Priority 1
Mark 12:28-34
October 6, 2002
Love in the Crucible
The young man who leads our Praise and Worship, along with his lovely wife, Becky, has begun a dictionary of sorts filled with words and phrases they find unique to my preaching. I am happy to assist in their deepening education; Andrew is happy to torment me on Tuesday morning at staff meeting whenever they find a new word or phrase to add to their little compilation. With that in mind, we come to our focus verse of the morning, Mark 12:31, wherein Jesus adds a second commandment to the first, but at least according to Mark, Jesus did not say, “here’s a second commandment—and it’s free just for coming!” But He probably meant to! Stand with me as we read Mark 12:28-34.
I pose 4 Questions about the text of the morning:
I. What is the connection between the two commandments?
Jesus’ answer brings Leviticus 19:18 together with Deuteronomy 6:5 to show that love of neighbor is a natural outgrowth of a love for God. Jews of Jesus’ day interpreted Lev. 19 more narrowly than even intended when written, but Jesus broadens beyond their imagination.
Jesus was likely the first teacher to wed these two together, introducing what to His listeners must have been a radical hermeneutic, one of love over law. Notice how Paul picks up on this in Romans 13:8-10 – “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, ‘you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
I John 4:20 says that “If someone says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” It is beyond the realm of possibility, in other words, for you to be correct when you say you love God if you are not treating your brother with love.
The way to fulfilling the first commandment is bound up in fulfilling the second. Like two hinges on a door, the two work together. To open one’s life to loving God is to open one’s life to loving one’s neighbor. To allow God to operate in one’s life is also to open oneself to the operation of God in the life of another. This calls to mind Matthew 25:31-46, and reminds us that the way we would treat others is the way we are treating Christ. In this passage, Jesus gives us the perspective that we need to see in the faces of others the face of Christ, that whatever we did or did not do for others, even for the least of them—Jesus mentions the hungry, the sick, the naked, the imprisoned—we do or not do for Him. When you mistreat other people, you mistreat Jesus, for they are created in His image. We demonstrate the reality of the love we claim to have for God in the crucible of loving other people in the daily grind of life.
II. Who is my neighbor?
The Parable of the Good Muslims
It is difficult to imagine more bleak circumstances; the young mother and her small children, truck packed full of all of their belongings, were in process of moving from rural North Carolina to the mother’s childhood home in Connecticut. Life had taken a tragic turn only a few months earlier, as her handsome young husband had been killed during training exercises at Fort Bragg, leaving the young widow with two children under the age of four. Now, at the encouragement of friends that this would truly be best, she had determined to move back home to Connecticut, back to live with her ailing mother. Father had been gone for nine years now, and it seemed the best thing to do in the situation. Old Charlie down at the sporting goods store had promised her that there’d be an opening for her as office help, and while it wasn’t a glamour job, it’d pay the bills until the little family could get its bearings.
A light snow greeted the young family as they awakened on Sunday morning somewhere north of Philly, but determined to move ahead, the young mother bustled the kids off to Denny’s for breakfast. Leaving the restaurant and driving up the New Jersey Turnpike, her thoughts returned again and again to the incredible events of the past few months; she wondered again if it were true, or all just a bad dream. “Well”, she thought, “maybe there’ll be a fresh start in Danbury.”
It was just south of Newark when the engine in the truck started to miss, and before she knew it, something had gone terribly wrong—right in the middle of one of the worst metropolitan areas in the country. Now she was scared; this was not the place to break down! Cold and terrified, the young mother climbed from the cab of the Ryder truck and surveyed her options. Who’d stop to help her at 10:30 on a Sunday morning, she wondered, and could the person be trusted?
