Sermon Notes for October 23rd
October 23, 2005
Mathew 22:34-46
“Which is the Greatest Commandment?”
According to the Gallup poll, back in 1963 over 2/3 of all Americans agreed with the following statement:
“The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.”
Now 2/3 is a lot of people.
Today, however, that number has dropped to only 27 % - about one fourth of all Americans – according to a poll taken in 2001.
Now that is a big change. A momentous change - all in our own lifetime.
What this means of course is that for Protestant preaching the expectations of the audience are very different than when I first started out in the ministry.
For instance, when I first studied the scriptures in the seminary, I was exposed to all the theories of biblical criticism that had been around for at least 100 years. But, a few years later, when I got up in the pulpit I had to be careful if I cast too much doubt on what people believed about the Bible. Because, as many people thought, the Bible was infallible. Beyond question. The perfect word of God.
Back then,it was largely believed, the Bible was more or less written by God Himself. Despite the fact that many things in the Bible were hard if not impossible to believe such as the many miracles, Jesus physical resurrection, the Virgin birth, and all the rest. To say nothing of the various contradictions, especially between the various accounts of Jesus life as are written in the Four Gospels.
Now this change in thinking which has been happening for well over half of Americans today … is not always reflected in the church or for at least many people in the churches. And especially in the recent revival of evangelical religion in America. For, as many are aware, the resurgence of religion has been mostly in the area of fundamentalist religion which, for many, means that the Bible is the literal word of God. Which is why we now have the reoccurrence of the evolution debate in the schools and among other things.
So, where are all the people who are no longer strict believers in the literalism of the Bible? Well, many have sort of given up on the church. Many belong, to what the Episcopal Bishop, John Spong, calls the “Church Alumni Club.”
Sadly, many thinking people who no longer accept the church’s ideas about the Bible, have simply given up and gone home … unwilling to believe things in the Bible that make no sense in the modern world.
To paraphrase a recent comment by one religious leader today:
The most religious appearing people today unfortunately get it wrong, and the rest don’t get it!
This makes it tough to preach today … for many minister who have to walk the line … not wishing to upset the faith of those who believe literally in the Bible and the rest who find the Bible rather unbelievable.
On top of this, there is the additional problem which I alluded to in my recent newsletter message this month … which was about the fact that the Bible is just plain hard to understand in many parts because of the translations which are out of date. Truth is, we just don’t talk the way the Bible is written and don’t use the same words nowadays. This is why the newest translation by Eugene Peterson is so popular because it reads more like we talk today.
Incidentally, my newsletter, besides going to all members and friends of our church, also goes to about twenty of my friends in various parts … and I received two favorable responses to that article – one from a former Catholic who attends a Methodist Church in St. Paul with her husband who is a recovering alcoholic and who struggles with her faith all the time … and another is from a District Court Judge in Minneapolis who asked me if he should buy the Peterson Bible for his two daughters in high school and college. And I said, “yes, we give them to our confirmation students.”
Having said all this … let us take a look at the passage we read for today.
In Mathew, it reads that one of the Pharisees, a lawyer, having heard Jesus silence the Sadducees, asked Jesus: “which is the great commandment?”
But, in Mark, which was written earlier than Mathew, it says, “one of the scribes asked Jesus, “which of the commandments is the first of all?” After Jesus answers, the scribe says, “You are right, Teacher.” To which, Jesus answers, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” This, we might conclude, is a fairly honest and favorable give and take response.
However, in Luke’s Gospel, it is the lawyer who asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” To which Jesus asks, “What is written in the law?” And, then the lawyer responds by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God … etc.” As in the Gospel of Mathew, this is a more adversarial response.
So, we have three different versions, sometimes with Jesus giving the right answer and sometime with the scribe or lawyer responding. Which is the correct version?
Well, obviously, here we have a good example for the fact that Jesus’ words were actually remembered by three different sources (Mathew, Mark, and Luke) and so, naturally, as the story was retold over the some 40 to 70 years after Jesus’ death, different versions developed in the Gospels.
