NO GREATER
COMMANDMENT…
Mark 12: 28-34 03/12/2017
Introduction: Last Sunday after
Church our family attended an open house of the Islamic Center for New England.
It was a well-attended meeting of Shaornites from a cross section of faiths and
religious backgrounds. The core message of this meeting was to, “Get to know
our Neighbors” The center was very hospitable and welcoming for our community.
I am pleased to hear about another initiative by Temple Israel, “Neighbor to
Neighbor” again this is an effort to get to know our neighbors. When I hear
about these efforts, I cannot help but think these two communities are talking
and doing what we should be doing as the followers of Christ as well.
We
as Hope Church, are strategically placed in Sharon, surrounded by many people
of diverse faiths and religions. What would Jesus expect of us to do in our
community? What should be our response to our neighbors? How well do we know
them? When we first came here during Christmas time, in an effort to get to know
our neighbors, my wife and I took Christmas cookies to our immediate neighbors
but it was disappointing. No one opened the doors, either no one was at home or
no one wanted to open the doors or they were just afraid of their neighbors.
Whether
we like it or not these days, partly due to certain political ideologies and
trends there seems to be an unexplainable fear, suspicion and prejudice of
those who stay next door to us. How can we overcome such fear and prejudice and
take God’s message of love to our neighbors?
In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste
your time bothering whether you ’love’ your neighbor act as if you did. As soon
as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if
you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone
you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good
turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."
I
believe God is encouraging our church to take giant, new, risky steps in loving
one another and especially our neighbors. This is the fuel that will sustain
Hope Church. We have been studying about Knowing God for the past several
walks. It is well and good for our internal spiritual lives, but that should
not be an end in itself. The reason why we want to know God is so that we will
know ourselves, and we will understand what the mission of God is better. I
want to title today’s message, “NO GREATER COMMANDMENT” Mark 12:28-34
BACKGROUND:
During the earthly ministry of Jesus there
were three groups of people named, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes
who always were looking for an opportunity to discredit Jesus’ message and his
claims. On one occasion, the leaders from these sinister groups came to Jesus
to trap him with difficult questions. Jesus answered the Pharisees and
Sadducees aptly, seeing that Jesus rightly put them in place one of the
teachers of the law asked Jesus another trick question “Of all the
commandments, which is the most important?”
We
will pick our story up from here. This teacher’s question suggests that there
were so many commandments. Just to give
you an idea of how many commandments there were in the OT, “The rabbis determined
that there were 613 commandments contained in the Pentateuch, one for each
letter of the ten commandments. Of the
613 commandments, 248 were seen as affirmative and 365 as negative. Those laws were also divided into heavy and
light categories, with the heavy ones more binding than the light ones. The
scribes and the rabbis, however, had been unable to agree on which were heavy
and which were light, so the teacher asked Jesus this particular question
saying, “Of all the commandments which is the most important?” so that Jesus
would incriminate himself by giving a wrong answer.
I.
LOVING GOD IS OUR FIRST PRIORITY
The
most important one answered Jesus, but actually he clubbed two commandments as
one. Mark 12: 29-31 “Hear O, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love
the LORD your GOD with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your
mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as
yourself” There is no commandment greater than these.” The first part of this
commandment is known to the Jews as the “Shema” In Matthew 22: 40, we read the
power of these two commandments, “All the law and the Prophets hang on these
two commandments.”
By
answering shrewdly Jesus laid a foundation for a bridge over the void that
existed in the lives of many Jews at that time. By mentioning these two commandments in one breath Jesus made a
connection between their proclamation and their practice. Over the
centuries, this commandment has become the Jewish confession of faith. Devout Jews
recited the Shema twice daily. What were the implications of this declaration?
For the Jews, it was not just a rhetorical, intellectual proclamation but a
call to action. In other words, they were to show their love for God by maintaining
a right heart attitude, devoting themselves to studying and reciting scriptures
daily and above all by their hard work to provide for their families, for the
welfare of the poor and the needy and for the upkeep of the temple.
The
devout Jews prided themselves in meticulously keeping the first commandment,
yet they often neglected another great commandment which is in, Leviticu19:18,
“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons your own
people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” These two
commandments cannot stand separate from each other, they both are
interdependent, one is built upon the other. Israel’s history tells us that God
often dealt with them seriously for their, injustice, intolerance and lack of
love for their neighbors.