Rev. Scott Dabney, for over 35 years the rector of St. Michael’s, was hurriedly making his way to church services. His alarm hadn’t gone off—again—and while his habitual tardiness was something of a standing joke around the parish, it still embarrassed him to be late. Perhaps he could make up time on the Turnpike, he thought. As he sped along, he couldn’t miss the sight of the big yellow truck up ahead, and what looked to be a worried young woman standing by the side of the truck. As she put her face in her hands, he thought to himself that there must be something wrong. A voice inside him said, “stop”, and he considered this option, even as he passed the truck—but then glancing again as his watch, he realized that if he did, there’d be no way he could make it to the service in time. He’d put a lot of time into the morning’s message—and so as he glanced in the rear view at the truck and the lady, he breathed a silent prayer that God would send someone along…
Dave Greene thought he recognized Pastor Dabney’s car up ahead—the “Clergy” bumper sticker amid the rust of what had to be the only brown AMC Gremlin in Newark gave it away. Dave was an “up-and-comer” at St. Mike’s; Pastor Dabney knew deacon material when he saw it, and had mentioned the possibility to Dave on a couple of occasions already. As the Greenes followed along, Dave too noticed the Ryder truck and the distraught lady, and the thought crossed his mind as well to stop. But frankly, it was pretty cold outside, and having had to miss church the past couple of weeks due to business trips weighed on his mind; it wouldn’t do too well for a deacon to keep missing services. As he passed the truck, he looked in the rear view and saw a little blonde head pop up from behind the dashboard. “Lord, take care of that little family”, he prayed as he sped past.
Meanwhile, the young mother waited, and a shiver ran down her spine. She couldn’t tell whether that shiver stemmed more from the cold or from the situation at hand. Silently she breathed a prayer to a God to whom she hadn’t spoken much since her husband’s death. Soon, a car did pull over, and quickly from the front seat sprang two young men with long beards, each wearing the distinctive head coverings marking Muslim men. A terror struck her as she watched the two men quickly approach—she swore their faces looked just like terrorists she’d seen on CNN. Debating whether to jump back in the truck and lock her doors, she froze for a split second, and before she could say or do anything, the driver spoke up. “Can we help you?” he asked, and a wide smile spread over his face. Grabbing a cell phone from his belt, the other man dialed the number on the side of the Ryder truck, while the driver spoke words of encouragement to the young mother. In short order, two Muslim ladies, dressed in colorful long dresses, the sisters of the driver, pulled up in an SUV, and after locking up the truck, the young family climbed into the SUV for a trip to McDonald’s with the ladies and their brother, while the second Muslim man waited in the cold for the mechanic.
At St. Mike’s, Pastor Dabney delivered his message, as the Dave Greene family listened. His subject? “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Perhaps you recognize the story—in a 21st-century incarnation! A man whom the Bible says was seeking to “justify himself” asked Jesus a question in response to Jesus teaching that we find here, namely, “love your neighbor as you love yourself”; the question was, “who is my neighbor?” In response, Jesus told a story, but the impact of that story is lost on us due to the fact that we live in a different time and cultural situation. Nobody who listened as Jesus told the story would have qualified the word "Samaritan” with the adjective “good”, as most of us today. Perhaps you’ll remember “The Parable of the Good Muslims”.
Who is my neighbor? “One can never ask, ‘who is my neighbor?’ because the question implies that there is such a thing as a non-neighbor. Whoever needs me is my neighbor, and we express love with active compassion and justice.” - Garland
III. How am I to love him/her?
“As I love myself” – Every person naturally loves himself, and proves this in 1001 ways every day. There is no person on earth who does not, and I don’t care what supposed insights psychology has to offer on the subject, and I don’t care whether you’ll hear even some preachers and youth speakers talk about idea that we need to learn to love ourselves more. They are all wrong, according to the Bible, according to Jesus; the Bible continually urges us to think less of ourselves and to think more of others, and to treat those others with love. Certainly, most of us have things about ourselves which we don’t particularly like—but the reason we don’t like those qualities is because we love ourselves. Loving others as we love ourselves is similar—there will be qualities in other people for which we don’t care, in fact, which we may hate—but Jesus tells us to love them as we love ourselves.
“In the second commandment, God addresses men as they are, sinners who love themselves, and claims them as such for love to the neighbor.” – William Lane
‘Neighbor’ includes “all within our home, those we meet at work, in our church, and in recreations. And more than that: our employer is our neighbor too; so are our work people, all who serve us in shops, the men who empty our dust bins and those who try to keep streets and parks clean. So too are the people of Jamaica, of West Africa, of Kenya, of Germany and of Russia. If we love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we shall want for them the treatment we should want for ourselves, were we in their place.” Mitton
IV. What does this kind of love look like?
So how do we do this? Scripture is replete with examples of teaching on how to do just this; I want to mention several this morning, for it is in doing these things that our love will prove to be true—in the crucible of life! Ephesians 4 guides us in our thinking.
