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VOL. 6, NO.
45
LOVE THE LORD GOD AND LOVE
YOUR NEIGHBOR
LOVE THE LORD GOD WITH ALL YOUR
HEART, SOUL,
MIND AND
STRENGTH; AND NEIGHBOR
AS SELF.
Scripture: Psalm 146
Praise for God’s help
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life
long.
Do not put
your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their
breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.
Happy are those
whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord
their God,
who made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps
faith for ever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the
hungry.
The
Lord
sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord
lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the
righteous.
The Lord
watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of
the wicked he brings to ruin.
The
Lord
will reign for ever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!
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Mark 12
The First Commandment
28.
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing
with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which
commandment is the first of all?’
29.
Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord
our God, the Lord is one;
30.
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
31.
The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’
32.
Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you
have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”;
33.
and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the
understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbor as
oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and
sacrifices.’
34.
When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him,
‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that
no one dared to ask him any question.
W
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LOVE THE
LORD AND LOVE
YOUR NEIGHBOR
I should have the wisdom of Jesus because I get asked a lot of
questions, especially when I’m teaching. It seems that during class the
students ask the regular information questions. “What is your grading scale?”
“How many absences can I get away with?”
After class, they ask questions with some
philosophical ramifications. “What do you think about the death penalty?” “Were
you a hippie in the 60s?”
Those asking the questions really want an
audience of one. They want the teacher to be focused on them so they can get a
chance to build a relationship. It doesn’t really matter what the answers are.
I wonder if the scribe in Mark 12:28
is doing that. He really wants to get Jesus as his sole audience, to have a
one-on-one with the master. He knows the right answer. Every Jewish person in
that day and age knew the Shema. “Shema Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai
Echad.” It means “God is one; God is the only one.”
WHO ARE THE SAINTS?
This is All Saints’ Week. All Saints’ Day
came right after the eve of All Saints’ Day, Halloween. In the New Testament,
Saints are those who aspire to the holiness of the Holy God whom they serve
because the Holy Spirit dwells in them. They, too, are made holy because of the
holiness of the Spirit within. A saint, therefore, is one who reflects the
sanctity of the God he or she serves. To be a saint in this sense is not a sign
of perfection, but it’s a sign of fidelity, a sign of faithfulness, being
faithful to the God we love and serve.
So you know that the first and best
commandment, “Hear O Lord, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and
with all your strength.” That’s our great challenge. How do we go about that,
being human as we are?
Especially at this stage of life, I’m finding my mind doesn’t
work as well as it once did. Let me just give you an example of how this
happens.
“I’m at home
and I decide I need to water the lawn. So as I turn the hose on in the
driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.
As I start
toward the garage, I notice there is mail on the porch that I brought up from
the mailbox earlier, and I decide I need to go through the mail before I wash
the car. I lay my car keys down on the table and put the junk-mail in the
garbage can under the table. I notice that the garbage can is full of all the
previous junk-mail, so I decide to put the bills back on the table and take the
garbage out first.
But then I
think since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage
anyway, I might as well pay the bills first. And so I take my checkbook off the
table. I see there’s only one check left and my extra checks are in the desk in
the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find a can of Coke that
I had been drinking.
I’m going to
look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so I don’t
accidentally knock it over. I notice that the Coke is getting warm, so I decide
I should put it back in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
As I head to
the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye;
they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter and I find my
reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning. I decide I’d better
put them back on the desk where they belong, but first I’m going to water the
flowers.
I set the
glasses back down on the counter and I fill the container with water and
suddenly I see the TV remote control that someone left on the kitchen table. I
realize that tonight when we go to watch TV we won’t know where the remote is
and I’ll be looking for the remote and I won’t remember that it’s on the
kitchen table. So I decide that I’d better put it back in the living room where
it belongs, but first I’m going to water the flowers.
I pour some water on the flowers, but quite a
bit of it spills on the floor. So I put the remote back down on the table and I
get the towels to wipe up the spill and then I head down the hall trying to
remember what I was planning to do.