II
LOVING OUR NEIGHBOR IS A COMMAND
Loving
our neighbor as ourselves is not a good suggestion, or we do it when we feel
like, but it is a command. When we love our neighbors, we visibly demonstrate our
love for God, by seeing our love for one another the world will come to know
that we are disciples of Christ. In fact, Jesus went one step further and said
love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. That is really a tough
assignment for us. Let me share an
incredible story that brought me to tears. “Jennifer Thompson was a 22-year-old
college student in North Carolina, described as "the perfect student,
perfect daughter, perfect homecoming queen." Her life was forever changed
one summer night when a stranger held a knife to her throat and raped her.
She
was determined to remember every detail about her assailant so she helped the
police develop a drawing. She picked Ronald Cotton a black man out of a lineup.
Although he insisted on his innocence, the power of Jennifer's eyewitness
testimony helped to convict him and sentence him to life in prison. She never
had a doubt. A year after his conviction Ronald Cotton met another inmate in
the prison kitchen. His name was Bobby Poole and they looked a lot alike. Poole
was serving consecutive life sentences for a series of rapes. He bragged to
other inmates that Ronald Cotton was serving some of his time because he had
assaulted Jennifer Thompson.
Cotton
got a knife to murder Poole but his father told him not to murder but put his
faith in God. He followed his father's advice. A new trial was ordered for
Ronald Cotton. This time they saw both men. This time the jury heard the other
side of the story. This time they again convicted him on the basis of Jennifer
Thompson' s eyewitness testimony. Again, Ronald Cotton was sentenced to serve
the rest of his life in prison.
After
eleven years Jennifer Thompson, had gone on with her life with marriage and
children. Then one day the police detective she hadn't seen in years knocked on
the door of her Winston-Salem home. He said, "Jennifer, you were
wrong." The new technology of DNA analysis conclusively proved that Ronald
Cotton was innocent. Her assailant was Bobby Poole after all. Jennifer Thompson
was shocked. How could she have made such a terrible mistake?
She
had stolen eleven years of a man's life that could never be given back. She
agonized over this for two years and then asked to meet with Ronald Cotton and
ask for his forgiveness. She prayed for strength to meet the man. They met in a
church building in the town where she was raped. Her husband and the pastor
waited outside.
Face-to-face
for the first time outside a courtroom, Jennifer said, "I'm sorry. If I
spent every day for the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am, it wouldn't
come close to what I feel." Calm and quiet, Ronald Cotton finally spoke:
"I'm not mad at you. I've never been mad at you. I just want you to have a
good life." They talked for two hours while the pastor and Jennifer's
husband anxiously waited outside. When they all stood outside, Jennifer
Thompson and Ronald Cotton embraced. They held each other for a long time.
A
few days later Jennifer wrote to Bobby Poole in prison. She asked to meet him.
She wrote, "I faced you with courage and bravery that July night. You
never asked my permission. Now I ask you to face me." She wanted to meet
him to tell him that she forgave him for what he did. She reasoned that if
Ronald Cotton could forgive her, she could forgive Bobby Poole. (He never
responded. Poole died of cancer while in prison, early in 2000).[1]
Now
Jennifer and Ronald are best friends, they wrote a book titled, “Picking
Cotton” A story of injustice and Redemption.” They speak at meetings together
fighting injustice. This story clearly demonstrates what Jesus said, “You have heard that it
was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you, that you may
be children of
your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who
love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are
you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Matthew 5:43-47
If Jesus
were to ask us those questions how do we respond? Let me bring all this
into our context. Just like the Jews of Jesus’ time we too can take pride in our
love for God. We fairly regularly attend Sunday bible times, and worship
service, take part in communion, read scriptures diligently, and fellowship with
one another in our Church. But if this is all we do throughout our lives, how
are we different from any other religious community in Sharon? Because every
other religious person does that and some are even better at that.
What
Jesus is expecting of us is to take the next step and love our neighbors, and even
one step further and love our enemies. It can be very threatening for many of
us. But that is exactly the Mission of
Jesus he came to build a bridge between God and his enemies, that is you and I.
Now he is calling us to do the same. Loving God and Loving our neighbor is one
and the same and there is no greater commandment than these. Our whole faith
hangs on these two.
The
time has come for our church and other churches in America that we must take
this command of Christ seriously for God’s sake and for the world’s sake. We
can no longer afford to stand on the sidelines. We can’t just be good
Christians and citizens and bystanders of this world and of our town, we must
connect and we must engage, otherwise all our talk of Knowing and Loving God
amounts to nothing. Jesus died for our sins to change us that we might then be
able to change others through his message of love, forgiveness and grace. May
the Lord help us to cease every opportunity to Love our God and to Love our
neighbor. Amen
