Love is only part of the answer

Sermon for Trinity 18

Deuteronomy 10:12-21  +  1 Corinthians 1:4-9  +  Matthew 22:34-46

There is so much hate in our world. We saw it on full display this week—over the last few weeks, really—in the treatment of Judge Kavanaugh during the senate judiciary hearings. (I’m going to talk about this for just a moment, because it happens to coincide with our Gospel today.) So many accusations flying around, unproven and in many cases unprovable, in open rebellion against the 8^th Commandment, which protects a person’s reputation and does not allow it to be tarnished without evidence. And yet, with no evidence at all, a large percentage of our country has condemned the man in their hearts and has even been brazen enough to condemn him publicly. Why? Because for some, emotion has taken over for reason. But for many, it’s simply because they view this judge as a potential threat to the thing that matters most to them: being able to kill little children in their mothers’ wombs. How sick! How twisted our world has become!

What’s the answer? Well, love, of course! Love is the answer! All we need is love! Except that we can’t even agree on what love is anymore. That’s been redefined in our society, too. For example, there’s a country artist who sings, “I believe you love who you love. Ain’t nothing you should ever be ashamed of.” Of course, what he means is that he believes men should be able to have a sexual relationship with other men, and women with women, and anybody with anybody, marriage or no marriage, and there’s no shame in it at all, because they “love” each other. Except that isn’t love—if God still gets to define what love is.

So what’s the answer? Maybe if we could just fix our definition of love! If we could just go back to letting God define love for us, according to His commandments, maybe then things would get better. If we could just get people to start respecting God’s commandments again, then our society would prosper and God would smile on us again.

Would it? Would He?

You know who really loved God’s commandments? The Pharisees. We encounter them so often interacting with Jesus. In today’s Gospel, a Pharisee tested Jesus with the question, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? His answer this time was the same as it was the time before when they asked Him: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Notice, first of all, that Jesus doesn’t say that this law of love replaces the other commandments, as if love were now the new norm, whereas those old Ten Commandments were hateful and mean. No, he says that all the Law and the Prophets, every command in the Old Testament, hung on, depended on these two commandments: perfect love for God and selfless love for your neighbor.

C.S. Lewis once used an analogy to explain the Law. He compared every human being to a ship at sea, sailing together with a whole fleet of ships. The Law simply describes how the ship Builder designed the ships to function, inside and out. Love in the heart, love as God has defined it, keeps the ship engines working properly, keeps the hull intact. And it also keeps the ships from going off course, ramming into one another along the way.

In other words, God designed us to love Him with our whole heart: to have no other gods before Him, not to misuse His name, but to honor the preaching of His Word. And God designed us to love our neighbor as we live in community with one another: for children to honor parents, for citizens to honor the authorities, for hearers of the Word to honor the preachers of the Word. God designed us not to murder one another but to protect one another’s life, not to commit adultery but to honor marriage, not to steal from one another but to give freely to the one in need, not to give false testimony but to speak up for and defend the one whose reputation is at stake, not to covet but to be content with what we have. Human beings were designed by the Creator to live like this, to be like this. Love summarizes it all.

So why did the Pharisees hate Jesus so much, if He agreed with them that the Law is good, if He loved the commandments just as they did? Why did they have Him crucified just a few days after Jesus spoke the words of today’s Gospel? Because, although Jesus agreed that the Law is good, He didn’t agree with them that they were good or that they could earn God’s favor by the Law. He showed them the problem with their ships. That their engines were broken. That their hull was rusty and corroded and filled with holes. He showed them how their ships were actually ramming into other ships in the fleet, and how, in reality, they had turned their guns against God Himself. You do not love God with your whole heart, mind and strength. You do not truly love your neighbor from the heart, but have set up your own standards to live by, which end up harming your neighbor. The Law of God, the law of love, is good. But you have not kept it. And so you stand condemned by it.

Be careful here. In the face of so much hatred all around us in our society, we are tempted in two directions, both of them lethal. We are tempted to hate people in return for their hate. That’s evil. But we’re also tempted to turn inward, to focus on our own obedience, to turn to God’s commandments for the solution.

But that’s the Pharisee’s solution. Compare myself with the rotten haters of the world and feel good about myself. Focus on repairing my ship and sailing straight ahead. Then I’ll reach the heavenly port safely.

No, you won’t. That’s the whole point of the Christian Gospel. Your ship is beyond repair. It’s sinking in the ocean. The fleet has failed. The design itself was flawless, but the maintenance has been nothing short of appalling. The only way to reach the heavenly harbor now is by being rescued by another ship.

But not just any ship will do for this rescue. It has to be flawlessly designed, just as we were. But it has to remain flawless, and it has to sail straight ahead, without ever veering to the right or to the left. In other words, it has to be perfectly guided by love. And it has to be big enough and powerful enough to bring every other ship in the fleet on board. And, someone is going to have to pay for all the wrecked ships out there in the ocean, for the reckless damage they’ve done to one another and to themselves, for their rebellion against their Designer.

And that’s the theme of the second part of our Gospel, the implication in Jesus’ question to the Pharisees. What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He? The Son of David. He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool” ’? If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?”

The Pharisees had hung all their hopes on the Law of love. So what, really, was the Christ—the Savior whose coming was prophesied and promised throughout the Old Testament—what was He supposed to do? Just come and sit on His father David’s throne and reign over Israel, over all the good law-abiding citizens? If that were the case, then any man would do. But Jesus points out something they had missed from this Psalm. The Christ will not be a mere mortal. Yes, He would be David’s Son, David’s descendant, a man. But He would also be David’s Lord, true God and true man.

Why was that necessary? So that He could be the Savior of all men. So that He could love God and His neighbor perfectly, as all men were supposed to do but didn’t. So that He could pay the price for the sins of all men. So that He could bring all the rusted out ships safely into the heavenly harbor.

The Gospel of Christ is absolutely unique in all the world. Every society since Adam and Eve has attempted to order itself, either by violence and power, or by good laws and virtuous people. And every religion in the world seeks to earn God’s favor by doing the things that they think will please Him. But only the Gospel of Christ teaches that human society is broken beyond repair, and that no one can earn God’s favor. Only the Gospel of Christ proclaims God’s free grace and favor toward sinners, forgiveness of sins and salvation by faith alone in Christ, not by keeping the Law of love.

Ironically, it’s only those who have come to know the love of God in Christ Jesus, those who have come to believe in salvation apart from our own love, who actually begin to keep God’s commandments, who actually begin to love as God designed us to love, as the Holy Spirit molds us into the image of Christ. It is God’s will that we walk in love, that we walk according to His commandments. But only as those who have already been rescued by Jesus, who have already been baptized into Jesus, who are already found in Christ, not having a righteousness of our own, but that which is by faith in Christ. As John writes, we love Him because He first loved us.

So what’s the answer to all the hate we see in the world? Love is still part of the answer, but only a part. The answer is God’s love for the world which He demonstrated in giving His Son as the sacrifice for our sins. And then the answer is repentance on our part, and faith, and love, and patience. Because our goal is not a better world here, but to reach the next world safe and sound and to live as God’s holy children along the way, knowing that, at just the right time, Christ will come and lead us safely out of this hate-filled world into the heavenly harbor, where we will all truly love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength, and where we will all perfectly love one another. May God grant it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.