Passing the Test 

a sermon by Rev. Rebecca Segers 

Psalm 133

Matthew 22:34-40 

As Grace and I were driving to Manhattan for her dance class this past week, we were reading this scripture lesson from Matthew.  I asked her what she thought about it and she said with characteristic childhood brevity, “Good.”

Trying to draw her out, I asked, “Did you understand it?”

“Yes.”

I waited for more, but when none was forthcoming, I continued, “What do think the scripture means?”

She looked at me with a pained expression and said, “Love God, love yourself, love others.”

I tell this story because I think she got something that the rest of us – or I, at least – sometimes don’t.  And that is: that we’re part of the equation, too.

As I mentioned in last week’s message, we’re at the end of the book of Matthew now.  We’re traveling those last days with Jesus before his earthly life is over, and this section that we’re reading now is set during his last week in Jerusalem.  He’s been teaching and preaching in the temple and the priestly hierarchy is just itching to catch him on something.

They send a professional theologian over to question him; this is the word translated as lawyer in our Bible.  His question is not sincere in the sense that he is asking out of a longing for knowledge, rather he asks Jesus to test him.  The Greek word here is πειράζω and only the devil and the Pharisees are the subject of this verb in Matthew.  So the only people sent to test Jesus in the same way that Satan did – to test him with negative intent in order to catch him out – are the Pharisees.  This question is an example of that type of test.  The Pharisaic theologian says to Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus does not hesitate, but answers immediately with a commandment that every Jewish child would know, a commandment that is preceded by the Sh’ma: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one” then it goes on to say: “Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength.”  This small saying is not only inscribed on Jewish hearts, but it was and is written on a small scroll and placed inside a small box called a mezuzah that usually has the shin, the first letter of the word מש, which means “hear,” engraved upon it.  This mezuzah is then placed on the doorpost lintel of the entryway to a good Jewish home, where it is kissed upon entering and leaving.

Mark’s rendition of this story keeps the opening to the commandment, the Sh’ma, the “Hear, O Israel” part.  But Matthew, interestingly enough, does not.  Nor does he keep the entire phrase; he drops “with all your strength.”  Now Matthew was no dummy.  He would have known his audience.  He would have known that they would have the Sh’ma memorized to the point that they said it and maybe even heard it without thinking.  So he must have made this change intentionally.  He must have made it so that the people would “hear” in a new and different way.  And what would they have heard?  First of all, they might have heard the Sh’ma as a commandment.  Not as a rote prayer that they know from birth, but as a directive from God about God.  Secondly, I believe that by dropping the command to love the Lord with all their strength, Matthew was changing the focus.  He was telling his listeners to love God with all their inner being, with all their heart and soul and mind.

As far as the Pharisee is concerned, this should be then end of the answer to his question.  He asked for the greatest commandment, and the implication therein is that there is one.  However, it is striking to note that while Jesus is asked for one commandment, he responds with two.  Furthermore, Mark says, “The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” while Matthew adds that the second is όμοια – or like – the first, meaning not only or merely that it is similar, but of equal importance and inseparable from the first.  The great command to love God has as its inseparable counterpart the command to love neighbor.  One cannot first love God and then, as a second task, love one’s neighbor.  To love God is to love neighbor and vice versa.

These are immense tasks: to love and to love others.  But I think there are an even greater implications in the text than these we’ve heard so far.  I believe that since Matthew has left out the word “strength” from the first directive, a word that every one of his listeners would have expected to be there and would have wondered why it was missing, it moves to this, the second directive.  In other words, it is people, our neighbors, others that we are to love with all our strength.    If we are to love God with all our inner being, then our outer beings, our love in actions is to be aimed at those outside ourselves, or others.  And that is where it’s needed isn’t it?  Even though it is not always easy to love ourselves, much less others.

Aha!  Here we are back at the conversation that Grace and I had last week.  Do you remember what she said this scripture is all about?  “Love God, love yourself, love others.”

How many of you heard the “love yourself” part in the scripture lesson?  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  “As yourself.” “As.”  “Yourself.”  The Greek word is ως and it can be translated not only as “as,” but also as “like, even as, same way.”  So you are to love your neighbors like you love yourself, even as you love yourself, in the same way that you love yourself.

How many of you love yourself?  How many of you show that love, that love that is commanded by Jesus, in ways that are tangible and meaningful?  How many of you cut yourself some slack when you make a mistake?  Or do you beat yourself up, replaying the same event over and over in your minds trying to make it come out differently this time around?  What about self-care?  Do you get enough sleep?  Eat good and nutritious food?  Take yourself out to the movies or for a walk in the woods or treat yourself to a good book to read and the time in which to read it?  Do you expend all your time and energy on those in your family, or do you take some time to “re-fill the well”?  Do you even know the concept of “refilling the well”?

This idea is that each of us is like a well filled with water, but a finite one.  And each time someone comes to us with a need, a request, even a simple wish for some time and attention, he or she is taking a dipperful out of the well.  That can happen for a while without any consequences, but eventually the well gets emptier and when someone comes along with a need, the dipper scrapes the insides of the well and it hurts.  Perhaps they are not able to fill the dipper to the top from your well and go away dissatisfied, maybe even unhappy.  They might even come back sooner rather than later and try again, only to be disappointed again because there is still not enough water in the well and the harder they try to get some out, the more painful it is for both of you.

We all know this breaking point.  We’re all familiar with the moments when we crack, the days that we seem more broken than others, the times when we are so overwhelmed and underfed that we have nothing more to give and everything seems to go wrong.