Does this make the Bible inaccurate? Not really. It merely gives evidence to the fact that the Bible was written by men from memory. And different men remembered it differently.
Yet, despite the differences, everyone did remember that Jesus encountered the Jewish religious leaders and he did reinterpret the Old Testament in a way that produced what we call, in the Christian faith, the Great Commandment.
What was going on here was more than likely that Mathew, who was more knowledgeable in the Jewish law than Mark … gave a more elaborate answer. In addition, since controversies between the followers of Jesus had grown by the time of Mathew, we see in Mathew’s story an attempt by the Pharisees to set Jesus up for a mistake or misquote on which to trick him. Whereas in Mark, it appears as a rather friendly question with a friendly answer, in the later two Gospels it is more adversarial.
So, what were the Jewish authorities trying to do? Most scholars think that:
Either they want to test Jesus’ knowledge of the scriptures and
See if he was up to a debate on their level.
Or, they wanted to trick him and thereby discredit him.
Whatever the case, Jesus’ response avoids both mistakes.
Well, we might ask, then if Jesu’s answer something totally new and different? Not exactly. For it is clear that Jesus interpretation is really a combining of two famous passages in the Old Testament.
The first, of course comes from the Ten Commandments … in Mark’s earlier version the scribe prefaces his words with, “Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
At first glance, of course, this is not exactly a commandment but a statement of faith … which came from the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Everyone in Israel new this … because they prayed it twice a day …
Notice the similarity to the Moslem daily prayer: "there is no god but Allah (God), and Muhammad is His Messenger." Or, Allahu Akbar – God is Great.
Is that much different from, “Hear, O Isreal, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
To which Jesus adds the words of Moses from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The Hebrews were also very familiar with that phrase as well. For, both were essential to the structure of the Torah, the Jewish Law.
What is unusual about this statement of Jesus is that no one else explicitly combined the two statements.
So far, so good. And we all know all about the great commandment and it is even enshrined in American life and even business practice. In fact, here is a little bit of American history trivia for you:
The year was 1902 and a 27 year old man arrived by train in Kemmerer, Wyoming to start a new business. He couldn't afford the train fare twice, so he made a commitment in dollars before seeing the town. A scattered mining community, Kemmerer had about one thousand residents, a company store that operated on credit and 21 saloons where a good deal of spare cash was spent.
Two revolutionary ideas - cash only and do unto others as you would have them do unto you - were the basis for James Cash Penney's new business venture. (The middle name is a family name, not chosen to express his retail philosophy). He named the store the Golden Rule.
"When the sun rose over Kemmerer, Wyoming, April 14, 1902, it gilded a sign reading "GOLDEN RULE STORE. The firm name was Johnson, Callahan and Penney, but it was used only for bookkeeping purposes. In setting up a business under the name and meaning of Golden Rule, the owners were publicly binding themselves to a principle which had been a real intimate part of Mr. Penney’s family upbringing. The sign on the store was much more than a trade name. They took the slogan "Golden Rule Store" with strict literalness. Our idea was to make money and build business through serving the community with fair dealing and honest value, and did business cash-and-carry."
And, there you have it. Fair dealing and honest value.
We might pray that more businesses and institutions in our society today would take seriously the principle of the Golden Rule. What do you think?
9. Does the Golden Rule come directly from Jesus? It is hard to tell. One commentary says that:
The golden rule is endorsed by all the great world religions; Jesus, the great Rabbi Hillel, and even Confucius used it to summarize their ethical teachings. And for many centuries the idea has been influential among people of very diverse cultures. These facts suggest that the golden rule may be an important moral truth.
