23rd Sunday after Pentecost 10/23/05 Title: For Heaven's Sake, What Are You Doing? Text: Matthew 22:33-40
10/23/2005
23rd Sunday after Pentecost
Title: For Heaven’s Sake, What Are You Doing”
Text: Matthew 22:34-40
My fellow Missionaries please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all, we do not deserve your love or forgiveness, yet because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we are assured of your love and forgiveness. Stir up your Holy Spirit in each of us that are gathered here this morning, so that we would take into our very being your words, thus enabling us to be a reflection of your love for all people. Amen
As you might have noticed over the last few Sunday’s the 22nd chapter of Matthew is filled with conflict. Repeatedly, Jesus’ enemies try to humiliate and discredit him. Today we are going to take a look at their third try to do Jesus in.
The Pharisees, whom Jesus has already accused of being hypocrites, in other words pretending to be something they are not, send in one of their most learned, a legal expert in the Law, not civil law, but religious law, to question Jesus, so they could trip him up, thus getting rid of him.
Feigning ignorance and pretending to be seeking some legal advice, the company lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of them all?” Now on the surface that question sounds simple enough, what harm could it cause to answer it?
But, Jesus knows that there is a hidden agenda in that question. For a moment he plays along by giving the lawyer and those with him an answer straight from the Shema, which by the way is a liturgical prayer consisting of three scripture passages from the Torah that are spoken twice a day by religious Jews. The purpose of the prayer was to affirm to those hearing it that the person praying loved God above everything else. But Jesus gives them more than the answer they expected. He links the love of God to the love of neighbor, which in itself should not have been a surprise to them, for it too only reflected the best of Levitical writing.
It appears that the Pharisees, their lawyer, and Jesus should be in agreement, but we know they are not, for in their question they are really asking, “For heavens sake, what are you doing?” In other words, “What must a person do to please God?”
As I studied the text it became apparent that the Pharisees and their legalistic friends, even though they would not admit it, were beginning to see that if Jesus were allowed to continue his teaching of love and forgiveness, that their massive, and I mean massive, religious legal system consisting of 613 commandments, 365 prohibitions and 248 positive precepts was in danger of being dismantled.
Jesus had to be discredited and gotten rid of, because their whole religion rested on the assumption that their system of moral rules was the only way to please God. If Jesus took that away, what would be left? They would have nothing to fall back on and then what would they do. Jesus’ teachings were striking at the very core of who they were and they couldn’t handle it. They had to hang on to the past for heavens sake.
We have a tendency to demonize the Pharisees, but you need to remember that the Pharisees were not thought of as being evil. They were just trying to protect the way they worshiped God, for their style of worship and Levitical laws provided them security and gave them a sense of identity. They just could not turn loose of the old ways, because this new teaching of love and forgiveness, of being free from laws and traditions just did not fit their religion model. There simply had to be something that one had to do to please God.
To better understand what Jesus meant when he said to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself, we need to get an understanding of what the word love meant in Jesus’ and Matthew’s time.
The understanding of love to the mid-eastern cultural is so far removed from our understanding of love, that it is almost impossible for us to understand it, but we need to understand it, so that we then can grasp the significance of Jesus’ words to us.
You see, the First-century Mediterranean people had no sense of being an individual, for they were extremely group oriented. They understood that a meaningful human existence required total reliance on the group in which they were born, or married into. The group actually provided a person with their sense of self. In other words, the group gave them their individual identity.
But it did more than provide them with their identity; it supported or hindered their choices of behavior. When you think about it, the group that one belonged to was the person’s external conscience.
So, when we look at the word love in that culture we see that it really means “group attachment.” There may or not be affection, but there is always the sense of a feeling of attachment, along with the outward behavior that is bound up with that attachment.
Now that you know that love as it is used in this text means attachment, hopefully you will have a better understanding when Jesus says to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself, he means that you are to have a total attachment to God and neighbor, the same type of attachment that you have for your immediate family.
