February 5, 2012 -- “S(o)uper Bowl Sunday”

ALL THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS

Matthew 22:34-40

   Since this is Super Bowl Sunday, I feel the need to begin my sermon with a football analogy. When an announcer refers to a “Hail Mary Pass,” all football fans know what that means. In desperate situations a coach has all the receivers on his team run into the end zone, and the quarterback lofts a high pass in that vicinity. Of course, all the defenders go there as well, and as the pass is coming down everyone’s hands are reaching high in the air, as if in prayer. (Thus the name!) This play hardly ever works, because the defense is ready for it. Even so, there are times when a coach feels that this is his only choice.

   In this morning’s Scripture lesson, the Pharisees decide to throw a “Hail Mary” pass. Nothing else they’ve tried on Jesus has worked, and now Jesus has even silenced the Sadducees. So it is that one of the Pharisees tries throwing an old question at Jesus: “Teacher, which of the 613 commandments in our law is the greatest?”

   Jesus answers the question quite seriously. “The greatest commandment,” He says, “is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind.” This response is no surprise at all. It’s exactly what most religious teachers of that time would have said in answer to this question. Jesus, however, does more than just bat the ball down in defense. He goes to where no other teacher had gone before. Without taking a breath Jesus continues by saying, and a second is like it. Jesus doesn’t just play defense. He offers an entire game plan.

   The first part of Jesus’ answer was exactly what was expected. “Love God with all your being.” That was the greatest commandment, most people agreed. But now Jesus says there is another commandment just like it, a commandment that for most people seemed obscure amid the hundreds of others in Scripture, saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is shocking! To put this commandment about loving one’s neighbors in the same sentence with the one about loving God with all our being—this had certainly never been done before.

   But Jesus goes even further than this, saying that it is not one or the other—but the combining of the two—that make up the greatest commandment. “On these two,” Jesus says, “hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, all of their Scriptures are summed up in these two together. In other words, this must be your game plan.

   The “Faith and Values” section of the Columbus Dispatch certainly covers a wide variety of groups. A few months ago there was a story in this section about an “Atheist Church.” That sounded pretty strange to me, but it was not strange to those who formed this group. Some people who do not believe in God found that they were longing for the kind of fellowship and caring and helping of others that are central aspects of many churches. And so they began to get together, not to worship, but to share these values that they hoped would bring meaning to their lives.

   Jesus’ second portion of His Great Commandment may have shocked the Pharisees, but it is embraced, of all places, by a group of atheists. In their church, it can be said, “They love their neighbors as themselves.”

   I am glad for anyone who “loves neighbor as self.” This alone, however, cannot lead to the fulfillment for which we deeply long.

   I remember how my dear friend and mentor in ministry, Bill Hulteen, used to say that many of us in our churches often are tempted to pay more attention to the second half of Jesus’ command than the first. We seek very much to love our neighbors, but do we embrace and live out the first half in the ways Jesus intended?

   In the first half of Jesus’ Great Commandment, He does not tell us simply to believe in God. That is what most people would say separates followers of Jesus from atheists. “We believe in God.” But this is not what Jesus quotes as vitally important. He does not tell us to believe in God, but to love God, and to do so with all our being—heart, soul, and mind.

   As we live each day in love of God—devoting ourselves to God—everything else becomes clear. Everything else follows, including especially how we love others.

   When a counselor works with someone who is at a low point in life, one of the most important things the counselor can do for this person is to help him or her discover their worth. What is it, though, that gives this worth? If the counselor simply says, “Oh, you’re a nice person; I like you; you should think of yourself as more worthy,” those are wonderful things to say. But what is the source of it? Will this person find that sense of worth from kind thoughts alone?

   Consider now the counselor who loves God, who lives in devotion to God, and who knows that God gives ultimate worth to every being created in God’s image. This is the meaning of our Founding Fathers’ statement about a Creator who endows each of us with “certain unalienable rights.” Out of this reservoir such a counselor offers the source of worth and thus self-esteem and meaning that this person right now needs desperately. And even if this person then says, “I just can’t feel this right now,” the counselor answers, “But I feel it and know it. And I am holding this truth for you until you can hold it for yourself.”

   Loving God brings about the love of neighbor, and the love of neighbor is the greatest expression of our love of God. Today we have the wonderful opportunity of meeting Toni-Ann, an outstanding young woman that we are helping sponsor as a student at Defiance College. Barriers that once would have been considered insurmountable are now overcome so that she can make the journey not only of many hundreds of miles from Jamaica to Defiance, Ohio, but over so many other distances as well. It is out of love of God that this love of neighbor happens. And Toni-Ann, as the recipient of such love and out of her own love of God will in turn continue to extend such gifts to others for the rest of her life.

   I began this sermon with a football analogy, and will end it with one as well. This past week Joe Paterno, the decades-long coach at Penn State University, was remembered and his life honored.

   I offer a tribute as well by remembering something I heard Joe say many years ago and that I have always tried to hold in mind and follow.

   “When things are going badly, as they are sure to at some time in almost every game,” Joe said, “the temptation is to do something wild, to throw out the play book and try some trick plays. Instead,” he went on, “when thing are toughest of all or don’t seem to be going right, that is when we need most of all to stay with our game plan. We stay with what we know is right—and it will bring us through.”

   The Pharisees try everything with Jesus—even throwing a “Hail Mary” pass. Jesus, in response, offers a game plan—a life plan. “Love God with all your being,” Jesus says, knowing that they say they believe this as well. “And the second part is like it and completes it. Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two—together—hang all the law and the prophets.

   Not just believing in God but loving God with all our being—doing so as we love others in fellowship and caring and helping—this is what Jesus calls us to do not only in the easy times but especially the most demanding or troubling of times.

   We receive from and give from this reservoir—this basis of your worth and mine—and we do so now and eternally.

Rev. Harold Steindam
Westerville Community United Church of Christ
February 5, 2012
“S(o)uper Bowl Sunday”
Defiance College Visitation Sunday

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Posted on Sun, February 5, 2012 by Harold Steindam