Let's consider an example of how the rule is used. President Kennedy in 1963 appealed to the golden rule in an anti-segregation speech at the time of the first black enrollment at the University of Alabama. He asked whites to consider what it would be like to be treated as second class citizens because of skin color. Whites were to imagine themselves being black - and being told that they couldn't vote, or go to the best public schools, or eat at most public restaurants, or sit in the front of the bus. Would whites be content to be treated that way? He was sure that they wouldn't - and yet this is how they treated others. He said the "heart of the question is ... whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated."
The golden rule, it goes on to say, is best interpreted as saying: "Treat others only in ways that you're willing to be treated in the same exact situation." To apply it, you'd imagine yourself in the exact place of the other person on the receiving end of the action. If you act in a given way toward another, and yet are unwilling to be treated that way in the same circumstances, then you violate the rule.
10. What Jesus meant, of course, was that with regard to the Torah, it was more important to love God and one another than merely to emphasize the keeping of religious observances, prayers, and burnt offerings.
Time and again, Jesus confronted the religious and political leaders with the reality that, while they acted very pious, they washed the outside of the cup while the inside was filled with animosity, greed, and prejudice.
This was most powerfully indicated in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus follows up his statement with the parable of the Good Samaritan …
Tell about the Good Samaritan …
Action, then, not mere religious practice is at the heart of Jesus message.
11. So, in the end we have at the core of the Christian message a very simple idea … so simple that we constantly overlook it …
It consists of a triangular relationship between ourselves … our fellow men and women and God …
First, there is our vertical relationship with God … I say vertical … not in the sense that God is necessarily UP … But that is how we still think … maybe a better way to say it is to say … that we have a spiritual dimension with God who is all around us …
And then we have a relationship with other people … who are also all around us … commonly thought of a horizontal …
And then we have ourselves … at one corner of the triangle … God at another … and our neighbor at the third …
This stands for the idea that God loves us … and also our neighbor … and we are called to do likewise …
The object … of our faith, then … is to bring these relationships into harmony … that is what the church is supposed to be about … at least imperfectly … we are all here this morning … to demonstrate the reality of Jesus words … to proclaim and celebrate our Love for God, God’s Love for us … and our Love for one another …
12. Keep it simple … stupid … goes the familiar formula. Well, that’s it in a nutshell.
Often people say, "I don’t understand all this religion business." It’s too complicated. And quite often I think the church and certain pretentious religious people do make it way too complicated.
John Wesley had his faults, but he tried to keep things simple.
People ask what Methodists believe … well, we believe in the Great Commandment.
Lately, some people want to reemphasize the Ten Commandments. But, as someone has said, if you keep the Great Commandment then you won’t be breaking any of the rest … for if you love God and your neighbor and yourself … then you aren’t going to lie, cheat, steal, covet, and all the rest ARE YOU?
13. So, let’s not make this religion thing too complicated. And, you don’t’ need to worry about whether everything in the Bible is literally true or not, either.
And, let’s not make religion into a whole list of do’s and don’ts and get so worked up about sin … and salvation … and who the good people are and who is going to hell … and all the rest …
That’s not what Jesus was all about. In fact, he cut right through all the religious pretentiousness of his time … brought things right down on the ground … and put them in simple enough terms that even everyday people could understand them …
That was John Wesley’s idea … to certain degree … as well … keep it simple and keep focused on living out your faith in practical and everyday ways.
And what will happen if we do?
14. Last week at our EPIC worship service … which is now on Wednesday night … someone brought two bags full of rocks and passed them around … on each rock was a word …
One said prejudice, another said anger, another said envy, another said fear, greed, dishonesty, negativism and so on …
All of the things that are the opposite of love.
So, think for the moment about all the rocks you are carrying around. Think about how they way you down. Think about how hard it is to get around if you are carrying a heavy bag of negative unloving stupid rocks!!
Jesus calls us to unload those rocks … get rid of our negativity … and travel lighter … seeing the good in others, enjoying the blessing of each day … and praising God for life itself.
That’s what the Great Commandment is all about. So, let us affirm the presence and the Love of God in our hearts and minds this morning as we turn to Him now in prayer ….