So what does that have to do with you today, you might be asking. Well in the first place it means that your feelings of love toward God and your neighbor really don’t mean a lot, for it is your attachment toward God and your neighbor that counts.
You see love for God and neighbor is not like that feeling you get as you look at your new baby. It is not that wonderful breath taking feeling you get when you see that person of your dreams. It is not even that feeling that two good friends have for each other as they go through thick and thin. Love for God and neighbor is not about how one feels, it is about one’s attachment to God and neighbor.
It is that the love, that attachment, that is shown by Jesus as he willingly and with no thought for himself, gave himself to the soldiers to be nailed to the cross. It is a love that has been born out of an attachment to his human creation that he cannot separate himself from.
And because of that love, that attachment that Jesus has to us, we have been given the power to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And that love, that attachment to God frees us from the selfish obsession that we always have to get something back when we love our neighbor. You know, at least a thank you to express their gratitude for something that you did for them.
But you say you haven’t always loved your neighbor as yourself, in fact you say you really don’t know who your neighbor is. I mean, is Jesus talking about my next door neighbor, my family members, the neighbor down the block, fellow church members, my old neighbors where I used to live, just who are my neighbors, just who is he talking about?
If you don’t know who the neighbors are that Jesus is talking about, you more than likely are also having some doubts about your ability to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, for loving God that way, knowing who your neighbor is, and loving them as yourself cannot be separated.
Are you troubled knowing that you have not loved God or your neighbor enough? Now is the time to listen to what I have to say to you this morning. Quit trying to answer the question, “For heavens sake, what are you doing?” and focus on answering the question, “What on earth has heaven done for your sake?”
For when you are focusing on answering the question, “What on earth has heaven done for your sake?” you will no longer be focusing on what it is that you have to do to make brownie points with God. You will know that God planned for your salvation from the beginning of creation, that Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah, the promised Son of David, who fulfilled the law of love and made you his own, for here on earth and for heaven. That is Good News, my fellow missionaries. Amen
23rd Sunday after Pentecost
Title: For Heaven’s Sake, What Are You Doing”
Text: Matthew 22:34-40
My fellow Missionaries please join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all, we do not deserve your love or forgiveness, yet because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we are assured of your love and forgiveness. Stir up your Holy Spirit in each of us that are gathered here this morning, so that we would take into our very being your words, thus enabling us to be a reflection of your love for all people. Amen
As you might have noticed over the last few Sunday’s the 22nd chapter of Matthew is filled with conflict. Repeatedly, Jesus’ enemies try to humiliate and discredit him. Today we are going to take a look at their third try to do Jesus in.
The Pharisees, whom Jesus has already accused of being hypocrites, in other words pretending to be something they are not, send in one of their most learned, a legal expert in the Law, not civil law, but religious law, to question Jesus, so they could trip him up, thus getting rid of him.
Feigning ignorance and pretending to be seeking some legal advice, the company lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of them all?” Now on the surface that question sounds simple enough, what harm could it cause to answer it?
But, Jesus knows that there is a hidden agenda in that question. For a moment he plays along by giving the lawyer and those with him an answer straight from the Shema, which by the way is a liturgical prayer consisting of three scripture passages from the Torah that are spoken twice a day by religious Jews. The purpose of the prayer was to affirm to those hearing it that the person praying loved God above everything else. But Jesus gives them more than the answer they expected. He links the love of God to the love of neighbor, which in itself should not have been a surprise to them, for it too only reflected the best of Levitical writing.
It appears that the Pharisees, their lawyer, and Jesus should be in agreement, but we know they are not, for in their question they are really asking, “For heavens sake, what are you doing?” In other words, “What must a person do to please God?”
As I studied the text it became apparent that the Pharisees and their legalistic friends, even though they would not admit it, were beginning to see that if Jesus were allowed to continue his teaching of love and forgiveness, that their massive, and I mean massive, religious legal system consisting of 613 commandments, 365 prohibitions and 248 positive precepts was in danger of being dismantled.
