Christopher Thomas
Sermon for 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, Proper 17 – 8/29/21
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:”
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
The words of Jesus, referred to as his “Great Commandment,” are so important that it makes all four Gospel texts.
These words are a part of the opening sentences of the Rite I service of Holy Eucharist in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Although I have vague memories of the 1928 prayer book that preceded it, as a cradle Episcopalian, most of my impressionable life has been spent in the 1979 version. So I remember hearing those words, Sunday after Sunday, up to and through a significant part of my adult life, when I found myself in predominantly Rite II congregations.
As I was reading and praying through the scriptures assigned to this week, and considering what I’d bring to you by way of proclaiming the good news of the gospel, I found myself pondering why the “Great Commandment” did not make it from the Rite I service to the Rite II service? After all, the “Great Commandment” does some critical theological heavy-lifting for us.
What happened to the “Great Commandment?” Where did it go? Why was it left out of Rite II? Prior to the 1979 edition, the 1928 prayer book included, at the beginning of each Eucharist service, the reading of the Decalogue, more commonly known as the “10 Commandments.” I am sure that you’re all familiar with the top ten list of “Thou Shalt Not’s:”
- Thou shalt not worship idols
- Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain
- Thou shalt not commit adultery
- Thou shalt not steal
You get the idea. It’s important to remember all these things that, as followers of God, we’re expected NOT to do. These rules, laws of conduct, were critical to the people of Israel’s original covenant with God in how they were to be in relationship with God, to each other, and themselves. And quite frankly, they are critical to us. Without laws, rules and regulations, things would get out of hand pretty quickly.
Now nobody loves rules and regulations more than me. It’s probably a big part of why I spent the first 25 years of my career and ministry as a Church Business Administrator. Administrators are binary thinkers, with a strong sense of right and wrong. (To make matters worse, I’m a strong 1 “reformer” on the Enneagram scale.) Follow the laws, and things go well; miss filling out a form, submitting the correct receipts, or coming up with a spreadsheet for everything you can possibly imagine, and the world is headed for swift and sure chaos. You could characterize me a “Pharisee.”
The Pharisees were the “law-hawks,” or “legal-eagles,” the Church Administrators of their day. They were the “No” folks. No, we don’t have enough in the budget to do that; no, you can’t rent a van for the youth group to go to Colorado; no, you can’t work with children if you haven’t completed all your Safe Church coursework. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! They went around making sure all the elevator certificates were up to date, all the fire extinguishers up to code, and that no fire egress hallways were blocked. No one likes the “No” folks. But, truth be told, we’re important to keeping things in line, in order, and running efficiently.
And then came Jesus.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Flesh them out, both literally AND figuratively! The original covenant wasn’t being cancelled or nullified; rather Jesus’ purpose was to reframe and restate God’s purpose in a way that might make it a little more simple and easy to grasp. What Jesus does in the “Great Commandment” is to shift the center of focus from all the laws and regulations of what we should and shouldn’t do, to the one great act of love – love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self. Righteousness can be found, not so much in following rules, but abiding in love.
In today’s gospel narrative, Jesus encounters again the “rules police.” The subject of today’s violation is cleanliness code, and what defiles the body. They’ve just crossed from Bethsaida to Gennesaret, where Jesus has been healing and feeding folks and calming disciples’ fears. They get to a quiet place, and he’s sharing some meal time, a little table fellowship, and relationship building, with his disciples. And the Pharisees find them, and set in with the rules and the laws. “How can you claim to be a prophet, the Son of God when you haven’t followed the cleanliness rules?” “You’re really going to eat, to put something into your body, without washing your hands first?” “You’ll defile yourself and all those you come into contact with!” Were the Pharisees concerns the disciples making themselves sick from eating with dirty hands, or was the concern for rules?
Jesus delivers a classic refrain that hearkens straight to the “Great Commandment:” “Listen to me, all of you (hypocrites), and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out that defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come…” He makes it crystal clear that it’s not what goes into the body that corrupts, rather what comes out of the human heart that either glorifies or defiles. The human heart is the seat where we either generate love, or generate hate. And Jesus is calling upon them, and us, to view law through the lens of love.
Which must be why our lectionary pairs this story with today’s First Testament reading from the original text of love, the Song of Songs, the bible’s most beautifully articulated poetry of love, between humans, between humans and their Creator, and between humans and the rest of Creation. This is the kind of love I believe that Jesus has in mind, the kind of love through which we must filter all of our worldly experience.
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
And come away;
For now the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing has come,
And the voice of the turtledove
Is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
And the vines are in blossom;
They give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
And come away.”
This kind of love, this way of framing, taking in, and responding to the world around us, is so utterly different, so much more life-giving and life-affirming, than the ways that the laws are used by the Pharisees, and the many generations who follow.
Which brings me back to the “Great Commandment,” love. To love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our minds. To love our neighbors, as we love ourselves. That kind of love, that way of reframing reality, is truly transformational. And I believe that if we could, if we can accomplish this, we really can transform the world around us into the vision of reality that God has for us.
I’ve been hearing recently a lot of talk about what is becoming a popular catch-phrase, “Live your best life now.” And I think that if we can filter all that we say and do, all that comes out of us, all that which has the potential to corrupt and defile, or the potential to bless, through the “Great Commandment” of love, it really would be a different day.
So, what does that look like? How about we pass everything that we say and do through the “love” filter. Before it comes out of our mouths, or out of our hearts, or out of our actions, we ask ourselves, in that split second, “Is this thought, or action coming from the intention of love?”
When someone cuts us off in traffic, and we’re tempted to take the Lord’s name in vain, think, “Is this reaction in love?”
When we’re about to utter some opinion or criticism, can we ask, “Is this statement born in love?”
When we’re tempted to make some off-handed comment or action against our partner, our parents, or our kids, can we filter that action or reaction back through love?
Honoring God, becoming righteous, is not something that we do by following laws. Righteousness springs from God’s goodness toward us. The only appropriate response to God’s righteousness is love. Love really can change the world.
“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:”
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Amen.
