The big news out of England these days is that Prince William and his wife, Kate, are expecting another child. Currently, Prince William is second in line to the throne, behind his father, Charles. Third in line is William and Kate’s first son, George. And the child-to-come will be fourth in line to the throne. As you surely well know, in a monarchy system, your standing is greater the closer you are to the throne. So Queen Elizabeth currently holds the throne, Prince Charles ranks second above William and George, William is third below Charles but ahead of George, and so on. These positions represent relative power, so it would be very unusual for Charles, for example, to revere William as his superior. It should be the other way around! Which is exactly what Jesus is getting at when he turns the tables on the Pharisees and finally asks them the question you heard a few moments ago, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
On the surface, Jesus’ question seems very basic. Every faithful Jew knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Messiah will come from the lineage of David, and so he will be David’s son. And that’s exactly what the Pharisees say. I imagine at this point they are starting to feel a little proud as they think to themselves, “We had some pretty tricky questions for Jesus, and he asks us something so simple?!?” But Jesus isn’t done yet. He extends his question further as he quotes from Psalm 110, a Psalm written by David himself. “Then how is it that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, called him Lord when he said, The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right side until I turn your enemies into your footstool’? If David calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?”
The Pharisees were operating according to the same assumptions as we do about how a monarchy works. No King would defer to his son as Lord in such a system, and so the Pharisees are stumped. We, of course, with the hindsight of Jesus death and resurrection, know the answer to his question. The Messiah, though a descendent of the line of David, is the Lord of all; all heaven and earth and everything in God’s creation. David knows that this descendent, the Messiah to come, is greater than he, and so it is that he calls him Lord. But the Pharisees don’t see that, they don’t yet understand. They knew Jesus was inferring that he was the Messiah, but this Messiah wasn’t doing what David’s son was expected to do. King David’s reign was revered in Jewish history because he united the Northern and Southern kingdoms, he ushered in a time of peace, prosperity, and power, and he laid the spiritual groundwork for the building of the Temple. As a result, the Jewish people had come to believe that the Messiah would be such a ruler; one who would overcome Roman oppression, and usher in peace, prosperity, and power. They expected a monarch, a military and political King who would save them from their woes.
But Christ was not that, far from it, and he has just told the Pharisees as much. I suppose it’s really no wonder they were stumped. In one of the best known of his teachings, Christ unveils the purpose of the Messiah, and the true nature of God. And it turns out, God is not a militaristic power-monger. We serve, says Jesus, a God of love, and love is the only thing that God has wanted from his people from the very beginning.
For thousands of years, generation upon generation, the Israelites followed the law of Moses; a set of some 613 laws by which they were to lead their lives. All these laws were considered equal, no one law was to be any more important than any other law, though that often happened anyway. So it is that the Pharisees decide one more time to try and trick Jesus into revealing that he is actually a false prophet. They send in an expert of the law with the question, “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” I suppose he expected Jesus to say that all the commandments are equal, but that was not what Jesus did. You heard Christ’s answer, perhaps you know it by heart, all Jewish people in Jesus’ day would have recognized what was called the Shema, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind.” But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He tells the legal expert that there is a second commandment like the first, by which Jesus means that it is equally important to the first. “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Then, as if to confirm the Pharisees’ belief that all commandments are equal, Christ concludes by saying, “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” In other words, all of Jewish teaching, did you hear that, ALL of Jewish teaching is wrapped up in these words: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind…[and] you must love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
No violent attacks against foreign oppressors, no establishment of a powerful monarchy, just love of God and neighbor. You know, Jesus, lifted up the commandment to “love you neighbor” as like the commandment to love God, but I think Jesus did that because you can’t really fully, completely, totally love God—with all you heart, soul, and mind—unless you also love the people God loves, your neighbors. These two have to be held together because one is incomplete without the other. And can you imagine what this world would look like if all Christians took seriously this great challenge, the greatest commandment and did indeed love God with all our heart, soul, and mind? It would completely turn this world upside down!
This week, news broke that three teenage girls from Denver skipped school and tried to leave the country to join ISIS. They made it as far as Germany, where they were put on a plane back to the U.S. It was a crazy story. It’s not unusual to hear of some teen runaways, but for three girls, still in high school, to board a plane and leave the country in order to join a horrific terrorist group? That’s unheard of. And it made me wonder; what experiences have these girls had that implanted such a seed of hatred in their hearts? What was going so wrong for them that they felt like the answer to their problems was to fly to the most volatile and violent place in the world and join ranks with the most horrific terrorist organization of the 21st century? The only thing I could come up with is that they had no experience of genuine love in their lives.
You all remember a few weeks ago, I shared with you John Wesley’s teaching about grace. There is prevenient grace, which persistently reaches out to all people with an invitation to open our lives to God. Justifying grace is the grace that changes us and makes us new when we declare faith in God in Christ Jesus. And sanctifying grace is the grace by which we grow in Christ-likeness and our relationship with God. Well, John Wesley also believed and taught that Christians could be fully sanctified, that we can achieve perfection, as Christ himself was perfect. And Wesley’s definition of perfection is, “perfect love of God, and perfect love of neighbor.” Sound familiar? Obviously, there’s something to this wisdom from Jesus about the greatest commandment. Love is the basis of God’s work and God’s kingdom. And in the same way, it is our love for God and for each other that enables us to experience God in Christ Jesus in the fullest way possible.
And yet, this is a huge challenge, isn’t it? It’s really no wonder that though Wesley taught that we can achieve perfection in this life, we can identify very few, if any, that actually have. Loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind, means worshipping God more than just one hour on Sunday morning. Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves means when we buy a Christmas gift for someone in our family, we buy the same gift for someone who wouldn’t otherwise have Christmas. The command to love God above all else means that we give to God from our first-fruits, not from our leftovers. And the command to love our neighbor as we love ourselves means that we do not harbor a grudge when someone angers us. These are not easy things to do, but that’s why Jesus’ greatest commandment is our greatest challenge; a challenge that should be before us every moment of every day as we make decisions about how we will conduct our lives as Christians. In fact, our love of God and neighbor should become such a part of us that it is our natural response, without any need for conscious thought or action; this is the true meaning of “God with us.”
In Western Colorado there is a road called the Million Dollar Highway. My guess is that both tourists and even most of the people who live in the area don't know how this road got its name. They probably assume it got its name because it was expensive to build. It WAS expensive to build because it runs through very difficult terrain and at a high altitude, but that’s not how this highway got it’s name. The real reason it's called the Million Dollar Highway is because waste material from the ore in gold mines was used as the bed for that highway, and not all the gold dust and nuggets were removed by the mining processes available at the time. As a result, there is a partial roadbed of gold that is probably worth a lot more than a million dollars.
It isn't the cost that gave it its name, but rather what is inside it.
The same is true of the greatest commandment to love God and love neighbor. Sure it's a challenge, and it is costly, but what gives it the name is what it is made of: it is made up of God, the God who is love.
When I was ordained in the United Methodist Church, my peers and I were asked thirteen questions. One of those questions was this: “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?” No matter how you answer that question, it is the question that comes right after it that is even more important: “Are you striving after it?”
Do you love God with all you heart, soul and mind? Do you love your neighbor as you love yourself? (At the very least,) Are you striving after it?
