WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Text: Matthew 22:34-46
What a setting for a confrontation! It was the final, culminating week of Jesus’ earthly ministry. He had already made his triumphal entry into the holy city of Jerusalem, hailed as the son of David, the successor to the throne of Israel, the new Solomon, the one who comes, filled with power and wisdom, in the name of the Lord. He has cleansed the temple of those who defiled God’s house of prayer. He has defeated the Sadducees in open debate over taxes and resurrection. One might say he is “on a roll” though there is certainly danger all around and sorrow surely lies ahead.
Now he is confronted by the Pharisees, led by a leading Scribe, one of the foremost experts on the law. In his most unctuous manner the lawyer approaches Jesus. With a charming smile and in mellifluous tones he asks, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Is there a place deep in his soul where he truly wants to hear the Rabbi’s honest answer? Perhaps, but it is not what Matthew shows us here. On the whole, Jesus has aggravated the religious leaders and temple authorities to the point that they are plotting to do away with him. It seems much more likely, from Matthew’s perspective, that the test laid out for Jesus in this confrontation is one more attempt to catch him in some act of blasphemy or sedition. This is not the first such attempt in Matthew’s gospel, but it is the last.
By most accounts there are some 613 laws in the Torah, the first books in the Hebrew Bible that comprise the Mosaic code; of them, 365 are negative and 248 positive. These laws served many purposes – to secure the identity of the Jewish people through the observance of codes of purity, to sustain their high calling as God’s chosen people, to spell out the terms of the covenant between God and people. Dan Clendenin says that “the purity laws of Leviticus…encompass nearly every aspect of being human – birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, agriculture, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and even ethnicity (Gentiles were automatically considered impure)” (Daniel B. Clendenin, "Humanizing Holiness: Are Some Commandments More Important Than Others?" The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, October 20, 2008.)
Though this was not an election year in Israel, the Sadducees and the Pharisees were among the parties jockeying for power and control in the practice of Judaism. Julie Galambush tells us that the Sadducees were “Judea’s aristocrats, either descended from high priestly families or…connected with the temple hierarchy though their wealth.” She says, “The Sanhedrin was controlled by Sadducees…Members of the wealthy upper class, the Sadducees tended to support Roman rule. They were religiously conservative, accepting no beliefs (in particular the belief in a resurrection) that did not appear in the Torah.” (Julie Galambush, The Reluctant Parting, p. 9)
On the other hand, she says, “The Pharisees seem to have been drawn from merchant and land-holding classes. They held seats on the Sanhedrin and exercised varying degrees of political power in different periods. The Pharisees…were more punctilious in observing religious law than most Jews, a fact that ‘separated’ them from the generally less stringent populace. The law followed by the Pharisees was, however, biblical law as filtered through the interpretations of ‘the elders,’ a tradition of Pharasaic teachings known as the Oral Torah…The Pharisees considered their application of the law to be more rigorous than and therefore superior to that of either the average Jew or the Sadducees. (Galambush, pp. 9-10)
In Matthew’s gospel we get an accounting of a third party within Judaism, that of the Jesus Movement. I think it is not altogether inappropriate in our own high political season to see some of the tensions among these parties as similar to the sorts of tension and jockeying for position that arise when disparate groups are battling for power and authority. Today’s text tells us that Jesus has already silenced the Sadducees in a similar attempt to trick him into openly speaking heresy. In other confrontations with both Sadducees and Pharisees, Jesus has effectively shut them up and kept them frustrated by the wisdom and righteousness of his responses to their challenges. Parables, clever sayings, turning their questions back on them, he has passed their every test and with each success he has become more popular with the common folk.
Now the stage is set. He is in Jerusalem, on their turf, not roaming the Galilean countryside with his rag tag group of followers. He is before the Pharisees “top gun,” a lawyer of surpassing skill. The gauntlet has been thrown. The crowd senses that any response is likely to be wrong. How can he possibly choose one law over all the others? Surely they have him trapped this time.
But, no, his response is both wise and clever, true and unassailable. He quotes the ancient text: “You shall love Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The prime commandment in Jewish law is to love God with one’s whole being. The truth of the matter is that human beings were made for this very purpose – to love God completely. This is the core of their covenant with God. Human beings were created to be in loving relationship, in communion with God. And before they can catch a breath, he adds a codicil, “’You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” One simply cannot love God without loving both self and neighbor and vice versa. Two commandments so alike that they are inseparable. All the truth of the law, all the power of the prophets is dependent on these two simple interlocking rules.
