributed to love. Then my entertainment turn into curiosity and I decided to do a search for the word “hate.” I was pleased at first to see that there are more websites for the word “love” than “hate” on the Internet. But I was also disappointed to see that there were still 6,400,000 sites attributed to “hate.”
No doubt, love is a popular theme. Perhaps some of you remember the words to that children’s poem from Shel Silverstein’s book; Where the Sidewalk Ends, that features a little girl, all alone, holding up the letter “V”. The poem reads:
No doubt, love is a popular theme. Perhaps some of you remember the words to that children’s poem from Shel Silverstein’s book; Where the Sidewalk Ends, that features a little girl, all alone, holding up the letter “V”. The poem reads:
“Ricky was “L” but he’s home with the flu,
Lizzie, our “O,” had some homework to do,
Mitchell, “E” prob’ly got lost on the way,
So I’m all of love that could make it today.”
And certainly, Jesus’ reminds us that “love” involves all of ourselves directed toward God and one another. You know, “all” is such a little word, only three letters, but it’s a powerful word - inclusive, invited and challenging. “All” - not some, not a portion, not a little bit, not most of, but all. It encompasses everything, everyone, no exceptions, no limits. “All” means with every ounce of our being: our hearts, our minds, our souls - our whole selves.
I can’t think of a more fitting Gospel Lesson for us to hear on this Reformation Sunday, then this one. Sure, it may not be the typical reading for Reformation Day, but it is the Gospel’s Lectionary Reading for this Sunday prior to Reformation Day, which is of course on October the 31st - Halloween.
Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation Movement, said that when he discovered God’s love and grace in a new light of understanding that it was as though “all at once he had reentered into the waters of baptism.” He went on to say; “Immediately, I saw the gospel in a new light of understanding and realized that I am a child of God saved by God’s love and grace.”
Gregory Pope offers us a similar experience, he writes; “We must hear God say to us in the waters of baptism, ‘You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.’ We must hear our story of Creation, born into original blessing, created in God’s own image. We have to hear and know and experience this truth about ourselves before we can truly love ourselves. And we are called to love ourselves, to take care of God’s gift of life to us. And because God’s great love for us, because God’s gift of life to us, we return those gifts of life and love by offering everything we are and all that we have to God and to one another.”
In our Gospel Lesson this morning we see that Jesus is questioned yet again by some scribes who asked him which of the commandments is the greatest. Now, as I mentioned last week, the three disputes or attempts to entrap Jesus recorded in the 22nd chapter of Matthew’s gospel culminate to Jesus’ answer as to which commandment is the greatest! They were asking Jesus to choose from a list of some 613 commandments of Judaism, the greatest! Once again, Jesus found himself between a rock and hard place. But Jesus comes out on top. Jesus, in answering their question, recalls what is known to the Jews as the Shema. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all of your mind.” But he even goes a step further by saying; “And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Indeed, as Jesus reminds us “on these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.”
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, once translated Jesus’ words found here in the Gospel of Matthew in this way, he said: “We must love and serve the Lord our God with our head, our heart and our hands.” And, you know, I think that’s a pretty good translation of Jesus’ words here in our Gospel Lesson this morning.
Loving God with all our head points to the cognitive aspect of the Christian life. You know, we have heads to think, ideas to develop and thoughts to express. Now, you might recall that the word “mind” doesn’t appear in the Shema as recorded in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Instead, we find the words; “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all of your might.” The gospels imply that Jesus added the word “mind.” But we must keep in mind that the gospels were written for a world that spoke Greek; in a culture with a deep respect for the human intellect and its capacity to think. You see, the Greeks were philosophers - philosophy involves the mind - it involves thinking. And if we are called to love God with all of our selves, then we must also love God with our minds - the Greek word is [dee an oy ah] dianoia - which is the say, our very “understanding.”
Now, some might argue that faith should be based solely on emotion; others say it should be based on intellect. But I think that true faith is a balance of both - emotion and intellect, feeling and understanding.
I remember reading of an Episcopalian church that ran some newspaper ads trying to attract new members. One of them depicted the face of Christ with the slogan; “He died to take away your sins, not your mind.” You see, our heads - our minds are a vital part to the equation of our faith as Christians and, what’s more, we are called to love and serve God with our minds.
Next, both Jesus and Wesley remind us that we are to love God with our “heart”. It is the heart that it he very center of all passion and trust - the source of our deepest feelings and emotions. It is the heart which cultivates personal relationships. And it is with our heart that we cultivate a personal relationship with God through Christ, which ultimately brings reformation and transformation to our lives. We also seek to love and serve God with all our heart, to cultivate a personal relationship with Christ that will reform and transform our lives.
This is done through prayer, worship and Bible study in ways which shape us spiritually; it involves an openness to and a desire for the Spirit’s work in our lives. Wesley called this “holiness of heart.”
And finally, Wesley sums Jesus’ words up with a reminder that we are love God with our hands. Works are not the basis of our salvation, rather faith is. And certainly Martin Luther knew this well. It was, after all, the motive behind the Great Reformation. We are saved by faith and grace. This is what Luther meant when he said: sola gratia or “only grace” and sola fide or “only faith” and solus Christus or “only Christ”. But the flip side of this is, as James reminds us; “Faith without works is dead.” James wasn’t saying that salvations comes from works; rather, true faith is evident by our works, by our actions, by our deeds. And this is what Jesus meant when he said; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving God with our hands, as Wesley reminds us, always translates into loving our neighbors. It is about putting our faith into acts of ministry and compassion. It’s about using our time and gifts in service to God and neighbor. Wesley called this “social holiness.”