Jesus is telling us it doesn’t have to be that way.  Love your God.  Love yourself.  Love your neighbor.  How many of you have spent a ½ day with God in the last week?  How many of you find that this time, this hour on Sunday morning, is the only meaningful time you spend with God during the week?  There’s nothing wrong with that – you’re an hour up on most people in America, but sometimes it’s not enough.  Depending on your level of engagement, this worship service, the music, the prayers, the sermon could last you awhile.  But it’s also possible that you could be needing a bit more sustenance about the time Friday comes around.  Or maybe even Thursday.  Have you got a good spiritual book to read for those times?  Maybe even the Bible?  Or would you be interested in a short simple service on Thursday evenings before choir rehearsal?  If so, let me know and perhaps we could begin a small meditative time together.  Do you own any music that can help you through?  Some hymns or praise songs that you can put on to calm your mood and lift your spirits?  Do you remember to do it when you have the chance?  What are the things that nurture your soul that, when you do them, it’s like God comes along and refills the well so that you have some more love to give to others?  Can you commit to loving yourself enough to do them?

Because I don’t want to leave out the final piece of this commandment.  It is in many ways the most important one for us as we celebrate World Communion Sunday today.  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Not: “try to love your neighbor as yourself,” but “You Shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Who is your neighbor?  If you remember, Jesus got asked this one, too…and he answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Your neighbor is anyone and everyone on this planet earth.  Unfortunately or fortunately, we are ever more aware of what is going on around us as the world increasingly becomes a global village with technology in every crack and crevice of it.  This often makes our task feel even more overwhelming.

How are we to be neighbors to people in Afghanistan and the Sudan and Hong Kong and Korea?  One person, one act of love at a time.  Sometimes it’s easy as when we share fellowship with our Korean brother and sister in Christ, David and Meong Uh.  At other times it is more challenging, as we come in contact with those in our community who are not as pleasant and loving.  Sometimes it seems downright impossible as we struggle to understand the mentality of suicide bombers a half a world away.  Yet through it all we are called to share Christ’s love, to show Christ’s love, to be Christ’s love in a broken and bleeding world.

This day of days, we are blessed to know that we share this imperative, this command from Jesus the Christ with Christians all around the globe.  Christians in the United States and Canada, in Mexico and Central and South America, Christians in India and China and Korea, Christians in Jerusalem and Lebanon and Iraq.  Today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together, we are to remember that we are the church universal, the body of Christ on earth today, called to be his people and live his commands to us as fully and completely as we can.

Our final hymn today is God of Grace and God of Glory.  We all know this hymn and can probably break out into song with it without any thought at all:

God of grace and God of glory,

On thy people pour thy power;

Crown Thine ancient church’s story,

Bring its bud to glorious flower,

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,

For the facing of this hour, For the facing of this hour.

Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote this amazing hymn for the opening worship service of the Riverside Church in New York City almost 75 years ago.  It was sung there for the first time on Sunday, October 5, 1930, as Fosdick was about to become Riverside’s first pastor.

God of Grace and God of Glory is a hymn that is redolent of what we celebrate on World Communion Sunday – the hope and prayer that our ways will become God’s ways, that we will further God’s kingdom on earth, that we will have the wisdom and the courage to love God, love ourselves and love our neighbors as never before.  Yet Rev. Fosdick never intended his hymn to be sung to the rolling triumphant anthem CWM Rhondda that has come to be known as its tune.

I’m sure that you’ve noticed that sometimes different hymns are sung to the same tune.  Indeed, there are many hymn tunes that are known not by the lyrics to the hymn, but by name that it was given usually by its creator.  If you look in your hymnals, you will notice underneath each hymn title there is a name.  For example, number 8, Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates, has the name Truro underneath it.  This is a pretty well known tune and is actually used three times in our hymnal: for numbers 108, Christ is Alive! and 132, Live into Hope, as well.  You may find this interesting and educational, but are probably wondering why I’m sharing it with you at this particular juncture.  Well, I’m going to tell you…

Harry Emerson Fosdick was an optimistic progressive Christian who believed that, in his own words: “the deepest worth of a man is not in what he has, not in what he has done, not in what he is; it is what he may become.”  Is this not truly the message that Jesus gives us in his commandments to love God and neighbor?  The charge to love requires that we step outside of the pettiness, the meanness, the smallness that claims us especially when the well is empty and that we work toward becoming the people that God intends us to be.

It is with this thought, this transformation, this becoming in mind that Fosdick imagined God of Grace and God of Glory sung instead to the tune Regent’s Square which we know as Angels, From the Realms of Glory and Christ is Made the Sure Foundation.  I would like for us to finish our worship service today singing this hymn, this hymn about becoming, and requesting God’s prayerful and blessed intervention in that transformative process, not with the tune we’re used to, but the way it was intended by its author.  I will warn you as you read the lyrics in the hymnbook the final line which is repeated in the CWM Rhondda hymn tune will not be repeated when we sing it with the Regent’s Square hymn tune, so just be ready for that.  I’ve also asked Gary to play one verse after the sermon so that you can hear it and have it in your minds during the Lord’s Supper and perhaps hold in your heart the prayer to discern who it is and how it is that you are to love in the coming days and weeks and years ahead.

Finally, I want you to remember that while the Pharisaic lawyer thought he was putting Jesus to the test, Jesus wasn’t worried about passing it.  He wanted to do the will of His father in heaven and respond in a way that would have the most value and greatest consequences for his followers.  It important that we as Jesus’ followers today remember as well that it is not about passing the test, but about choosing to take it.  Jesus has commanded us, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” …and… “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Think on these things.  Act on those thoughts.  Watch your life and the lives of those around you be transformed.  Amen.