Leviticus 19:1–2, 15–18
Matthew 22: 34–46
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable
in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
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This morning, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus and Matthew’s
Gospel account we have a couple of familiar texts in front
us. We’ve heard them both so often, we think we know
them. We think we understand them. But the connections
between them might surprise you. And the conclusions we will
come to might be entirely new. So, hang on to your hats.
Here we go.
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It’s Holy Week in Jerusalem, the very last week of Jesus’ human
life on this earth. And as Matthew tells the tale, the Pharisees
have just asked Jesus for the Cliff Notes on the Law of Moses, all
613 tenets of it. On the face of it, this was a friendly request,
a question asking simply for the young rabbi’s
wisdom. “Six hundred thirteen separate laws are just too
many for us to keep – and certainly not all at once,” they
say to him. “So please, Rabbi, give us one nail we can
hang all those laws on. Which one – of all of them —
has that kind of importance?”
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But the Pharisees’ real motive in asking Jesus this question was
not really so benign, so friendly. In Israel, the
Pharisees were the resident experts in the Law of
Moses. They knew it backwards and
forwards . . . and debated it
endlessly. What they really wanted was to get Jesus to choose
a single law out of the total of 613 – so they could charge him,
accuse him with neglecting the remaining 612. In that way,
they figured, he would offend all the other splinter groups in
Judaism — who favored different tenets of the Law. And in
that way, the Pharisees would be able to discredit Jesus before all
those other sects. For certainly, each group had their own
personal favorites, the laws they considered most important. So,
in reality, this was a game of “Gotcha!” – a game
the Pharisees were sure they could win.
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But Jesus sees their game. So, instead of playing into their
hands he offers them a two–fold answer. The first part of
his answer was familiar to them: “You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your
mind.” This line, from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy,
is the one he says is the preeminent law. And they knew it, for
it was part of the Shema Yisrael, the prayer they recited every
single morning and every night as they prayed. For this was the
central affirmation of Judaism. They were to make God the center
of their lives because he, simply, is the source of all
being. There’s no realm where he can’t be
found. So, when they love him with everything they
have — heart, soul and mind — they are acknowledging his
presence in the midst of everything they do.
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But there was another law, Jesus said, that was nearly as important
as this one. In fact, he said, it was closely related to the
one he had just quoted for them – so similar to it that the two
laws matched and complemented each other. Only this law
wasn’t so familiar to them, for this one came from the Book of
Leviticus, which was usually considered to be a priestly book. This
other law, this corollary to the first, was — “You shall
love your neighbor as yourself.”
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Now, I don’t know whether the Pharisees gathered around Jesus
that day could see the connection between loving God with everything
they had and loving their neighbors as they loved themselves — but
I know I didn’t catch the connection. Not at first,
anyway. For I tend to think of God vertically – as
“up there” somewhere . . .
elevated, beyond reproach. And I think of my neighbor
horizontally – beside me somehow – on my level and not so
elevated. So, to my way of thinking, my human way of thinking,
God and neighbor are on different planes – and not to be treated
in quite the same way.
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But that’s the astonishing thing about Jesus’
assertion — that God and neighbor are to be treated with the
same degree of respect. God ? – sure, no
question. He is always good, always deserving our love and
respect. But my neighbor ? – well, maybe not so
much. It all depends on how my neighbor is behaving, especially
towards me. Or so I think.
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Jesus, though, has a different way of thinking about neighbor. He
is saying that if we love God, we must love what – and
whom – God also loves. And – astonishing but
true – God loves us all — every last one of
us. When the great German theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, was
asked in the final years of his life, what the most profound
theological concept he had ever encountered was, he replied,
“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
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So, when I choose, when I decide to love my neighbor, I am honoring God,
respecting his love for that person. Not only
that — when I choose to love my neighbor, I begin to resemble
the One in whose image I am made. For he does love us
all –even when, to our way of thinking, we hardly deserve
it. And because he does, I can too. For I am made in his
image. That love is in my DNA – and it’s in yours too.
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And that is not the best part. The best part happens when I
choose to love someone who is a little bit bent, a little shopworn,
a little soiled and broken by what they have been through in this
world. For when I begin to love that person, God begins to
work through me to redeem him, to heal her, to transform him into
what he or she was always meant to be. And when that happens,
it is not just the broken one who is transformed. I
am transformed too – by the love God flows through me — to
that broken one. It’s a whole system, you see, with
awesome moving parts that – by God’s design — all work
together.
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But – guess what? Even that is not the end of
it. For finally, in that moment of transformation – when
God’s love is flowing through me to another person, I am holy
as God is holy. That’s why Jesus came to this
earth – to sanctify you and me. Once again — astonishing,
but true – a revelation that changes lives – if we allow it to.
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Jesus, you see, knew what he was talking about when he spoke to those
Pharisees about loving God, loving neighbor and thereby becoming
holy. For Jesus was – and is — God. And God is love.
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Invite him in . . . today.
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Amen.
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