Just to seal the deal, to ensure that they are fully aware of the teacher with whom they are dealing, he asks them a question. In one sense it seems an obscure and irrelevant question, but in other ways it establishes him as an expert in his own right on the fine points of their tradition, it shows his cleverness in catching them up with a question they cannot answer and, most importantly, it gives an oblique insight into how he himself is the Messiah, descended from David yet preceding David in his heavenly origin.
So it’s an interesting Bible story, one that juxtaposes a very familiar and beloved passage with an obscure one that we hardly ever consider. But, in the end what’s the good news for us? And, while we’re at it, what’s love got to do with it? Now obviously, I have stolen this title from that chart-topping number by the great Tina Turner. In the song, as someone who has been around the block and seen a few things, she considers the possibility of a new relationship from a fairly jaded perspective. How can she ever trust another man? Still it’s a powerful love song. As she struggles to devalue the possibility of one more lover’s touch and she sings:
“…whats love got to do…with it?
What`s love but a second hand emotion?
What`s love but a sweet old fashioned notion?
What`s love got to do…with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?”
A well-healed Saducee, a top of his profession Pharasaic lawyer, a weary woman of the world, a high tech employee. a Mexican immigrant struggling to make it, Joe the plumber, a starving child in Haiti, a suburban soccer (or hockey) mom, these and so many others look at life and say, “What’s love got to do with it?” We see the consequences of hatred and enmity, we look at the horrors of war, we experience the frightening results of greed on people and planet and we wonder, “What’s love got to do with it?” We see savings go down the drain, we open our ballots and the complex voters’ guide, we wonder at the ineptitude of government, we note that many people look on the church with disdain or apathy, we face our own mortality and we ask, “What’s love got to do with it?” And we, too, are confronted by Jesus, the Messiah, God’s holy one, whose response is wise and true and clear, “Everything, my little ones. Everything!”
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we discussed the Ten Commandments and I suggested in the Time for Children that one rule or commandment we might consider in making our own list is “Love makes the world go ‘round.” Now I know this can be taken as a sentimental notion, reflecting the sweet little song of the same title. But the love of which Jesus speaks means much more. It, in fact, is a source of great power. If, as we sometimes claim, God is love, then it is the source of ultimate power. Perhaps it does make the world go around and we’re not even aware, thinking that somehow wealth and weapons are the real sources of power in the world. Jesus seems to side with love.
This is not easy sentimental love born wholly of soft warm feelings. It is love that requires an unwavering commitment to the Source and the subjects of our love. Yes, Tina, is right. It does involve the heart which can be so easily broken, but it also involves mind and soul and strength. What if, with every breath I took, every thought that ran through my mind, with every action of my body, with every movement of my soul, I asked, “What has love got to do with it?” Where and how is love – God – present in my life?
In writing to the contentious community in Corinth, Paul lists some characteristics of love, which we love to quote at weddings and then fold back between the pages of our Bibles like lovely dried flowers. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7.) Not a comprehensive list but a pretty good start. How might our lives be different if these four verses were our daily mantra?
In fact, what Jesus gives as the greatest commandment comes from an ancient Jewish prayer, the Shema, prayed every morning by faithful Jews. What if we taped these words – Love God with your whole being and Love your neighbor as yourself - to our mirrors so that every morning we were confronted with this challenge and it became our prayer, the prayer that shapes our days and guides our lives?
In one of the verses of her song, Tina sings of love:
“I`ve been thinking of a new direction
But I have to say
I`ve been thinking about my own protection
It scares me to feel this way.”
Does that sound at all familiar as we consider what love has to do with our own lives? Do we think our hearts have been broken too many times to leave them unprotected once again? Have we been disappointed in one too many relationships? Have we seen injustice and prejudice win one too many elections? Have we seen one too many war stories on our wide screens? Have we stepped over one too many hungry, homeless persons on the street? Have we seen one too many friend or neighbor engaged in acts of petty anger or harmful revenge? Have we asked ourselves one too many times, “What’s love got to do with it?”
The response from God’s Holy One is still the answer to all these questions and more, to all our apprehensions and our insecurities, our anxieties and fears; it is still wise and true and as clear as we will let it be, “Everything, my little ones. Everything!”