One day Jesus told a story in the hearing of the religious leaders. One version of the story Jesus told goes like this:

"A man planted a vineyard. He fenced it, dug a winepress, erected a watchtower, turned it over to the farmhands, and went off on a trip. At the time for harvest, he sent a servant back to the farmhands to collect his profits.

"They grabbed him, beat him up, and sent him off empty handed. So he sent another servant. That one they tarred and feathered. He sent another and that one they killed. And on and on, many others. Some they beat up, some they killed.

"Finally there was only one left: a beloved son. In a last-ditch effort, he sent him, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son’.

"But those farmhands saw their chance. They rubbed their hands together in greed and said, ‘This is the heir! Let’s kill him and have it all for ourselves.’ They grabbed him, killed him, and threw him over the fence’.

"What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do? Right. He’ll come and clean house. Then he’ll assign the care of the vineyard to others. You can read it for yourselves in Scripture:

"The religious leaders wanted to lynch Jesus then and there but, intimidated by public opinion, held back. They knew the story was about them. They got away from there as far as they could" (Mark 12.1-12 from Eugene Peterson’s The Message).

The religious leaders went away, but they sent back messengers with questions designed to embarrass Jesus.

Have you ever been asked a question that you know is a set up kind of question, the kind designed to show you up as a hypocrite, or someone who is naive, or who just does not get it? It usually begins like this: "don’t you think?"...which can mean surely you agree with me." Or, "what do you think about the new leaders elected last Tuesday?" And then when you tell them, they says, "really?" As if your answers surprise them.

The trap question may be, "what high school did you go to?" which sounds innocent enough, but in some places, your high school is a strong indicator about where you lived, what kind of neighborhood you lived in, and so what your income status might be.

The Pharisees asked, "do you think we should pay taxes to the Roman government and Caesar? (13.17); he tells them to give Caesar what is his due, and give to God what is God’s due, and never confuse the two. They are amazed at his answer. "Well played", we can hear them say.

Next up are the Sadducees. They were known for their sense of righteousness and their refusal to believe in either the resurrection from the dead or the immortality of the soul. They have a really strange request. They say to Jesus, "tell us about your family values. You know that custom of ours that says if a man dies and leaves a wife, but no children, she must marry the man’s brother and any children they have will be raised as if they were fathered by her dead husband. But here’s the deal. We know a woman whose husband died, leaving her a widow with no children. She married his brother. He died and left no children. Eventually she married all the brothers, each one died, leaving behind no heirs. Then she died. So, Jesus, in heaven, whose wife will she be?" Jesus says, "you know neither the scripture nor the power of God. There is no marriage in heaven – God serves the living, you are quite wrong"

Finally they send the scribes. The scribes were the record keepers, they liked to record data, make sure the record was correct. This particular scribe knows the answers to the questions he asks, and like a good attorney, he asks it anyway. You can almost see them huddled up, leafing through their scriptures and stealing glances over at Jesus. "Let’s see how he answers this one"

"Jesus, of all the commandments, which one is the greatest? Of all the things God asks us to do, what do we do first?" Back in the 80’s and 90’s business and management experts would advise people to prioritize their work by putting it in three piles. Pile one was for the stuff we needed to deal with as soon as possible; it was the first priority. Pile two was for the stuff that was important, but could wait a few days. And pile three was never going to get done, and so the best way to deal with that pile was to just throw it away.

The scribe comes to Jesus, asking him to prioritize the more than 700 commandments of God. Remember, Mark tells this story in hindsight. The gospels were written long years after the resurrection of Jesus as a way for the church to find its strength in sometimes rough times. As we read his answers to these questions, we find strength for our rough times too.

So we lean a bit and listen carefully as Jesus answers the question in two parts. First, he quotes Deuteronomy 6.4, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." These words would be as familiar to their first hearers as the "Lord’s Prayer" is to us. "By quoting this confession of faith which pious Jews have repeated morning and evening since the second century BC, Jesus affirms, out of his knowledge and respect for his Jewish heritage, the oneness of God…Jesus’ answer to the scribe established love as the ground of Christian faith and life" (Interpretation series. Mark. Lamar Williamson. Louisville: John Knox Press. 1985, p.226).

