Getting Specific
Matthew 22:34-46[1]
We have
all kinds of images about what love is “supposed” to look like. If you’re in my
generation, you will remember the line that “love means never having to say
you’re sorry.” That “romanticized” view of love gets in the way of what I would
say real love looks like. From the perspective of the Bible, love is about what
we do. Love means caring enough about another person to set our wants and needs
aside. Love means giving of ourselves without asking “what am I going to get
out of this?” Whether it’s feeding the hungry, or clothing the poor, or
comforting the sick and dying—or just listening enough to really hear someone—love
is about what we do. And the Bible can get pretty specific about what that
looks like.
In our
Gospel lesson for today, when Jesus was asked about the “greatest commandment,”
he answered with two well know passages from the Hebrew Bible: you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and you shall love your neighbor as
yourself. This would have been nothing new to the people of the day. The first
command to love God was something that pious Jewish people prayed on a daily
basis. The fact that Jesus added a “second” command to love your neighbor would
also have come as no surprise. These two commands were the foundation for all
the teachings of Scripture.
Where I
think we may get hung up is on what loving God and loving your neighbor looks
like in daily life. I think a closer look at the Hebrew Bible may help us. The
“first” command to love God comes from Deuteronomy 6:5. If we look at the book
as a whole, we find that God was establishing a relationship with his people.
And the commandments were meant to define what that relationship would look
like. Deuteronomy says it this way: “loving God” means “obeying the
commandments of the LORD your God … , walking in his ways, and observing his
commandments” (Deut. 30:16). That’s right, we love God by keeping his
commandments!
This
perspective isn’t limited to the Hebrew Bible. Jesus also defined love for God
in terms of keeping commandments (John 14:23-24). And he went on to spell out
what that looks like in very specific terms in the Sermon on the Mount. For
Jesus, loving God means we avoid hatred and anger and we find ways to make
peace in our broken relationships. For Jesus, loving God means we keep our
intentions toward others honest, in both our actions and our words. For Jesus,
loving God means we proactively do good to all people, even those who may be
“enemies.” In other words, for Jesus, loving God looks very specific.
The
second “great” command, to love your neighbor as yourself, comes from Leviticus
19:18. Again, I think it will help us to take a closer look at the Hebrew
Bible. In Leviticus, loving your neighbor means leaving the edges of the fields
and the gleanings of the harvest “for the poor and the alien” (19:11). Rather
than using all our material wealth for ourselves, we’re to reserve a portion to
help those in need. Loving your neighbor means not mistreating the deaf or the
blind, but rather giving respect to all people (19:14). Loving your neighbor
means not talking about others in a manner that diminishes them (19:16). And it
means not taking revenge or bearing a grudge (19:18). This Scripture gets quite
specific when it defines what it means to love your neighbor as yourself!
I hope
that you heard some echoes between what it means to love God and what it means
to love your neighbor as yourself. Those two “great commands” are intertwined
throughout the Bible. Loving God and loving others go hand-in-hand. It’s no
coincidence that when the Bible gets specific about what it looks like to love
God and love your neighbor, there’s quite a bit of overlap in what it has to
say to us. We love God by the way in which we live our lives. And a big part of
that is the way in which we treat others.
Some of
us may be experiencing a “disconnect” with this sermon. We’re used to thinking
that the “Old Testament” has been replaced and we really don’t need to pay
serious attention to it. We’re used to thinking of the commands as “law,” which
we associate with “enforcement.” But the Hebrew word for “law” is Torah. And it’s fundamental meaning is
“instruction.” That’s the point of the very specific commands of the Bible.
They are instructing us about what it looks like to live our lives based on
love for God and love for others. That’s right—all the “thou shalt not’s” and
“thou shalt’s” are meant to lead you and me into a relationship with God. In
that relationship we love God and love our neighbors by putting into practice
in our daily living what we learn when the Bible gets specific with us.
[1] ©
Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 10/25/2020 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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