Mathew 22:34-46
“Which is the Greatest Commandment?”
According to the Gallup poll, back in 1963 over 2/3 of all Americans agreed with the following statement:
“The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.”
Now 2/3 is a lot of people.
Today, however, that number has dropped to only 27 % - about one fourth of all Americans – according to a poll taken in 2001.
Now that is a big change. A momentous change - all in our own lifetime.
What this means of course is that for Protestant preaching the expectations of the audience are very different than when I first started out in the ministry.
For instance, when I first studied the scriptures in the seminary, I was exposed to all the theories of biblical criticism that had been around for at least 100 years. But, a few years later, when I got up in the pulpit I had to be careful if I cast too much doubt on what people believed about the Bible. Because, as many people thought, the Bible was infallible. Beyond question. The perfect word of God.
Back then,it was largely believed, the Bible was more or less written by God Himself. Despite the fact that many things in the Bible were hard if not impossible to believe such as the many miracles, Jesus physical resurrection, the Virgin birth, and all the rest. To say nothing of the various contradictions, especially between the various accounts of Jesus life as are written in the Four Gospels.
Now this change in thinking which has been happening for well over half of Americans today … is not always reflected in the church or for at least many people in the churches. And especially in the recent revival of evangelical religion in America. For, as many are aware, the resurgence of religion has been mostly in the area of fundamentalist religion which, for many, means that the Bible is the literal word of God. Which is why we now have the reoccurrence of the evolution debate in the schools and among other things.
So, where are all the people who are no longer strict believers in the literalism of the Bible? Well, many have sort of given up on the church. Many belong, to what the Episcopal Bishop, John Spong, calls the “Church Alumni Club.”
Sadly, many thinking people who no longer accept the church’s ideas about the Bible, have simply given up and gone home … unwilling to believe things in the Bible that make no sense in the modern world.
To paraphrase a recent comment by one religious leader today:
The most religious appearing people today unfortunately get it wrong, and the rest don’t get it!
This makes it tough to preach today … for many minister who have to walk the line … not wishing to upset the faith of those who believe literally in the Bible and the rest who find the Bible rather unbelievable.
On top of this, there is the additional problem which I alluded to in my recent newsletter message this month … which was about the fact that the Bible is just plain hard to understand in many parts because of the translations which are out of date. Truth is, we just don’t talk the way the Bible is written and don’t use the same words nowadays. This is why the newest translation by Eugene Peterson is so popular because it reads more like we talk today.
Incidentally, my newsletter, besides going to all members and friends of our church, also goes to about twenty of my friends in various parts … and I received two favorable responses to that article – one from a former Catholic who attends a Methodist Church in St. Paul with her husband who is a recovering alcoholic and who struggles with her faith all the time … and another is from a District Court Judge in Minneapolis who asked me if he should buy the Peterson Bible for his two daughters in high school and college. And I said, “yes, we give them to our confirmation students.”
Having said all this … let us take a look at the passage we read for today.
In Mathew, it reads that one of the Pharisees, a lawyer, having heard Jesus silence the Sadducees, asked Jesus: “which is the great commandment?”
But, in Mark, which was written earlier than Mathew, it says, “one of the scribes asked Jesus, “which of the commandments is the first of all?” After Jesus answers, the scribe says, “You are right, Teacher.” To which, Jesus answers, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” This, we might conclude, is a fairly honest and favorable give and take response.
However, in Luke’s Gospel, it is the lawyer who asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” To which Jesus asks, “What is written in the law?” And, then the lawyer responds by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God … etc.” As in the Gospel of Mathew, this is a more adversarial response.
So, we have three different versions, sometimes with Jesus giving the right answer and sometime with the scribe or lawyer responding. Which is the correct version?
Well, obviously, here we have a good example for the fact that Jesus’ words were actually remembered by three different sources (Mathew, Mark, and Luke) and so, naturally, as the story was retold over the some 40 to 70 years after Jesus’ death, different versions developed in the Gospels.