The second part of the answer is that we honor the oneness of God; the unity that God calls us to by loving God with our total being. We love God with our whole heart. Feel your heart beat…that is more than blood moving through our bodies; it is where our emotions reside. We love in our most tender places our hearts leap for joy; they break in disappointment and grief. Our hearts let us know what our words cannot express.

We love God with our whole soul – that part of us that is beyond our physical selves, that formless, part of us that hears the rhythm of God’s presence in our lives and moves to it. And we love God with our minds. Several years ago, I saw a poster with one of those portraits of Jesus looking serious. It’s caption says, "He came to take away your sins, not your mind" There are some religious folks, well meaning, I am sure, who believe that faith in God and the ability to think intelligently are incompatible – one can’t have faith in God and think critical, deep thoughts, and by critical, I don’t mean negative, I mean measured, questioning, how does this make sense for me and my relationship with God kind of thoughts.

I guess they never encountered faithful Christians thinkers like Paul Tillich, Howard Thurman, Henri Nouwen, Cornel West, or Barbara Brown Taylor. They are all people who know how to love God heart and mind. We love God heart and mind and we love God with all our strength. It is an effort for some of you to get here today, but you put your strength to it and we praise God that you are here.

We bring our spiritual strength and our emotional strength to loving God. It is not always easy; we feel weak sometimes, weakened by hurt, anger, and disappointment. We feel weakened by circumstances we do not control and which seem to control us. But because we love God with our whole self, heart, soul, mind, and strength, and because God loves us without judgment or condition, we can find what we need when we love God first.

The third thing we do is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Jesus is asking us to do so much more than to chat across the backyard or to mow a sick neighbor’s lawn, or to watch the neighbors house while they are away, or to call a friend daily so you know they are OK. All of that is good for us to do, and we ought to do them gladly.

But Jesus says, our neighbor is whoever has a need and our call is to do all we can to meet that need. Our neighbor is the recipient of a random act of kindness done by us just because it was the right thing to do.

"The most striking biblical example of neighborly love is Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, which appears in Luke only as a transformed version of the present dialog between Jesus an a scribe" (Williamson, p. 228).

We love our neighbors as we love ourselves. When Jesus talks about loving ourselves, he is not inviting us to a time of vanity. He is not asking us to gaze at our reflections in a mirror all day long. He is telling us that the measure by which we love ourselves. We care for ourselves, we want the best for ourselves, we are protective and eager to be fully who we are. We cannot care about other people in a healthy way unless we care for ourselves.

To love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves is the greatest commandment of all, it helps us to put first things first, it is the one by which we are called to live. No other commandment is greater than these.

The scribe declares that Jesus is speaking the truth. He knows because he has studied the words Jesus is saying. Loving God, with all that we have, loving our neighbors and ourselves, says we know what is more important than burnt offerings or anything else.

"Well done", Jesus says, when the scribe sees the truth Jesus is teaching. " you are not far from the kingdom" (v.34). You know how to put first things first". So do we when we continue to strengthen our relationships with God, and then with our neighbor, as we strengthen our own sense of esteem and confidence and worthiness.

"You are close to the kingdom of God. You are not far from knowing how to build a house, a church, a life with God at its foundation".

Mark says that after the way Jesus answered these questions, they did not ask him anything else, they had no more traps to set.

Today, I am glad for the questions they did ask, their questions show us that Jesus was not afraid of hard conversations, he could hear and answer the questions put to him, and he models for us how to answer some questions. Jesus models for us what it is to love God with all that is in us. So, when they ask us how we can praise this one we call the Prince of Peace in such a violent world, and how is it that we declare the oneness of God and the wholeness God intends for the world, and the unity of the church when both are so divided, and what does it mean to speak of abundance in a world of scarcity, and what makes us insist on faith in a world of doubt, we will have an answer. We can look them in the eye and say, we can do it all because we put first things first, we love God, we love our neighbors, we love ourselves.

And because we do, we can have this prayer in us:

"In the security of your love, mighty God, it is well with us. Our work is fulfilling, our relationships reflect your faithfulness, and our ability to trust is strengthened. We are here, seeking an extra measure of reassurance, the restoration of our best selves and the clarification of our responsibilities. You are the builder in whose hands the church can become a community of joy and fulfillment. You keep watch over us, strengthening us to be the church wherever we live and serve. Be known to us now and save all who eagerly await your word" (Lavon Bayler. Led by Love. Cleveland. United Church Press, 1996, p. 154). Thanks be to God. Amen.