Scripture
Psalm 1:1-3 NRSVUE
Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path that sinners tread
or sit in the seat of scoffers,
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
Luke 6:43-45
“Indeed, no good tree bears bad fruit,
nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.
For each tree by its own fruit is known.
Now, figs are not gathered from thorns,
nor from a thornbush are grapes picked.
The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good,
and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil,
for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”
Mark 12:28-32
Now, one of the biblical scholars came near and heard them discussing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, the scholar asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Holy One our God, the Holy is one; you shall love the Holy One your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the biblical scholar said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘God is one, and besides God there is no other’; and ‘to love God 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.” When Jesus saw that the scholar answered wisely, he said, “You are not far from the reign of God.” After that no one dared to ask Jesus any question.
Sermon
In today’s passage from the gospel according to Mark, we meet Jesus at verse 28 as someone poses him a big question, THE question, really. Out of all the commandments…and according to Jewish tradition, there are 613 commandments… out of all those, which is the most important? This is not one of those trick questions people seem to enjoy throwing at Jesus. It’s a serious question, from a biblical scholar. Which commandment is the greatest? And Jesus answers promptly. Love is the answer. The commandments to love are the most important—love God, with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbors as much as you love yourselves. Every single other commandment is derived from these two.
His questioner agrees and goes on to say that living out the commandments to love is far more important than bringing offerings to the Temple. Jesus tells him, You are very close to the kingdom of God.
So here we have it, from Jesus’s mouth. Love is the most important thing, the thing that undergirds all the other commandments. Love is the answer. The other two scripture passages deepen our understanding of what love means. In Psalm 1, we read that those who delight in God’s law—and, again, we’ve just been told that love is the heart of that law—are like trees planted by flowing water. Those trees bear fruit… just as loving God and one another bears fruit. Love’s fruits look a lot like the fruits of the Spirit… love (because, yes, love is a fruit of love), joy, peace… patience, kindness, generosity…faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. All these things are the overflow of love for God and for one another.
Our world, alas, does not seem to be aligned with Jesus’s teaching on this matter. And let’s be honest with ourselves. This teaching is not unique to Jesus. He draws on his own tradition, which today we know as Judaism, where love of God and neighbor—especially our vulnerable neighbor—take precedence. Islam emphasizes two types of love—divine love and human love. Hinduism teaches five stages of love. Buddhism teaches four elements of true love. Sikhism emphasizes love for God and God’s creation as one of five chief virtues. Christians don’t own “love God and love neighbor.” It is taught in every major religion. [1]
Still, there seems to a dearth of love, which the world sorely needs. Dozens upon dozens of wars are raging on, and not just the ones we hear about in the news. Nations are divided against themselves, and our own nation is a prime example of that division. The rise of the scapegoats is with us, people being singled out so that others can cast their scorn, derision, and hatred upon them. These are all distinctly unloving actions.
Of course, the decision to enslave other human beings because they looked different from people of European descent was a distinctly unloving action. In fact, enslaved people were treated with incredible brutality because the slavers convinced themselves that a weird story in the book of Genesis meant that people of different appearance were less than human. This is an ugly part of our American story, one which is being written out of many history texts, an incredibly reckless, dangerous phenomenon.
At the same time, today we mark a jubilant celebration. We celebrate the moment when the joyful news of freedom from enslavement finally reached the last ones to know, the population of Galveston, Texas. The date was June 19, 1865. Although the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years earlier, not all enslaved people were immediately set free. The proclamation applied to more than 3.5 million enslaved people in the states that were still in active rebellion. As the Union army took control of a state, the enslaved people in that state were emancipated. Some, by the end of the war, still lived in chains.
Imagine the joy, the unimaginable elation among those who heard those words of the president, people whose lives were about to change drastically. It must have felt like the blessings of God were finally raining down upon them, following a long, long drought.
The echoes of enslavement remain with us today. The Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 7, 1965, just over 100 years after the first Juneteenth. Despite emancipation, despite the 15th amendment, which gave all men the right to vote regardless of race, only 1/3 of the eligible black people were registered to vote prior to the 1965 legislation. In her daily meditation this past Wednesday, the Rev. Cameron Trimble spoke of the recent Supreme Court decision which, once again, weakened the Voting Rights Act. She put it into the context of the roller coaster ride of the expansion of rights followed by the restriction of rights that has existed for black people since the end of Reconstruction. Laws have come and gone, policies been created and then decimated. The Voting Rights Act was needed, and now its effectiveness has been seriously compromised.
Some would even say that this last decision was the nail in the Voting Rights coffin. That may be true. But we believe in resurrection, don’t we? And we believe that the power of love, in the end, will vanquish the powers of hate and division. We also believe that we are called to take part in all that will make our world more loving and just.
We have a long way to go. For Christians, a first step might be to ask, of any law or policy: Is it loving? Are those affected by the policy being treated as those created by God, and made in the image of God? What are the fruits of the policy? Love has fruits that overflow from its practice, but so does hate, so does apathy. What are the fruits that continue to cause harm to our neighbors? What are the loving actions that can cause new, fresh, sweet fruits to flow into our nation and into our world, that can lift up all people, not just those with lower quantities of melanin?
We have a long way to go. But today, we celebrate, through song and prayer and the Word of God here in our sanctuary, and with a beautiful feast being shared at Glendale Park following the service. As we go, I offer a prayer from the apostle Paul, who reminded us in his letter to the Galatians, that
There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ~Galatians 3:28
His prayer is from the letter to the Ephesians:
I pray that, according to the riches of [God’s] glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ~Ephesians 3:16-19
And may that fullness overflow into our lives and our world.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] “Love in Every Major Religion,” Faith Counts, https://faithcounts.com/love-in-every-religion/.