November 2, 2003
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One
of the things I like about the game show Jeopardy! is the way the host provides
the answers and contestants provide the questions. For instance, the answer is
the oldest Disciples of Christ congregation in Columbus, Ohio. The question
is…..what is Broad Street Christian Church. Last
Thursday’s show was especially exciting. There was a huge gap between the
person in first and second place and the person who was in third place. In the
last round, which the avid Jeopardy! watchers among us know is called Final
Jeopardy! contestants are able to bet some or all of their earnings on one last
answer. The game is winner take all, so the one who wins this round wins the
game and the other two leave with lovely parting gifts. Thursday
night after the first two rounds, the returning champion was ahead by several
thousand dollars. The Final Jeopardy! category was “Latin Lingo” and the
answer was, “from the Latin for how much, it is an indivisible physical
amount?” The
person in third place bet all she had and was stunned when to realize that she
had asked the correct question. The other two asked different incorrect
questions, and because they bet more, they lost more and the woman who had been
last was first and lived to be on Jeopardy! one more day. The question by the
way is what is quantum? Today
begins the first of four stewardship sermons as we prepare for consecration
Sunday on November 16, and for Thanksgiving Sunday the next week. A steward
takes care of what belongs to another. What God has created and given us the
grace to acquire and hold is ours to keep in trust. We have been given so much
by God, what we do with it is a matter of our stewardship. We begin with the
stewardship of the relationships. The answer is listen to what Jesus says. The
question is how are we to become good stewards of our relationships? That
day long ago as Jesus stood answering questions, he knew both the questions and
the answers necessary to put us in right relationship with God and with each
other. We enter the story as Jesus is overheard by one religious leader as he
debates with another. The
Sadducees were the righteous ones, really the self-righteous ones. They were
stricter than the Pharisees and more elitist since they spent most of their time
with the wealthiest members of the community. They did not believe in the
resurrection or in the immortality of the soul. In
the verses just before our lesson one of the Sadducees says to Jesus:
“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife
but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his
brother. There were seven brothers, the first married and when he died, left no
children; and the second married the widow and died, leaving no children; and
the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all, the woman
herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had
married her.” My
temptation would have been to say to them, you do not believe in the
resurrection, why do you care? But Jesus answers their question in way that
exposes their lack of knowledge. “Is
not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the
power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given
in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised,
have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God
said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong” (19-27
New Revised Standard Version). Along
comes a scribe, a member of the learned and leadership class with another
question. Impressed with the way Jesus answered the Sadducees, he wanted to know
what else Jesus knew. The scribe is like we are when we hear a song on the radio
or see a video on television, and want to know more about the musicians. I am a
big fan of Peter Gomes. I like the way he thinks, I like the way he writes, and
I love the New England accent that can be heard in his speech. I had never heard
of Peter Gomes until one evening several years ago when I saw him interviewed on
“60 Minutes”. He was talking about his life and what was at the time his
newest book, The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart. Based
on that interview I went out the next day and bought his book the next day. By
the way the church has a couple of copies of The Good Book in the
library. I recommend it highly. Having
heard Jesus answer the Sadducees, the scribe is moved to ask a question of his
own. “Which is the greatest commandment? Of all the things God says we must
and must not do, what is the most essential for living a faithful life? Jesus
answers that is all about relationships. The
gospel of Mark was written in a time when Christians were accused of worshiping
many Gods at the same time since they spoke of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Mark has Jesus say that there is but one God, known as the creator of life, the
redeemer of life and the sustainer of life – three ways of being known, but
one God. The God we worship, adore,
and praise is one God. Our first relationship is with God. “Hear O Israel,
listen nation, community, congregation of God’s good people, the Lord your God
is one”. Jesus
goes on to say that once we know who God is – our response is to love and
bless God with everything that is in us. “The commandment to love God with
heart, soul, and mind bases our love for God as a grateful response to God’s
love for us” (Interpretation Series. Mark.
