שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל
Just Love them
all, I’ll sort them out later.
Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
There’s a church
sign that’s become popular.
“Just
love them all, I’ll sort them out later.”
I like that. It speaks to the new covenant that God has
established with us, a covenant written on our hearts, and a covenant with two
major tenents:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your might.”
And the second:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I
am the Lord.”
OK, so now we are
going to have a test.
If this is the
new covenant, who gave us these two commandments?
Raise your hand
if you think it was Moses?
Raise your hand
if you think it was Jesus?
Ok, so that was a
trick question.
In Deuteronomy
6:4 & 5 it is Moses who says:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your might.”
It is known as
the “Shema”, and it is the central creed of the Jewish faith.
And in Leviticus
19:18 we find ““You shall love your
neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
But then it is
Jesus that links these two together in Matthew 22.
"Teacher, which commandment in the law
is the greatest?" He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. ' This is
the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets."
Jesus also gives
us the New Commandment:
I give you a new commandment, that you love
one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
As we think of
the most important verses in the New Testament there are a couple that would be
on almost anybody’s list:
"For God so loved the world that he
gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may
have eternal life.” John 3:16
And then from
Romans 8:
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor
life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
OK, so here I’m
going to let you in on a little secret.
The new covenant
that Jeremiah says God will establish with his people—
The covenant that
Jesus proclaimed—
IS THE SAME AS
THE FIRST COVENANT!
God loves us.
We are to love
God in return, and to love each other as we have been loved by God.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your might.”
You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I
am the Lord.”
Love.
It shouldn’t be
that hard.
But it has proven
difficult over the ages.
The problem is
not that we are incapable of love, but rather that our human inclination to
love is selective.
And with every
fiber of our being, we resist the commandment to love all people and try
mightily to change it to ‘love some people’ and not others.
God says “Love
your neighbor as you love yourselves.” And we respond “Who is my neighbor?”
And the answer to
that question, from God’s perspective is this.
Whoever shares this planet we call earth with us, is your neighbor. Love them.
Jesus says: I give
you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you
also should love one another.”
We say that Jesus
was talking to his disciples, and that what he really meant was that we should
love ‘one another’, which means ‘people who are part of the church’.
And then, to make
it even easier, we start deciding who can and cannot be part of the
church.
You see, if we
only have to love people that are part of the church, and we restrict
membership in the church to people we love, it all works out much easier for
us.
The history of
Christianity is riddled with divisions that are precisely that. We redefine the church, so that it is easier
to love the little group that is ours.
Every time
something disagreeable comes up that makes it difficult to love one another, we
simply start a new church. Problem
solved.
In John’s first
letter he responds to this tendency on our part by saying rather emphatically:
Those who say,
"I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for
those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God
whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers
and sisters also.
And who is my
brother or sister?
Simple
answer. Each and every person created by
God the Father is your brother and sister.
Love them.
This is
Reformation Sunday.
For much of the
last five hundred years Reformation Sunday has been celebrated with a spirit of
“Lutheran patriotism”.
One of the
changes that has developed in conjunction with the 500th anniversary
of the Reformation is a recognition that first of all, we do not ‘celebrate’ a division in the Church. We’ve been very carefully using the term ‘commemorate’.
Instead, our
focus now is on reconciliation, and seeking to reclaim the unity of the Body of
Christ.
Lutheran? Love them.
Catholic? Love them.
Baptist? Love them.
Orthodox? Love them.
Pentecostal? Love them.
Presbyterian? Love them.
Non-denominational? Love them.
And not only
that, we also are called to love people of other faiths.
Jewish? Love them.
Muslim? Love them.
Hindu? Love them.
When in doubt,
just remember one thing. Love them.
Another thing we
do is to say that we must take a hard stand against sin and unrighteousness.
In the name of “love
the sinner, hate the sin” we condemn people, and quite frankly, do not love
them.
The problem is
that we cannot make this distinction.
Paul writes: For
there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus.
One of the most
helpful reminders is that as a Church, we are in the business of loving and
forgiving sinners.
Quit making distinctions,
we have all sinned, and yet, are all still loved by God.
God must get
tired of our antics.
Yet time and time
again, with unending patience he simply stops us and calls us back to the
covenant.
I am your God.
I Love you.
Now, Love me with
all your heart, mind, and strength.
And love each
other.
Then we
fail. We don’t love. Perhaps we even hate.
Then God comes to
us again and says “OK, friends, lets try this again:
I am your God.
I Love you.
Now, Love me with
all your heart, mind, and strength.
And love each
other.
But God do we
have to love those people?
Then God comes to
us again and says “OK, friends, lets try this again:
I am your God.
I Love you.
Now, Love me with
all your heart, mind, and strength.
And love each
other.
And God is going
to keep doing this until we get it.
God is going to call us back to the covenant.
Love God. Love one another. And remember, I will always love you.
No one is beyond
that love.
And nothing in
all creation can separate us from that love.
May this peace
that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our
Lord. Amen
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