The Greatest Commandment

Let us pray... May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be pleasing in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

As I mentioned last week, before I started my training at theological college, I worked for Courtaulds for 14 years. Part of my job there was to write technical reports. At the beginning of each report I would write a summary section, just a few words which tried to summarize the whole report. And I often found that this was one of the hardest sections to write. There was so much that I wanted to say ...and I didn't want to leave anything out ...yet I wanted it to be as short as possible ...so that after a few minutes, anyone who read it would have a good idea of what the whole of the report was about.

It's very hard to express things in a nutshell... but it is not just a modern dilemma. Back in Jesus' time people were trying to do the same thing. For a Jew, the most important part of the Bible was what they called 'the Law', (which was the first five books of our Old Testament). This contains 613 commandments, (although I've not had time to count them all myself). We may well remember the Ten Commandments: "You shall not murder"; "You shall not commit adultery"; "Honour your father and mother"; "Remember the sabbath day"... and so on (Ex. 20). But there are six hundred other commandments beside these, For example: "You shall not defraud your neighbour; ...and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning. You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God..." (Lev. 19.13-14).

Now it was quite common for the teachers of the law, in Jesus' day, to try to summarize the essential essence of all these laws in a nutshell. Of course different people had different ideas. A few years before Jesus was born, one famous teacher had summarised them as follows:

"What you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbour." (Hillel, 25BC)

Other people had put it differently, and in our gospel reading we read how a teacher of the Law had asked Jesus what his opinion was. And Jesus put it this way:

"The first [commandment] is: 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is the only Lord; love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mt. 12.29-31 - NEB)

The one word that stands out in this summary of the law is LOVE. The whole of the Old Testament Law can be summed up with the commands to love God ...and to love others.

But before we think about this in more detail, it is important to remember that God has first loved us.

The Bible is full of reminders of God's love for us. We are told that God loved us so much that he sent his Son to die for us, so that we might be forgiven and receive his gift of eternal life (Jn. 3.16, 1Jn. 4.10). The Bible is also full of wonderful images of his love... "The Lord is my shepherd," (we read in the 23rd Psalm), "He lets me find rest in fields of green grass and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water. He gives me new strength..." And Jesus portrays God as the loving father in the story of 'the prodigal son' ...who rushes out to greet his rebellious son, and throws his arms around him, and welcomes him home.

But of course God's love for us is wasted if we refuse to receive it.

One of the great advantages of having little children is that you are able to see human nature more clearly... children don't hide things like us adults. One of the characteristics of human nature is that we sometimes find it very hard to accept love.

On Thursday, Jan (my wife), came to the morning Communion Service with my daughter Jennie. Jennie is three, and she was given an empty bag, and a box of toys to choose from. One-by-one she took toys from the box, and stuffed them into her bag... until the bag was so full of toys that it toppled over, and fell of the pew. In her frustration she burst into tears. Jan picked the toys up, but Jennie was still very upset. Jan lovingly put her arms around her, but Jennie pushed her away ...she didn't want to be comforted ...she just wanted to cry, and to be left on her own.

Do you sometimes feel like that? ...I know that I do.

Jennie's allowed her anger and frustration to prevent her from receiving her mother's love. And in the same way we can all allow things to prevent us from receiving God's love. Things like anger ...frustration ...fear ...pride ...worry, can be barriers to God's love. Its not that God stops loving us, its just that we are not able to accept his love.

But God wants us to receive the full riches of his love ...and so it is appropriate that we should respond by loving God. Which brings us back to the words of our gospel reading: we are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength.

Jesus is quoting these words from the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament (Dt. 6.4-5). They were very well known words; in fact they belong to some verses from the Bible which many religious Jews would have recited every day.

Jesus tells us that the most important part of the Old Testament law is to love God with all that we are.

It is a common misconception in today's society that love is primarily concerned with feelings. Of course feelings are very important. I remember the feeling of excitement when each of my children were born. Taking them in my arms, and holding them, ....and being overwhelmed with the precious gift that God had given me. I felt so proud when phoning people to tell them that we had a son, or a daughter. I was filled with love for them.