Lamar Williamson, Jr. Atlanta: John Knox Press. 1983, p.227). After
all, the heart is the center of emotions, feeling, moods, and passions. It is
where we feel joy, grief, bad moods, love, courage, fear, arrogance, and
humility. The soul refers to ones life – it is about vitality, it represents
the totality of the human person. The mind is the seat of contemplation,
judgment and intention. It can describe our mind set and attitude. Paul (Romans
12.2) encourages us to be not conformed to the world, but rather to be
transformed by the renewal of our minds” (Harpers
Bible Dictionary. San Francisco: Harper & Row. 1985, p.377; 982-983;
637-638). We are called to love God. And
we are called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
But what attitudes do we bring to our neighbors? Some of us have good
relationships with our neighbors. We know their names, we recognized their cars,
we collect each others mail when we are away.
We are good neighbors to each other.
To
love our neighbor is to care for our neighborhoods – it is to want to live in
safe decent affordable housing and to want the same and work for the same for
others. Loving our neighbors means supporting quality education without regard
to income or zip code and affordable high quality health care for everyone. It
is to see our neighborhood as including the places where we live and the places
where others live. Jesus calls us to have a wide view of our neighborhood. Our
neighborhood is Columbus and Gahanna, Pickerington, and Worthington. It is Ohio
and every state. It is the United States and Canada in the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ), and it is every nation where God’s people are. It is
the continent of Africa where AIDS is destroying generations and so the future
of nations. It is any country where people live as we do, and it is Iraq where
people die daily. Our neighborhood includes people who look like us and think
like us and vote like us and people who do not. Jesus says love them all. They
are your neighbors. Love them as you love yourself. Our
attitudes have everything to do with how we are in relationship with each other.
Do we expect to dominate and empower others, do we believe that God has given
gifts to me and not to you – or to you and not to me? Has God worked in us to
help us get that we all depend on God and are in mutual
relationship with each other – called to respect one another in the
roles we have and for the people we are? Loving
our neighbors as we love ourselves means that “we are tolerant of, have time
for, are interested in, make excuses for, deeply desire the welfare of our
neighbor in the same way that we have these attitudes toward ourselves” (Williamson,
p.228). Wait
a minute, like I love myself? Isn’t loving myself selfish and conceited? No.
Do not confuse loving yourself with narcissism, which means being so
self-centered that we cannot make room for anyone else. Don’t confuse loving
yourself with hubris – which is overwhelming pride that crosses over into
arrogance. Loving ourselves does not mean we are the center of the universe. It
does mean that we know that we are blessed to have a place in the universe that
God has created. I
want us to hear clearly that it is a good thing to love ourselves. If we cannot
be in right relationship with ourselves, how can we be in right relationship
with God or humanity? I want us to know our strengths and weaknesses, our limits
and possibilities, and the balance between pride and humility. It is what
healthy people do. What
is the greatest commandment? The answer is to love God and to love our neighbors
as we love ourselves. No commandment is greater. After
Jesus answers the scribe, a man who has spent much of his life studying and
writing about such things tells Jesus that he has answered well. To love God is
indeed better than any sacrifice we could make. Jesus tells the scribe that he
gets it, and the kingdom is not far from him. We
are not far from the kingdom of God when we live out the Great Commandment. As
we love God we will worship God. The Psalm we heard today begins and ends with
the same words, “Praise the Lord!” It
and the all of the Psalms that follow begin and end with “Praise the Lord!” Praise
the God who unlike Princes and Prime Ministers and Presidents will not come and
go, but who will be with us forever. Praise God who reminds us that if we love
God, we will love and serve our neighbors. Praise God who helps us understand
that our joy comes from the God who created us and God will not break faith with
us. Today
we can praise God for the relationships that nurture us. We can thank and praise
God for knowing the answer to the question what is the greatest commandment
is…that we love God, and we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We love
the ones in our home, in the classroom, at work, where we play, where we pray,
as we love ourselves in a way that is indivisible and can only be measured by
all the ways we respond to God’s love for us. Praise
the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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