Jesus had to be discredited and gotten rid of, because their whole religion rested on the assumption that their system of moral rules was the only way to please God. If Jesus took that away, what would be left? They would have nothing to fall back on and then what would they do. Jesus’ teachings were striking at the very core of who they were and they couldn’t handle it. They had to hang on to the past for heavens sake.
We have a tendency to demonize the Pharisees, but you need to remember that the Pharisees were not thought of as being evil. They were just trying to protect the way they worshiped God, for their style of worship and Levitical laws provided them security and gave them a sense of identity. They just could not turn loose of the old ways, because this new teaching of love and forgiveness, of being free from laws and traditions just did not fit their religion model. There simply had to be something that one had to do to please God.
To better understand what Jesus meant when he said to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself, we need to get an understanding of what the word love meant in Jesus’ and Matthew’s time.
The understanding of love to the mid-eastern cultural is so far removed from our understanding of love, that it is almost impossible for us to understand it, but we need to understand it, so that we then can grasp the significance of Jesus’ words to us.
You see, the First-century Mediterranean people had no sense of being an individual, for they were extremely group oriented. They understood that a meaningful human existence required total reliance on the group in which they were born, or married into. The group actually provided a person with their sense of self. In other words, the group gave them their individual identity.
But it did more than provide them with their identity; it supported or hindered their choices of behavior. When you think about it, the group that one belonged to was the person’s external conscience.
So, when we look at the word love in that culture we see that it really means “group attachment.” There may or not be affection, but there is always the sense of a feeling of attachment, along with the outward behavior that is bound up with that attachment.
Now that you know that love as it is used in this text means attachment, hopefully you will have a better understanding when Jesus says to love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself, he means that you are to have a total attachment to God and neighbor, the same type of attachment that you have for your immediate family.
So what does that have to do with you today, you might be asking. Well in the first place it means that your feelings of love toward God and your neighbor really don’t mean a lot, for it is your attachment toward God and your neighbor that counts.
You see love for God and neighbor is not like that feeling you get as you look at your new baby. It is not that wonderful breath taking feeling you get when you see that person of your dreams. It is not even that feeling that two good friends have for each other as they go through thick and thin. Love for God and neighbor is not about how one feels, it is about one’s attachment to God and neighbor.
It is that the love, that attachment, that is shown by Jesus as he willingly and with no thought for himself, gave himself to the soldiers to be nailed to the cross. It is a love that has been born out of an attachment to his human creation that he cannot separate himself from.
And because of that love, that attachment that Jesus has to us, we have been given the power to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And that love, that attachment to God frees us from the selfish obsession that we always have to get something back when we love our neighbor. You know, at least a thank you to express their gratitude for something that you did for them.
But you say you haven’t always loved your neighbor as yourself, in fact you say you really don’t know who your neighbor is. I mean, is Jesus talking about my next door neighbor, my family members, the neighbor down the block, fellow church members, my old neighbors where I used to live, just who are my neighbors, just who is he talking about?
If you don’t know who the neighbors are that Jesus is talking about, you more than likely are also having some doubts about your ability to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, for loving God that way, knowing who your neighbor is, and loving them as yourself cannot be separated.
Are you troubled knowing that you have not loved God or your neighbor enough? Now is the time to listen to what I have to say to you this morning. Quit trying to answer the question, “For heavens sake, what are you doing?” and focus on answering the question, “What on earth has heaven done for your sake?”
For when you are focusing on answering the question, “What on earth has heaven done for your sake?” you will no longer be focusing on what it is that you have to do to make brownie points with God. You will know that God planned for your salvation from the beginning of creation, that Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah, the promised Son of David, who fulfilled the law of love and made you his own, for here on earth and for heaven. That is Good News, my fellow missionaries. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 1:42 PM
|
0 comments
