This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon and story copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.
Readings
The reading this morning is from the Christian scriptures, the book attributed to Mark, chapter 12, vv. 28-34.
28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; 33 and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
Story for All Ages
One day, Jesus (and remember, Jesus was Jewish) Jesus was talking to a lawyer about the laws the Jews received from their God. Jesus asked the lawyer, “How do you understand what is written in our religious laws?”
“That’s easy,” replied the lawyer. “We are supposed to love our God with all our hearts and minds; and we are supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves.”
“Do you really believe this?” said Jesus.
“Yes,” said the lawyer. “But I have a question. I’m supposed to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. But who is my neighbor?”
To answer this question, Jesus told this story:
*****
One day, a man from Jerusalem was going from Jerusalem down to the city of Jericho. On the road, the man was ambushed by robbers. The robbers beat him up, took all his money, and even took most of his clothing. The robbers left the poor man, bruised and unable to move, lying by the side of the road.
Now by coincidence, just a little later a priest from the great Temple at Jerusalem was going down the same road. The priests were very important religious leaders, sort of like super-ministers. The priest saw the man lying there, but instead of stopping to help him, the priest looked the other way and hurried on by.
A little later, a Levite came down the same road. Levites were the official helpers of the priests of the great Temple at Jerusalem, and only a little less important. Like the priest, the Levite took one look at the poor man lying by the side of the road, looked the other way, and hurried on by.
A little later, a man from Samaria came walking along the road. Now people from Jerusalem and people from Samaria did not like each other, and when the poor bruised man from Jerusalem saw a this Samaritan walking along, he was sure the Samaritan would walk on past him just like the priest and the Levite.
But this Samaritan was moved to pity at the sight of the poor man lying by the side of the road. The Samaritan went up to him, bandaged his wounds, and poured healing oil on his wounds.
Then the Samaritan hoisted the poor man onto his donkey, brought the poor man to an inn, and looked after him. The next day, the Samaritan went to the innkeeper with some silver coins and said, “Look after that poor man until he gets better. On my way back, I’ll make sure to pay you back if there’s any extra expense.”
SERMON — “Two Commandments”
The first reading this morning tells a story about the itinerant teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, and about some people who were asking questions about their religious tradition. The reading ended with the words, “After that, no one dared ask him any question.” Obviously, there were no Unitarian Universalists in the group listening to Jesus of Nazareth, because this story only raises more questions for us. Lots and lots of questions. Like, when the scribe responds to Jesus, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other'” — and Jesus agrees with the scribe — well, doesn’t this mean that Jesus is not God? And what does Jesus mean when he says back to the scribe, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God” — does that mean the Kingdom of God is actually here and now and we can each attain it in this lifetime? I also want to know who this anonymous scribe is, because it sounds like this scribe is just as wise as Jesus.
For us Unitarian Universalists, this little story in the Bible raises more questions than it answers. We can only wish that there had been someone like us in that crowd listening to Jesus, someone who was willing to stick out her neck and say, Wait a minute, Jesus, just what do you mean that the two greatest commandments are ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ — and — ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’?
But you know what? There’s nothing to keep us from asking these questions. So let’s do it.
I’d like to start with that second commandment, the one that says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” I want to start with that statement, because it is a statement made famous by Martin Luther King, Jr., who asked us: Who is our neighbor? and who asked us: Does it matter what color skin your neighbor has? and who asked American Christians, If you really believe the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, don’t you think it would be wise to pay attention to the story of the Good Samaritan? Since today is Martin Luther King’s birthday, it seems especially fitting that we ask questions about this matter of loving our neighbor as ourselves.
So here’s a question: if we are supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves, in what way are we supposed to love ourselves? The more I think about this business of loving our neighbors, the more important it seems to think about what it means to love our neighbors the way we love ourselves. I know some people who, quite frankly, hate themselves; and if they were to take literally the commandment to love their neighbors in the same way they love themselves, I personally would not want to be their neighbor. Then, on the other hand, I know other people who love themselves with all their hearts and all their minds and all their strength; I find it somehow unlikely that they can find room in their souls to love their neighbors as they love themselves, for they love themselves with an all-consuming love that allows for competing loves. It’s tempting to think that Jesus was a sort of first century Dr. Phil, and he’s implying that we have to love ourselves in a psychologically healthy way. It’s a sort of Goldilocks way to love yourself: not too much, and not too little, but just right.
We ask that one question, “In what way are we supposed to love ourselves?” which leads us to another question: if the people of Israel were commanded to love their God with all their hearts and all their souls and all their minds and all their strength, how does that leave any love left over to love yourself, or for that matter to love your neighbor? This does not make sense; and suddenly we find ourselves in a realm of mythic and poetical thinking. This story from the Bible is not offering logical, linear checklists for your behavior: number one, love God, check; number two, love self appropriately but not too much, check; number three, love neighbor as love self, check; checklist completed, I must be a good person. That’s not the way this story works; the Bible is a book of stories that do not necessarily make logical sense, because they are written in the mythic poetical vein.
Instead of asking logical, rational questions of this story, let’s retell the story and see what we can get out of it:
The story goes like this: that itinerant rabbi and teacher named Jesus of Nazareth has bee traveling all through the countryside around Jerusalem. At last, he decides to go into Jerusalem itself, Jerusalem the seat of Roman power in Judea, Jerusalem of the great Temple the seat of religious power for the land of Judea. Jesus goes to the Temple, and finds himself debating with representatives of the religiously powerful: Pharisees, Herodians, Sadduccees, and so on. As Jesus is debating, a scribe, that is, someone who is part of the religious hierarchy, overhears them disputing with one another. The scribe is impressed with the answers Jesus gives, and so asks Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?” What an interesting question to ask! because you could answer in one of two ways: you could cite the ten commandments of Moses and say there is not one commandment there are ten we must follow; or you could understand the question to really mean, what lies at the very heart of the religion shared by Jesus and the scribe. What an interesting question to ask, as we witness legalistic debates in our own day about what Jesus’s teachings mean, and about whether it is legal to engrave the Ten Commandments in stone and place them in an Alabama courtroom.
