Hymns: They’ll Know We Are Christians, This is My Song, This is My Father’s World
Good morning and happy Sunday to you. I am Darci Strutt McQuiston, one of the Lay Speakers of our congregation. Rev Dawn invited me into the pulpit this morning because she has spent the week doing the work of the church at a virtual annual conference. It is my honor to be with you today. I am glad you are worshiping with us. Welcome.
The current scriptures we are dealing with these past few weeks are important. Timeline-wise, Jesus is in his last week of life on earth. That means the Pharisees and Sadducees are both trying to trap him because the political issues are coming to a head. Just last Sunday, in their time, Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem which no doubt Rome noticed, and this makes the Jewish leaders nervous. Jesus is also thinking about what final lessons he wants to teach before he returns to his Father in heaven. That sets the stage for us.
I am going to focus on the scripture from Matthew and hit three ideas:
Love God
Love your neighbor
Recognize God and the Messiah, Jesus, are above earthly
rulers
The scripture from Matthew is one that is familiar to most, and hopefully all, Christians. It is what we call the great commandment. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” That one seems to be straightforward and uncontroversial. Then Jesus adds in the second one, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus was not making these commands up. The first is known as the Shema and is taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-9:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your
hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit
at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get
up.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your
foreheads.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your
gates.
The second is from the book of Leviticus 19:18
“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among
your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”
According to Wikipedia there are 613 Jewish laws so asking what were the most important is not a foolish question. The Shema was considered important by all already, but Jesus was the first to match it with the requirement to love neighbor.
Our founder, John Wesley, captured those two commandments in his three rules. Do no harm. Do good. Stay in love with God. It sounds so simple. The first two rules have to do with loving what God loves, which includes how we treat all of creation including our fellow humans. The third is a rephrase of the great commandment. Love God.
So simple and yet it feels like we are failing so miserably.
The love we are dealing with is not a feeling. It is a decision. Love is described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.”
Love of God is commandment one, so let us deal with it first.
How do we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind? I do not have a pat answer. Since Jesus compared our relationship to him as a bride, maybe I can compare it to the love I experience with my husband. The path toward love began with getting to know him. Caring enough to get to know him deeply. Translating that to God could be studying the Bible to get to know God as the people before us understood God.
As my love blossomed with my husband I wanted to spend more time together and share my day. When I think about how that would look between me and God the example that pops into my head is Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. His whole day was a conversation with God. He thanked God and complained to God. He attempted to bargain with God – Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if I were a wealthy man? If you have not watched the movie in a while, I encourage you to watch it with fresh eyes and notice Tevye’s intimate relationship with God through his dialog.
Earlier this year my group did a Bible study on the book “The Walk” by Adam Hamilton. It included praying as an essential practice of the Christian life. The recommendation was to pray in the morning and evening, and at your three meals. Five times a day bring God into your heart and mind for conversation. It is helpful to have triggers that make you think of God but ultimately, I think God would like us to share our days with him like we would a friend.
As my relationship to my husband grew, the relationship became more important than my individual desires. I went from thinking about what was good for me to thinking about what was good for us. I desired his happiness as well as my own. I tried to imagine how my decisions would impact him and was sensitive to his feelings.
These days when a woman is pregnant the couple says “they” are pregnant. I used to think that was foolish because the baby was clearly being carried by the woman alone. Then I realized it was the relationship that was pregnant. It was the relationship that was being joined by that little baby. By both being named as pregnant they were stating their love was what was carrying the child.
My current Wednesday morning Bible study is focused on Jacob’s son Joseph. He saw an act against another as a sin against God. The relationship he had with his fellow humans was important, but his focus was on what pain his actions could cause his relationship to God.
Joseph continually gave credit to God for his wisdom. He understood it was God working through him that gave him success. His relationship to God was so strong that he did not see himself as separate from that relationship. Joseph gives us an example of loving God.
God is worthy of our love. We love God because God first loved us. Jesus called God his Father and us his adopted children. The love of a good parent is strong. I smile at remembering one of my niece’s comments when she felt her cousins were not accepting her. She remarked, “Nobody likes me accept my parents and they HAVE to!” God did not have to love us, but he does, and our proper response is to love Him back.