Being a Christian isn’t just a matter of the heart. It is also a matter of the mind and soul and strength and hands.
Healing comes or, better yet, reformation comes to the deepest part of our lives when our entire being - our head, our heart, and our hands are engulfed in love for God. And then, having received God’s healing love, God’s transforming love, God’s reforming love, we are called to become ministers of that love in the world. And by doing so, we bring reform to our world. May this be true of our ministry here at Edgemont. And so, unlike Shel Silverstein’s poem, let us seek to all embody love for it is the greatest of all commandments.
I can’t think of a more fitting Gospel Lesson for us to hear on this Reformation Sunday, then this one. Sure, it may not be the typical reading for Reformation Day, but it is the Gospel’s Lectionary Reading for this Sunday prior to Reformation Day, which is of course on October the 31st - Halloween.
Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation Movement, said that when he discovered God’s love and grace in a new light of understanding that it was as though “all at once he had reentered into the waters of baptism.” He went on to say; “Immediately, I saw the gospel in a new light of understanding and realized that I am a child of God saved by God’s love and grace.”
Gregory Pope offers us a similar experience, he writes; “We must hear God say to us in the waters of baptism, ‘You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.’ We must hear our story of Creation, born into original blessing, created in God’s own image. We have to hear and know and experience this truth about ourselves before we can truly love ourselves. And we are called to love ourselves, to take care of God’s gift of life to us. And because God’s great love for us, because God’s gift of life to us, we return those gifts of life and love by offering everything we are and all that we have to God and to one another.”
In our Gospel Lesson this morning we see that Jesus is questioned yet again by some scribes who asked him which of the commandments is the greatest. Now, as I mentioned last week, the three disputes or attempts to entrap Jesus recorded in the 22nd chapter of Matthew’s gospel culminate to Jesus’ answer as to which commandment is the greatest! They were asking Jesus to choose from a list of some 613 commandments of Judaism, the greatest! Once again, Jesus found himself between a rock and hard place. But Jesus comes out on top. Jesus, in answering their question, recalls what is known to the Jews as the Shema. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all of your mind.” But he even goes a step further by saying; “And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Indeed, as Jesus reminds us “on these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.”
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, once translated Jesus’ words found here in the Gospel of Matthew in this way, he said: “We must love and serve the Lord our God with our head, our heart and our hands.” And, you know, I think that’s a pretty good translation of Jesus’ words here in our Gospel Lesson this morning.
Loving God with all our head points to the cognitive aspect of the Christian life. You know, we have heads to think, ideas to develop and thoughts to express. Now, you might recall that the word “mind” doesn’t appear in the Shema as recorded in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Instead, we find the words; “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all of your might.” The gospels imply that Jesus added the word “mind.” But we must keep in mind that the gospels were written for a world that spoke Greek; in a culture with a deep respect for the human intellect and its capacity to think. You see, the Greeks were philosophers - philosophy involves the mind - it involves thinking. And if we are called to love God with all of our selves, then we must also love God with our minds - the Greek word is [dee an oy ah] dianoia - which is the say, our very “understanding.”
Now, some might argue that faith should be based solely on emotion; others say it should be based on intellect. But I think that true faith is a balance of both - emotion and intellect, feeling and understanding.
I remember reading of an Episcopalian church that ran some newspaper ads trying to attract new members. One of them depicted the face of Christ with the slogan; “He died to take away your sins, not your mind.” You see, our heads - our minds are a vital part to the equation of our faith as Christians and, what’s more, we are called to love and serve God with our minds.
Next, both Jesus and Wesley remind us that we are to love God with our “heart”. It is the heart that it he very center of all passion and trust - the source of our deepest feelings and emotions. It is the heart which cultivates personal relationships. And it is with our heart that we cultivate a personal relationship with God through Christ, which ultimately brings reformation and transformation to our lives. We also seek to love and serve God with all our heart, to cultivate a personal relationship with Christ that will reform and transform our lives.
This is done through prayer, worship and Bible study in ways which shape us spiritually; it involves an openness to and a desire for the Spirit’s work in our lives. Wesley called this “holiness of heart.”
And finally, Wesley sums Jesus’ words up with a reminder that we are love God with our hands. Works are not the basis of our salvation, rather faith is. And certainly Martin Luther knew this well. It was, after all, the motive behind the Great Reformation. We are saved by faith and grace. This is what Luther meant when he said: sola gratia or “only grace” and sola fide or “only faith” and solus Christus or “only Christ”. But the flip side of this is, as James reminds us; “Faith without works is dead.” James wasn’t saying that salvations comes from works; rather, true faith is evident by our works, by our actions, by our deeds. And this is what Jesus meant when he said; “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Loving God with our hands, as Wesley reminds us, always translates into loving our neighbors. It is about putting our faith into acts of ministry and compassion. It’s about using our time and gifts in service to God and neighbor. Wesley called this “social holiness.”
Being a Christian isn’t just a matter of the heart. It is also a matter of the mind and soul and strength and hands.
Healing comes or, better yet, reformation comes to the deepest part of our lives when our entire being - our head, our heart, and our hands are engulfed in love for God. And then, having received God’s healing love, God’s transforming love, God’s reforming love, we are called to become ministers of that love in the world. And by doing so, we bring reform to our world. May this be true of our ministry here at Edgemont. And so, unlike Shel Silverstein’s poem, let us seek to all embody love for it is the greatest of all commandments.
posted by Pastor Christopher @ 11:17 AM
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