Jesus does not give a legalistic answer to this question. Jesus gives a religious answer, citing the Hebrew Bible: “The first commandment is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one”; that is the first part of Jesus’s answer. Jesus continues his citation of the Hebrew Bible: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Then, still citing the Hebrew Bible, Jesus says there’s a second commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
While the other powerful religious personages had not liked Jesus’s answers, this anonymous scribe does like Jesus’s answers, replying, “You are right, Teacher [note that he acknowledges Jesus as a Teacher]; you have truly said that our shared God is one, and besides him there is no other’; you have truly said that we are ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and finally you have truly said that we are ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself.” Then the scribe makes one last comment that is really quite radical: these things, that God is one, to love God, to love one’s neighbor, “this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices”; that is, these things are more important than doing the conventionally religious actions of that time, of offering animal sacrifices at the Temple.
To close out this funny little story, Jesus makes one last remark that reminds me of something a Zen master might say. You know how Zen masters are delighted when someone comes along who is just as enlightened as they are? In our story, Jesus is delighted that this scribe is just as enlightened as he, Jesus, is. Jesus answers the scribe as one equal addressing another, saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God”; saying, The two of us, we are not far from the Kingdom of God, we are both enlightened about the true nature of religion.
This story still speaks to us today. It speaks to us in spite of the fact that too many people want to make it into a legalistic, linear, non-poetical story. Too many people today focus on one little facet of the story, and those people say to us: You have to believe in God with all your heart and mind and soul. What they really mean, of course, it: You have to believe in our God, the way we define God, with all your heart and soul, and maybe you should leave your mind out of the equation so you don’t start asking difficult questions.
Heretic that I am, I’m going to ask a difficult question: when we hear this story, how are we to understand God? Are we to understand God as a being that requires animal sacrifices in the Temple at Jerusalem? –in other words, are we going to get a literal, logicalistic answer to this question? No, of course not. This is a mythic, poetical story. “God” in this story functions as a way for us to understand how we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. God represents that which is good, that which is best in the universe; God represents the essential oneness of the universe; God represents the love that ties our universe together. Jesus offers a statement that is like a Zen koan, that is, a statement that cannot be understood through regular logical thought. Jesus says, the universe is one; you are to love it with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength until there is nothing left of you for you are not separate from the universe, you are a part of it; you are a part of your neighbors and so you love them too with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength. Jesus is not making a rational argument here; instead, like so many of the great religious teachers, Jesus presents us with a mythic poetical truth; you have to know it in your body not understand just it in your mind.
I have to admit, I am not particularly comfortable with the mythic, poetical truth that Jesus throws at us. At the most basic level, I’m not sure I want to love all my neighbors; there are one or two people in this world for whom I harbor a certain amount of resentment and I’m not sure I want to let go of that resentment. And what about this notion that God is one, and I’m supposed to love this God notion with all my heart, et cetera, et cetera? Personally, I find that a little creepy, mostly because I have no interest in turning into a Jesus freak who puts bumper stickers on my car like, “God loves you,” and “Honk if you love Jesus.” Yech.
And therefore, I like to take the easy way out. I like to say: hey, Dr. King said we should love our neighbors like ourselves. I’m fine with that statement. I know part of that statement was addressed to me as a white guy, and Dr. King was telling me that I have to love all persons regardless of their skin color. OK, I can do that, I can stand up against racism, I can recognize the racism in my own heart and I am committed to eradicating it. So I’ll just understand “God” [in quotes] as a metaphor for the oneness of all people regardless of skin color. I’ll just understand loving my neighbor very abstractly and very narrowly, as treating everyone the same regardless of their skin color. That’s relatively easy; I can do that.
But that avoids the wholeness of poetical truth of this story. In the best Zen master fashion, Jesus has thrown something that cannot be encompassed by rational linear thought processes; Jesus has thrown something at us that stops me dead, something that I find impossible.
But as I think that it’s impossible, I realize that maybe nothing less is possible. As much as I’d like to cling to my resentment, to my hatred, I know there’s something bigger than me out there. That “something bigger” is what Jesus identifies with the God of the Israelites. Now if I were thinking linearly, I might think that I should take Jesus literally, and that I should start worshipping the God of the Israelites; but I cannot do that literally in the way that Jesus did; I cannot go to the great Temple in Jerusalem and offer animal sacrifices; I cannot think literally in that way.
When I hear those two commandments, in my heart I think of them in this way: to love the world in all its interconnected relationships with all my heart, mind, and soul; to see it as one interconnected wholeness of being; and to realize that in that interconnected wholeness of being somehow I must learn to love everything for everything is a oneness.
These two commandments are not two, but one great commandment for life, telling me, telling all of us, how to live in relationship through love. Love your friends and loved ones, yes. Love your neighbors, no matter what their skin color, no matter whether they are lying broken and bleeding in the gutter at the side of the road, yes. Love all living things, for that matter, the way you love yourself, yes.
Martin Luther King taught us about these two great commandments, just as prophets down through the ages have taught us the same thing. It’s up to us to live these commandments. And you know what? –if we manage to do that, we just might bring about a kind of heaven on earth.