The second command is called “like” the first, which means similar but not equal. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love and care for yourself is assumed. If we love God, then we must respect what he loves. God loves the whole world. That is a tougher one.
1 John 4:20 “Those who say, “I love God” and hate their brothers or sisters are liars. After all, those who don’t love their brothers or sisters whom they have seen can hardly love God whom they have not seen!”
We are to love ourselves and others because God loves us and others. We are not in the business of loving because someone may have power to make our life easier or give us more status. We are to love because that is who we are called to be.
1 John 4:7 “Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.”
They will know we are Christians by our love. This is the greatest testimony we can give to the world.
In Luke 10:25-37 we see these same two commands stated by a legal expert. He follows up with a question, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus gives the parable of the good Samaritan as a reply.
The question was “who is my neighbor” but Jesus response was an image of how to be a good neighbor. The parable of the good Samaritan is about a man who gets robbed and beaten up while traveling and, after being passed by many the Jews would have considered to be good people, a Samaritan, who was not considered to be a respectable person, stops and cares for him. In the end Jesus reframes the question and asks, “what do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?” Of course, it is the one who acted in a neighborly way.
As humans we judge others to determine if they are worthy of our love. Jesus’ takes the judgement out of it and instead asks us to look at how good we are at being neighborly. How well are we sharing love? In many verses of scripture Jesus directed us to turn from judging others and instead work on improving ourselves. God will work on others. God through the holy spirit is asking us to work on ourselves.
We are called to love as God loves which includes acting in loving ways toward many who we may think do not deserve it. We often do not deserve it but by grace God still pours his love out on us!
I did not always agree with what my husband believed. There were times I outright vehemently disagreed to the point of raising our voices at each other. Yet, the relationship was more important than the situation that caused the disagreement. This is how we showed love to each other. We debated and at times attempted to change the others point of view, but we did not stop loving and respecting each other.
It helps if we remember that we each are growing and changing throughout our lives. I do not know if I would invite my younger self over for coffee. Her views are not my views. Yet I have compassion for my younger self and understand she was doing the best she could at the time. If that is true even as I look at my younger self deserving love, then how much more that needs to be considered as I look at others.
I am speaking to you during a time of conflict and intense emotions. We have an election in process that has driven neighbor against neighbor. We have a virus that science is struggling to understand, and the impact of leaders attempts to protect their people has driven neighbor against neighbor. The topic of climate change and how to care for our planet has driven neighbor against neighbor. Examining justice for people of different races and cultures has driven neighbor against neighbor
Add in social media that seems to encourage speaking without thinking and it feels like love is a far-off goal. The energy I feel around me is often that of hatred and fear, not love. I am betting even just hearing me read those issues caused your stomach to feel tense.
Hatred and fear are not of God. Love and peace are of God.
I am going to touch on the second half of our Matthew reading. The question Jesus asked the Pharisees after answering theirs is “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They knew from scripture the answer was the son of David. Then Jesus quotes Psalm 110 with a question, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”
It was a mic drop moment. No one was able to give him an answer.
The Gospel of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus which traced him back to David. If Jesus was the Messiah, this means he was Lord even over kings. God was over the country’s leader, and so was the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Being a singing person the lyric from the Hallelujah Chorus comes to mind.
The kingdom of this world is become
The kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ, and of his Christ
And he shall reign forever and ever.
A pandemic gives us a clue as to how interrelated our planet is. A virus does not stop at country borders because our earth has a single atmosphere. Depending on the winds, we can smell the fires in Colorado. God’s spirit also covers the whole earth. God’s love extends to all. He has got the whole world in his hands. To love as God commands certainly does set us apart from the world. It also is impossible without help from the Holy Spirit.
I am proud to be within our country. I feel very blessed to be born here. I need to say that clearly. As Christians we are members of two kingdoms. Dual citizenship if you will. We have a foot in our country and a foot in the kingdom of God.
The hymn “This World is Not My Home” is going through my head.
This world is not my home I’m just a passin’ through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door.