At the end
of the day:
the lawn isn’t watered,
the car isn’t washed,
the bills aren’t paid,
there is a warm can of Coke
sitting on the counter,
the flowers don’t have
enough water,
there is still only one
check in my check book,
I can’t find the remote,
I can’t find my glasses,
I don’t remember what I did
with the car keys,
and my
neighbor called to tell me he turned off the hose that was flooding the
driveway.
Then when I try to figure out why nothing got
done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day long and I’m
really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some
help for it, but first I need to check with my friend.
Do me a favor,
will you? If I’ve already told you this, please let me know because I can’t
remember.
And don’t
laugh, because your day is coming, and if I’ve already told you this, well then
your day has come. Stop lying to yourself!”
Tom Baxter <tabax@earthlink.net>
Anyhow, this is “Love the Lord with your
whole mind,” and where is my whole mind? I used to think I was a brilliant
person and could figure things out, but I’m dealing with what I have, so I have
to love God with the mind that I have. But fortunately it’s not just my mind
that I’m urged by this scripture to use, but Love the Lord your God with
your mind, your heart, your soul and your strength.
I have a heart for God.
This is something
that I have grown up with, something
that is part of my calling.
I know that there are those of you here
who have a heart for God because
of all the good work you’re doing.
But sometimes a wrench gets thrown in the
works and we’re not sure how best to deal with that. That’s when we need all
the help we can get.
I want to tell you a story about something that happened like
that.
“It was at a concert hall. When the house
lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, there was a mother in the
audience who came to her seat and couldn’t find her small son. The child was
missing. Just at that moment the curtains opened and the spotlight focused on
the impressive Steinway piano there on the stage. The mother looked up, and
there she saw her son sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out ‘Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Star.’
It was just at that moment that the great piano master made his
entrance and he quickly moved to the piano and whispered in the boy’s ear,
‘Don’t quit. Keep playing.’
Then, leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and
began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other
side of the child, and he added a running obbligato. Together, the old master
and the young novice transformed what could have been a frightening situation
into a wonderfully creative experience.
The audience was so mesmerized that they couldn’t recall what else
the great master played, only the classic ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’
Perhaps that’s the way it is with God. What we can accomplish on our
own is hardly noteworthy in the grand scale of things. We try our best, but the
results aren’t always graceful flowing music. However, with the hand of the
Master, our life’s work can be truly beautiful. So the next time we set out to
accomplish great feats, listen carefully. You may hear the voice of the Master,
whispering in your ear, ‘Don’t quit. Keep playing.’
May you feel His arms around you and know that His hands are there
helping you to turn your feeble attempts into true masterpieces. Remember that God
doesn’t seem to call the equipped; rather he equips those he calls. Life is
more accurately measured by the lives you touch than by the things that you
acquire. So touch someone in the life that you live. It doesn’t matter whether
you only play a few notes or a grand symphony. It is that God loves you and
will use that love to transform this world.”
Tom Baxter
<tabax@earthlink.net>
So
love the Lord with your whole heart.
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STRENGTH
Mind, heart, strength. How strong are you?
Do you have stories of things you can do because you are strong enough to stand
up to adversity in life or strong enough to do what needs to be done no matter
what other difficulties come along?
We get a lot of bumps in life. I’m going
to tell you a story.
“A man was being tailgated by a woman on a busy boulevard.
Suddenly, the light turned yellow just in front of him. He did the right thing,
stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by
accelerating through the intersection.
The woman
who was tailgating him hit the roof and she hit the horn, screaming in
frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection.
As she
was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on the window and looked up into the
face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car
with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched,
finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.
After a
couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door and she was
escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with
her personal effects.
He said,
‘I’m very sorry for the mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you
were blowing your horn and flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a
blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate, the ‘What Would
Jesus Do?’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday-School’ bumper sticker, and
the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had
stolen the car.’”
Tom Baxter tabax@earthlink.net
How strong are
you in the face of adversity, and do your actions show that you are a person of
faith who loves the Lord with all your strength?
There
are times in our lives where we try to use our mind, we try to use our heart,
we try to use our strength and we end up in some kind of mess. Yet we are urged
to use all these parts of ourselves to love God. So how do we do it?