And today, I still love my children very much ...but I don't always feel very loving towards them. My feelings towards them go up and down. Sometimes I still feel overwhelmed with the privilege of being their father ...at other times, (like when I discover that Jennie has painted the furniture), I feel somewhat different.

[Often the worst time for us as a family is when we are trying to get everybody ready for church on a Sunday morning ...and we can't find Emily's shoes, and Jennie wants to go to the toilet... and we have often arrived at church fuming with one another. One of the advantaged of being the curate is that I have to get here before the rest of the family, and so I can leave all these frustrations to Jan.]

But even when I don't feel very loving towards my children, I still love them. Feelings are important, but love isn't primarily concerned with feelings ...it's more concerned with self-giving. I have committed myself to the care of my children, ...to the putting of their needs before my own, ...to the giving of my very self to them. That is what love is, ...and so I can choose to love them even when I don't feel very loving towards them.

Someone has described this sort of love as "pure self-giving, which neither looks for reward or satisfaction" (Nineham p325, quoting Vincent Taylor). It's the sort of love that God shows to us ...and in response, we choose to love God this way. We lay our lives before Him, and unreservedly give our very selves to Him. We are to love God with every part of us.

Jesus said that to love God was the most important part of the Old Testament law ...but he didn't stop there. Remember that the Jews tried to summarize the entire law in a nutshell ...and so Jesus goes on to talk about the need for us to love other people too. He quotes part of another verse from the Old Testament, this time from the book of Leviticus (Lev. 19.18), and says that we are to love our neighbours as ourselves.

'Loving God' and 'loving others' go together, hand-in-hand. In fact, the first letter of John goes on to say that you can't have one without the other. It says:

"If someone says he loves God, but hates his brother [or sister], he is a liar. For he cannot love God, whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother [or sister], whom he has seen. The command that Christ gives us is this: whoever loves God must love his brother [and sister] also." (1Jn. 4.20-21 - GNB)

Strong words!

We don't have much time this morning to explore what it means to love one another, but I want to draw to a close by making one observation.

The verse that Jesus quotes from Leviticus originally had to do with bearing grudges against each other. The whole verse reads:

"Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, ...but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD." (Lev. 19.18 - NIV)

People can do or say some terrible things to us ...and when that happens it is quite natural that we will get angry. But the problem comes when we refuse to forgive that person, and our anger festers into a lasting grudge ...or deep seated resentment.

Having just arrived here, I don't know very much about this church ...but churches often have many members who refuse to let go of grudges and resentments. Yet we can't love others as ourselves unless we are willing to let go of such attitudes.

And similarly we sometimes hold grudges against God, (although again we often hide it). We can secretly blame God for things that have happened to us ...or for the things that didn't happen as we had hoped ...and we refuse to let go of our resentment towards God. Yet we can't fully love God unless we are willing to let go of such attitudes towards Him.

So let me try to put this sermon into a nutshell!

God first loved us with every part of himself ...God even sent his Son to die for us. It is therefore appropriate that our response is to love God with every part of ourselves. And this goes hand-in-hand with loving other people as ourselves. But we cannot fully love God, or others, unless we let go of grudges and resentments.

Of course none of us loves God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. And none of us loves our neighbours as ourselves. That is why we continually come before him to seek his forgiveness. But the good news is that despite our failings, God goes on loving us just the same. His love for us is totally unconditional, it has no strings attached. And as we open ourselves to receive God's love, so our love for him and others will be transformed.

Let us pray.

In a moment's silence, let us be attentive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you that you love us more than we could ask or imagine.

Thank you that your love for us is unconditional, with no strings attached.

Please help us to receive your love, and to remove all barriers which prevent us from accepting it.

And may your love for us transform our love for you, and our love for others.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Before the confession.

As we confess our sins to Almighty God, we may especially want to ask his forgiveness for any grudges or resentments which we have been holding onto.