What is involved in loving my neighbor?
Speaking truth with my neighbor – Eph. 4:25
Because we are members of one body, Paul says, we are to put off all falsehood and speak truth with each other. This is a minimum standard of integrity; a human body is malfunctioning if the parts of it are not speaking truth to each other. In a person, for instance, who is paralyzed, the nerves do not signal danger as they ordinarily would, to the detriment of the rest of the body. So it is with the professing believer who doesn’t speak truth with others in the body of Christ.
Sometimes this is done intentionally, but we also do it when we jump to conclusions, usually negative in nature, about another believer, and then spread that disinformation to the person’s hurt. Gossip is often a form of dishonesty, and I will be careful what I say about another person if I am acting lovingly toward that person.
Not defrauding my neighbor – Eph. 4:28
Specifically, Paul speaks about stealing from others, a crime which destroys all trust. We are to replace that sin with a willingness to use our hands, not to steal, but to do things which will contribute to building other people up. Behind this particular sin are several others; namely, covetousness, greed, disrespect for others, and a self-love which takes no thought for the feelings of others. But again, the remedy is not merely “stop it”, but rather to use the gifts God has given to positively build others up.
Not speaking unwholesome words, but rather those which edify – Eph. 4:29
How would you fare in a “word audit” done on the things you have said during the past week? How does your speech compare with the words of :29? I will tell you, one of the passages of Scripture which makes me shudder more than most all others is Matthew 12:36,37. Listen to Jesus’ words: “I tell you that men will have to give account of the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” But notice once again what Paul says: we are not only to stop allowing unwholesome words to come out of our mouths; we are also to replace those words with other words, and note the characterization here: “helpful”; “building up”; “their needs”; “benefit”. The words that I speak toward others, if I am truly loving them as I love myself, are words that do them good, that help them, that minister to their needs. The opposite, of course, are words that are harshly, judgmentally critical.
This doesn’t preclude, of course, “constructive criticism” when it is given with a heart of love and a sincere desire to help others. Some of the most loving words I’ve ever received have been words of such constructive criticism which pointed me to the error of my ways. But the context of helpful criticism is always love and compassion. The motivation for speaking to others at all must be one of love and a desire to see others built up; any other motive is less than what Christ commands.
Being kind and tenderhearted toward my neighbor - Eph. 4:32
Compassion and kindness flow from a conscious realization that I have been treated by God with grace that looks beyond my many sins and treats me infinitely better than I deserve. Our human bent is not to do that, not to “do unto others as we would have them do unto us”, but rather to “do unto others as they have done to us.” We naturally want to “fight fire with fire”; if someone has mistreated us, our bent is to give them as good as they send. But love, according to I Corinthians 13, is “kind”, and it is “not easily angered”. But once again, this is not a mere absence of the negative; it is a positive determination to allow ourselves to be conduits of God’s grace toward others. A principle way this happens is
Forgiving my neighbor – Eph. 4:32; cf. Col. 3:13
If I am not forgiving of others; if I continually hold grudges, then I know little of the forgiving grace of God. “Just as in Christ God forgave you”, Paul says, we must forgive each other. Love, according to I Corinthians 13, “keeps no record of wrongs”. It doesn’t keep inventory of slights and insults; it destroys the file insofar as holding the memories of those offenses against another person. Colossians 3:13 adds, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” No less a modern sage than Don Henley, he of Eagles fame, wrote that he had discovered the “heart of the matter”, “I think it’s about forgiveness”, he wrote. While without knowing the forgiveness offered by Christ, experienced in our hearts, we cannot fully comprehend or extend forgiveness, nonetheless he is correct. Jesus condemns unforgiveness in the strongest possible terms, likening a person with an unforgiving spirit to a man who had been forgiven a debt of millions who then, in turn, has another man thrown into the clink for less than $20. So it is with we who know the forgiveness of God in Christ, for we have been forgiven a debt against God that is enormous in comparison to the debt which any other person will owe us.
Are there people right now whom you have not forgiven from your heart? Are you willing to forgive, or are you going to vainly attempt to justify your grudge? Because if I am not, then I cannot claim to be loving my neighbor as I love myself, and if I am not loving my neighbor, then in the final analysis, I am not loving God. And Jesus would say to us that, even if we have everything else right, we fail if we do not love God and love others, for these commands constitute Priority One.