Can
we use our soul? What is the soul? This morning in the early service, I talked
this over with participants who came to that small, informal service. We talked
about the soul being the part of us that does the caring, the spiritual where
God is in the midst, and how we try to love. Those who are parents who try to
love a difficult child: “Of course I love you,” you say, and the child says,
“Go away.”
We
need to bring in love to push out fear. And it is the God of all creation who
showed us love, because God gave us all of creation. We know the stories of the
Bible – the story where God created Adam and Eve in the garden and gave them
dominion over all of creation, and gave them some instructions that they
couldn’t quite seem to follow because they wanted to be like God. They ate the
forbidden fruit.
We’re
like that as well. We know what the rules are and yet, somehow, we want to get
ahead of the game and try to do something else.
The story of each
of the characters in the Bible can very well be an example of very different
parts of our individual selves.
·
Something in me is like Adam.
·
Something in me is like Joseph and his brothers.
·
Something in me is like King Solomon.
·
Something in me is like David on both sides of
the good and bad scale.
·
Something in me is like the Apostles.
·
Something in me is like Paul.
I
hope something in me is like Jesus, because that’s what we aspire to do because
God shows us human love in Jesus Christ. God has given us his son, Jesus
Christ, so that we can know what the pure spirit of God is like in human form.
Jesus loved the world so much, he was willing to give his life so that we can
know eternity. That’s the kind of love that we are shown by God through the
scriptures.
So
that is what we aspire to do – to love God with our strength, our mind, our
heart and our soul.
We
are spiritual beings, not just physical beings. So our love is that of a
spirit.
Like
nearly everyone I know, I have my highs and lows. I have a wife who brings out
the best in me with her hope and faith and her love of my sweet slowness when I
can’t quite get everything done I had hoped to do. And so I’m a hero in her
eyes, strong and wise and know no fear, even though I feel like there are times
when I’m a champion of nothing. Ah! She continues to transform my life by
letting me know that I am wonderful without my ever having done anything to
deserve that title.
I
reach a point in my reminiscence of my life where my life has diverged from its
original course and superficial accounts can’t matter as much as the shared
experiences that we have in life. There is where my faith comes in.
Christianity is a spiritual experience, it’s not composed of material things,
but it exists from within. There is more reality at a non-material level.
That’s an extra dimension I find myself transversing periodically, and you
probably do, too, when you’re in meditation or prayer or when something has
inspired you. When I’m in that non-material level of reality, I see more than
just a giant system made up of tiny particles of stuff plus a mysterious force-field
operating by natural laws. I come face to face with a whole spiritual realm
that I trust.
So
I celebrate my Christian faith, knowing that there are spiritual interventions.
It’s not just that I have to love God and my neighbor, but that God loved me
and God loves you and God gives that special way of understanding and knowing.
That’s enough to convince me that what happened in Jesus was conceived by the
spirit of God, that light that came into life that lights up the darkness, the
light enlightening everyone, all nations.
Something
new is about to happen and that’s a metaphor that is my reality. What
it means for me is that I’m heading into the future with confidence that I’m
making a difference for peace on earth.
So
when we hear this story of Jesus with the scribe and are quoted the Shema: The
Lord your God is one Lord. You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And you love
your neighbor as yourself, we know that we have a challenge before us. We
heard from Jesus when someone asked him “Who is my neighbor?”, he told the
parable of the Good Samaritan. The one who is in need, the one who is beaten up
by the side of the road – that’s your neighbor – the one who needs your help.
So we reach out in love because God has loved us.
To
be a saint in this sense is not a sign of perfection, but it’s a sign of
fidelity. We can study the history of our faith and say that we are transformed
by those faithful who have taught us, who have been our spiritual ancestors in
our lives. We admire the witnesses to Christ we believe are our best examples,
who live the simple commands of Jesus: to love God with our whole being and our
neighbors as ourselves. “Those who do,” Jesus said, “are not far from the kingdom
of God.”
Being
a saint means living in hope and not in despair. Being a saint means that you
are forgiving and not judging, loving and not despising, lifting up and not
tearing down.
You are not far from the kingdom of God.
Dr.
Peter F. Maier
Presbyterian
Church of the Roses
2500 Patio Court
Santa Rosa, CA 95405
November 5, 2006
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