Does this make the Bible inaccurate? Not really. It merely gives evidence to the fact that the Bible was written by men from memory. And different men remembered it differently.
Yet, despite the differences, everyone did remember that Jesus encountered the Jewish religious leaders and he did reinterpret the Old Testament in a way that produced what we call, in the Christian faith, the Great Commandment.
What was going on here was more than likely that Mathew, who was more knowledgeable in the Jewish law than Mark … gave a more elaborate answer. In addition, since controversies between the followers of Jesus had grown by the time of Mathew, we see in Mathew’s story an attempt by the Pharisees to set Jesus up for a mistake or misquote on which to trick him. Whereas in Mark, it appears as a rather friendly question with a friendly answer, in the later two Gospels it is more adversarial.
So, what were the Jewish authorities trying to do? Most scholars think that:
Either they want to test Jesus’ knowledge of the scriptures and
See if he was up to a debate on their level.
Or, they wanted to trick him and thereby discredit him.
Whatever the case, Jesus’ response avoids both mistakes.
Well, we might ask, then if Jesu’s answer something totally new and different? Not exactly. For it is clear that Jesus interpretation is really a combining of two famous passages in the Old Testament.
The first, of course comes from the Ten Commandments … in Mark’s earlier version the scribe prefaces his words with, “Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
At first glance, of course, this is not exactly a commandment but a statement of faith … which came from the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Everyone in Israel new this … because they prayed it twice a day …
Notice the similarity to the Moslem daily prayer: "there is no god but Allah (God), and Muhammad is His Messenger." Or, Allahu Akbar – God is Great.
Is that much different from, “Hear, O Isreal, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
To which Jesus adds the words of Moses from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The Hebrews were also very familiar with that phrase as well. For, both were essential to the structure of the Torah, the Jewish Law.
What is unusual about this statement of Jesus is that no one else explicitly combined the two statements.
So far, so good. And we all know all about the great commandment and it is even enshrined in American life and even business practice. In fact, here is a little bit of American history trivia for you:
The year was 1902 and a 27 year old man arrived by train in Kemmerer, Wyoming to start a new business. He couldn't afford the train fare twice, so he made a commitment in dollars before seeing the town. A scattered mining community, Kemmerer had about one thousand residents, a company store that operated on credit and 21 saloons where a good deal of spare cash was spent.
Two revolutionary ideas - cash only and do unto others as you would have them do unto you - were the basis for James Cash Penney's new business venture. (The middle name is a family name, not chosen to express his retail philosophy). He named the store the Golden Rule.
"When the sun rose over Kemmerer, Wyoming, April 14, 1902, it gilded a sign reading "GOLDEN RULE STORE. The firm name was Johnson, Callahan and Penney, but it was used only for bookkeeping purposes. In setting up a business under the name and meaning of Golden Rule, the owners were publicly binding themselves to a principle which had been a real intimate part of Mr. Penney’s family upbringing. The sign on the store was much more than a trade name. They took the slogan "Golden Rule Store" with strict literalness. Our idea was to make money and build business through serving the community with fair dealing and honest value, and did business cash-and-carry."
And, there you have it. Fair dealing and honest value.
We might pray that more businesses and institutions in our society today would take seriously the principle of the Golden Rule. What do you think?
9. Does the Golden Rule come directly from Jesus? It is hard to tell. One commentary says that:
The golden rule is endorsed by all the great world religions; Jesus, the great Rabbi Hillel, and even Confucius used it to summarize their ethical teachings. And for many centuries the idea has been influential among people of very diverse cultures. These facts suggest that the golden rule may be an important moral truth.
Let's consider an example of how the rule is used. President Kennedy in 1963 appealed to the golden rule in an anti-segregation speech at the time of the first black enrollment at the University of Alabama. He asked whites to consider what it would be like to be treated as second class citizens because of skin color. Whites were to imagine themselves being black - and being told that they couldn't vote, or go to the best public schools, or eat at most public restaurants, or sit in the front of the bus. Would whites be content to be treated that way? He was sure that they wouldn't - and yet this is how they treated others. He said the "heart of the question is ... whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated."
