Manning Monday

Jesus is not opaque about where his mind was focused:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must "I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered, "Love the Lord your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind"; and "Love your neighbor as yourself." "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:25-29)

Jesus replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain the second part of the great commandment. But no one asked him to explain the first part of the great commandment. Even today we spend a great deal of time in our churches talking about loving our neighbors (although we spend far too little time actually doing so), and yet we rarely consider what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. (The Importance of Being Foolish, page 84)

He's right, you know. I can think of a half dozen sermons in recent memory that were, in essence, how to love our neighbors. But...how to love God... not so much.

However, I have to say that in some ways, how we love our neighbors is an act of worship, isn't it? I mean, loving God can be expressed in loving our neighbors. Jesus said "Whatsoever ye have done unto the least of these my brethren ye have done unto me" (Matthew 25:40sorry, I learned the old RSV of that verse) which suggests to me that "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" is more than just "moral living" but is an act of worship.

1 John 3: 11-14

¹¹This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹²Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. ¹³Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. ¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

So, loving our neighbor reveals how we love God. If we don't love the people around us, how can we say we love God? And does that include the really bad people? The mean people? The selfish people?...how about the pedophiles and prostitutes and cheaters and liars and...?

But...Manning is right about us not really seeking to understand and experience fully how to love the Lord our God with...well, all we are.

I had a class in seminary co-taught by a Jewish Rabbi. It was an interesting class, getting a more Jewish perspective on both the Old and New Testaments. One thing that has stuck with me from the class was the Rabbi's statement that "The Torah is not just rules, but it's a lifestyle that pleases God."

We've been talking about Law and Spirit in worship the past couple weeks (we've been touring through Galatians) and so I think this is appropriate. We don't follow the Law as Christ followers, we follow the Holy Spirit. But we too easily throw away the Law, too, as if nothing in that applies to us. Here's the truth as I see it: we don't look to the Law (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) as in any way saving us - following the Law does not bring salvation - but the Law gives us a good set of guidelines for what would be a life that pleases God. I mean, can we really argue against the ten commandments? Yeah, I'll just follow nine of them (you can figure out which one I don't want to follow) thank you very much.

Jesus himself talked an awful lot about right living - have you read the Sermon on the Mount? (Matthew 5-7) I mean, there's a whole lot about how we treat one another - how we live our lives - and in so living, we honor God and...love Him.