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
In the beginning the people of Israel only had God as their leader. Then they demanded God give them a King so they could be like all the other nations around them. The king was to be a servant leader and recognize the ultimate authority was God. There was no separation of church and state back then.
In Jesus time the people were under Roman occupation. Caesar was not a servant leader that looked to God. Caesar thought he was a god himself and demanded respect as one. The people needed to survive as members of the Roman community as well as members of their faith community.
Jesus teachings point out this dual citizenship is not on equal footing. Just earlier in this chapter in Matthew the Pharisees asked him about taxes and Rev Dawn dealt with this scripture last Sunday, so I won’t repeat it except to say that the verse, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God,” makes me smile. What can Caesar have without God granting it to him? Jesus turned their question on its head. All we have is but passing through our hands. It is God that has it all within his hands.
The Bible does not say we should disrespect authority. 1Timothy 2:2 says, “Pray for kings and everyone who is in authority so that we can live a quiet and peaceful life in complete godliness and dignity.”
Paul’s letter to Titus 3:1 “Remind them to submit to rulers and authorities. They should be obedient and ready to do every good thing.”
As Christians, we need to remember that the ultimate King of kings and Lord of lords is God. Humans will die.
Psalm 90 is also assigned for this Sunday. Verses 2-6 speak to this.
Before the mountains were born, before you birthed the earth
and the inhabited world – from forever in the past to forever in the future,
you are God.
You return people to dust, saying, “Go back, humans,” because
in your perspective a thousand years are like yesterday past, like a short
period during the night watch.
You sweep humans away like a dream, like grass that is
renewed in the morning.
True in the morning it thrives, renewed, but come evening it
withers, all dried up.
God remains. We are about to elect a leader for our country for the next four years. The past few elections have felt full of emotion and I am not making light of the strong beliefs people have, but we cannot forget that God is God of all the nations. The citizenship that is lasting is our membership in the kingdom of God. Our earthly kingdoms and political structures are dust in comparison.
My time with you is nearly done for today. Here is what I hope you take away from my words.
Love God. This is about relationship. Seek to know him. Spend time together. Share yourself with God as you would a special loved one. Jesus gave us a face to see God. We can learn so much from his example of loving God the father. Our primary command is to love him.
Love others. God’s love for us has never been deserved and we need to keep that in mind as we are called to love as God loves. The command has nothing in it about waiting to see if the person is worthy of love or will show love to us back. The command to love has little to do with the person we are loving at all. It is concerned only that we love them. We are not asked to feel love: we are asked to BE love.
I do not know what heaven will be like. I do not know what my resurrected body will look like. I feel in my heart that it is by our love that we will know one another. Our love will become our heavenly fingerprint. It will be developed throughout our lifetime on earth. It is the identity worth cultivating.
Lastly, remember God is above all earthly kingdoms. Support your family, your community, your state, and your country. Please pray for wisdom, do your research, and do your civic duty and vote. Decan Susan gave us multiple prayers to pray in our Daily Church Epistle on Tuesday. A parking lot evening prayer service is being planned for the Monday before election night. Our attention and care for these earthly connections has importance but they are not to be our highest loves. God is above all. The world is his. We can rest in that thought.
Our first hymn today spoke of the fingerprint of love. Others will know we are Christians by our love. It includes being in community with each other as members of Christ’s family. Claiming to follow Christ is not as strong a statement as living a life that follows Christ’s commands.
The hymn we will hear next is a song recognizing God as ruler of all the nations and asks us to look for the day when we will all be united when Christ’s kingdom comes.
Our final song of the day takes it one step further. All of creation is God’s to rule. We are to be his hands and trust God is the ruler even if things seem out of control to our eyes.
My Bible study this past Wednesday ended with a question. Who in your sphere of influence needs to know the Redeemer? How are you making the love of Jesus know to him or her?
Those questions were timely and here I am. I do not know the power of my influence, but I am here to share Jesus words. Jesus showed us God’s love for us. God loves us so much he adopted us as his children. The creator of the world desires us to call him Father. Jesus loved us enough to die on a cross to redeem us.
Our response to this wonderous love is to love back. The greatest command is to love.
Amen