The golden rule, it goes on to say, is best interpreted as saying: "Treat others only in ways that you're willing to be treated in the same exact situation." To apply it, you'd imagine yourself in the exact place of the other person on the receiving end of the action. If you act in a given way toward another, and yet are unwilling to be treated that way in the same circumstances, then you violate the rule.
10. What Jesus meant, of course, was that with regard to the Torah, it was more important to love God and one another than merely to emphasize the keeping of religious observances, prayers, and burnt offerings.
Time and again, Jesus confronted the religious and political leaders with the reality that, while they acted very pious, they washed the outside of the cup while the inside was filled with animosity, greed, and prejudice.
This was most powerfully indicated in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus follows up his statement with the parable of the Good Samaritan …
Tell about the Good Samaritan …
Action, then, not mere religious practice is at the heart of Jesus message.
11. So, in the end we have at the core of the Christian message a very simple idea … so simple that we constantly overlook it …
It consists of a triangular relationship between ourselves … our fellow men and women and God …
First, there is our vertical relationship with God … I say vertical … not in the sense that God is necessarily UP … But that is how we still think … maybe a better way to say it is to say … that we have a spiritual dimension with God who is all around us …
And then we have a relationship with other people … who are also all around us … commonly thought of a horizontal …
And then we have ourselves … at one corner of the triangle … God at another … and our neighbor at the third …
This stands for the idea that God loves us … and also our neighbor … and we are called to do likewise …
The object … of our faith, then … is to bring these relationships into harmony … that is what the church is supposed to be about … at least imperfectly … we are all here this morning … to demonstrate the reality of Jesus words … to proclaim and celebrate our Love for God, God’s Love for us … and our Love for one another …
12. Keep it simple … stupid … goes the familiar formula. Well, that’s it in a nutshell.
Often people say, "I don’t understand all this religion business." It’s too complicated. And quite often I think the church and certain pretentious religious people do make it way too complicated.
John Wesley had his faults, but he tried to keep things simple.
People ask what Methodists believe … well, we believe in the Great Commandment.
Lately, some people want to reemphasize the Ten Commandments. But, as someone has said, if you keep the Great Commandment then you won’t be breaking any of the rest … for if you love God and your neighbor and yourself … then you aren’t going to lie, cheat, steal, covet, and all the rest ARE YOU?
13. So, let’s not make this religion thing too complicated. And, you don’t’ need to worry about whether everything in the Bible is literally true or not, either.
And, let’s not make religion into a whole list of do’s and don’ts and get so worked up about sin … and salvation … and who the good people are and who is going to hell … and all the rest …
That’s not what Jesus was all about. In fact, he cut right through all the religious pretentiousness of his time … brought things right down on the ground … and put them in simple enough terms that even everyday people could understand them …
That was John Wesley’s idea … to certain degree … as well … keep it simple and keep focused on living out your faith in practical and everyday ways.
And what will happen if we do?
14. Last week at our EPIC worship service … which is now on Wednesday night … someone brought two bags full of rocks and passed them around … on each rock was a word …
One said prejudice, another said anger, another said envy, another said fear, greed, dishonesty, negativism and so on …
All of the things that are the opposite of love.
So, think for the moment about all the rocks you are carrying around. Think about how they way you down. Think about how hard it is to get around if you are carrying a heavy bag of negative unloving stupid rocks!!
Jesus calls us to unload those rocks … get rid of our negativity … and travel lighter … seeing the good in others, enjoying the blessing of each day … and praising God for life itself.
That’s what the Great Commandment is all about. So, let us affirm the presence and the Love of God in our hearts and minds this morning as we turn to Him now in prayer ….
posted by Anonymous at 10:59 AM
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