Over the last few Sundays our lectionary has taken us through the last teachings of Jesus, given, if we follow the timeline of Matthew’s Gospel, in the days and weeks leading up to his arrest, trial and crucifixion. At this point those who oppose Jesus are going all out to catch him out. We can imagine them gathered together working to find the question they can ask that will finally undo him, and give them the pretext to get rid of this radical, dangerous young leader who causes so much unrest among their faithful people.
They have challenged him on his authority – where and who it came from; tried to catch him out by asking about taxes being paid to Caesar; challenged him on the theology of the resurrection; and now today, they present him with a challenge about the law, asked by an expert in Hebrew law ‘Which commandment in the law is the greatest?’
In the face of previous challenges Jesus hasn’t always responded directly, often using a parable, or a counter question to challenge the questioners’ assumptions. But today the question of the greatest commandment is posed, and Jesus answers directly, without hesitation, looking him directly in the eye and saying, “‘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 neighbour as yourself.’”
Love God.
Love your neighbour.
On these two commandments everything else in the world rests.
Love.
Jesus doesn’t start talking about what people should or shouldn’t believe. Nor about living according to purity laws. Nor about which Church, or group they should be a part of. Nor about how they should worship God.
Jesus tells them to love … Love God … Love your neighbour.
Love is a word that is used widely, and used loosely in our world today. One might argue that because of its widespread use, whether it’s ‘I love coffee!’ or ‘I love the Traitors!’ its power has been diluted. Sometimes even reduced to a heart emoji, the word we use in English – love – is the same in all cases. Our tendency, I think, is to associate love with a feeling. Usually pleasurable, love we might say gives us hope, joy, a sense of connectedness. These are all good things, and, well, I love them all! But I’m just not convinced that this encapsulates the love Jesus is talking about.
I seldom go looking for the Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew in which our Scriptures were originally written, mainly because I am no scholar of these languages. But sometimes it can be helpful. In the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written there are four different words for love, each with a different (though inevitably overlapping) meaning:
First, philia – referring to love between friends; second, eros – the love we experience in romantic relationships, incorporating passion and intimacy; third, storge – love between family members that protects, and withstands hardships and trials; and fourth agape – unconditional, sacrificial love. This is the word Jesus uses in today’s Gospel – agape.
This word, agape, is the word used most frequently in our Scriptures; it is the love word used to describe the love that God is, and that God shows. It is a love of choice, not driven by overwhelming emotions. It is the love that Paul writes of in the famous ‘love chapter’ in his first letter to the Corinthians. It is the love Jesus tells us, that is to be the beginning, the end, the core of all that we do, in relation to God, and in relation to the world around us.
There is little that gives us an ‘AAAwww, that’s nice’ feeling about agape love. It is an overflowing, unconditional outpouring of oneself towards another. As Martin Luther King wrote: ‘Agape… is an entirely “neighbour-regarding concern for others”, which discovers the neighbour in every person it meets… Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action… Agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community.’ Agape love is not something that happens to us – we are not passive receivers of it. It is an action, a way of being; a matter of obedience to God, a response to a deeper desire that is aligned with God’s will. It takes time, effort, discipline, and by the Holy Spirit it brings transformation.
If we were to fully embrace this version of love the cost would be high: it would be to practice and cultivate a depth of compassion that causes pain; it would allow an inner hunger for justice to become so fierce and so urgent that it would change our lives; it would lead us to feel empathy that could cause one’s heart to break.
There are people who have taken this step, for example Charles Mully. Orphaned as a young boy in Kenya, against all the odds for a street boy in Nairobi, he found work, and through years of hardship eventually became a very rich and successful businessman. Following a conversion to Christianity which prompted a new awareness of and empathy towards those around him, his life changed again, because now, when driving the streets of Nairobi in his fancy car he simply couldn’t turn away from the faces of street children with nothing. Mully heard God’s call, the same to him as it is to us; ‘Love your neighbour’. He gave up his wealth, and founded an orphanage that is now home and family to over 2000 children. There is a powerful film, ‘Mully’ that is available online free of charge. I commend it to you.
Agape love is never going to be easy. Why? Because it requires us to put love rather than ego or self-preservation at the centre of our purpose and intention. This is what Jesus, in one of his very last instructions to his disciples, tells them (and us) what must be done. Love God, love God intentionally, deliberately, painfully. And, love every one of God’s children with this same, sacrificial, deliberate, costly love. God’s desire is that all will know this agape love. And this is our call, for ours are God’s hands, God’s feet, God’s ears, God’s eyes in the world today.
In his beautiful commentary on this Gospel, Lutheran minister Clayton Schmit writes this:
“To love God with all our heart, mind, and soul seems nearly impossible when we think of love as an emotion. How does one conjure up feelings for something as remote, mysterious, and disembodied as the concept of God? We cannot look into God’s eyes, wrap our arms around the Spirit, or even see the face of Jesus.
“Likewise, loving our neighbour is difficult. If love is merely our passive response to the person next to us, we are likely to be more often repulsed than moved to love. How can one legitimately look into the face of an enemy and feel unqualified love? It is nearly impossible.
“But Biblical love is not passive. It is not something that occurs to us without our control or will. Biblical love is something we do.”
We are commanded to follow in the footsteps of the one who stood in the presence of his accusers and enemies, and declared love the be-all and end-all. It can feel too difficult, too much. And it is, if we think we are commanded to do it on our own. But we are not alone; the Holy Spirit is with us, comforting us, encouraging us, sustaining us. And so I would like to finish today’s sermon with a prayer for every one of us that speaks, I think, to today’s Gospel and its challenge. Let us pray.
God who is love,
The world today is too troubled and too beautiful for anything but love.
May our eyes be so blessed that they open to see you in everyone and everything.
May our ears be so blessed that they open to hear the cry of the poor.
May our hands be so blessed that everything we touch is a sacrament.
May our feet be so blessed that we run to all who are in need.
May our lips be so blessed that we speak nothing but the truth, and always with love.
And may our hearts be so blessed that we are open to your presence within us and around us, in order that your love, your agape love, be known throughout all creation.
Amen