Presbyterian pastor Richard Floyd tells of a conversation that he had with an old friend he had not seen in a long time.1 The friend was “bright and compassionate.” Floyd mostly agreed with her politics. And yet, for Floyd, something was missing in his friend’s approach to life. Floyd was deeply immersed in the Christian tradition, and so he often found himself reflecting on life issues from a three-cornered perspective, trying to see God’s viewpoint, his own angle of vision, and the viewpoint of his neighbors. His friend had had virtually no religious formation, and so, it seemed, she did not have this three-cornered perspective. “She could begin and end a topic,” he tells us, “with reflection on the self, without moving on to God or neighbor.” It was not because she was unusually self-preoccupied; she was simply reflecting the extreme individualism of our culture. How did this happen, Floyd wondered. What is more important, how do we begin to see the world around us in a three-cornered way?
Today’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew invites us to begin looking at our lives in a three-cornered way. Remember that this Gospel was written after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, i.e., after 70 AD. It was written for a community that was in conflict with the Jewish religious leaders. Since the Sadducees, one of the two major Jewish sects of Jesus’ time, had largely disappeared with the destruction of the temple, almost all of the Jewish religious leaders after 70 AD were Pharisees, i.e., leaders of the other major sect. It was they who were concerned with preserving the distinctive social and religious lives of the scattered Jewish communities – and indeed they were largely responsible for the survival to this day of the Jews as a distinctive community. The followers of Jesus to whom Matthew was writing were in conflict with these leaders, partly because the new communities of Jesus’ followers included people of all classes, genders, and ethnicities. To encourage the fledgling community of Jesus’ followers, on the whole, Matthew, much more so than Mark or Luke, depicts the Pharisees negatively, often showing them disputing with Jesus.
The passage we just heard depicts Jesus’ third and last public confrontation with the leaders of the Pharisees. It was about two days before Jesus would be executed as a common criminal. A lawyer, i.e., a scholar trained to interpret religious law, asked a question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Was it a trick question? Or could the lawyer seriously have been trying to discern what this Galilean rabbi actually thought? After all, many scholars had tried to discern which of the 613 laws in the Torah were more significant than the others.
Whatever the lawyer’s motive, Jesus answered his question in an unexpected, even radically startling way. First, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5. This is the second half of the Shema, the affirmation of faith that undergirds all of Judaism and is still recited in every Jewish worship service. The whole Shema reads, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord Alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Hearing Jesus recite the Shema, the religious leaders would surely have nodded their heads in approval. But then Jesus quoted Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Moreover, Jesus declared that this commandment was not only similar to the commandment in the Shema, it was equal to that of the Shema.
That loving one’s neighbor as oneself was equal to loving God is even more astounding when we look at what this section of Leviticus actually calls for. Loving one’s neighbor as oneself is not some warm, fuzzy platitude. It is a command with deep social implications. For, Leviticus 19 commands Jews to respect their parents, feed poor people and foreigners, not steal, lie, or swear falsely, not defraud the disabled, not slander their neighbor, and not harbor hatred or vengeance. And, even more important, Jesus’ followers knew that one’s neighbor was not just one’s family members or friends. One’s neighbor was everyone in need. Which commandment in the law is the greatest? Jesus told his hearers that the greatest commandment is to love God by loving one’s neighbors – all of them. And then, as if banging a gavel, Jesus capped off his unexpected teaching by declaring that this is what Scripture is all about; every revelation that you hear, this is what it’s about. This is the foundation of your life: love of God, love of self, and love of neighbor. All are equally important.
How did the religious leaders who heard Jesus meld these commandments into one react? We’ll never know – at least from Matthew. In Mark’s account, the Scribe who heard Jesus says these words praised Jesus and echoed his words back to Jesus, to which Jesus replied, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God (12:32-34).” And how about us? Those of you who remember the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, or heard it last month at Bruce Chapel, remember that at every Eucharist, we heard the priest repeat these words of Jesus: “Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God….” So how do we hear Jesus’ statement of the ground of our commitment to him? Are his words the foundation of all our decisions and actions? Does how we treat ourselves and God’s children reflect our love of God?
For many people in our culture, the answer would be “No.” Most of us see out of only one of the three corners of vision, our own. When we are faced with a decision, most of us ask, how does this suit me? What are my needs, rights, and desires? Does this step advance my own interests and the interests of my group, my ethnicity, my social class, my age-group, or my state? Will my privileged position be threatened by this action? Can’t you see this perspective in the polarization of our political life, where nowadays it seems as if no one, especially at the national level, is looking out for the common good? Can’t you see it in the way we’ve been trashing our planet, in our tendency to say, “I want what I want when I want it, regardless of whether I need it, regardless of whether the people who make it work in safe and healthy factories, and regardless of whether it can be recycled once I’m done with it?”
Where do we unlearn the habit of extreme individualism that is the hallmark of American culture? God willing, the church is one such place – as it was for Richard Floyd. The church can be our school in three-cornered love, if we study Jesus’ words and take them to heart. The church can be our teacher especially if we avoid two pitfalls. Often we try to avoid our extreme self-preoccupation by turning intently to God, by acknowledging our brokenness, asking for God’s healing and transformation, and cultivating habits of holiness and piety. Wonderful, so long as such habits of holiness and piety don’t blind us to the needs of our neighbor in the next house, the next county, or overseas. By the same token, we often try to get beyond our self-preoccupation by making our neighbor’s needs the only focus of our spiritual lives. When we do that, and especially when we act as if all depends on us and our own efforts, we run the risk of arrogantly assuming we know what’s best, or falling into despair when those in need resist or spurn our efforts.
Jesus calls us to have a three-cornered heart. In all our discernment, reflection, and practice, Jesus calls us to consider whether we are serving and loving God, ourselves and our neighbors. Jesus calls us to cultivate this habit of three-fold discernment in all our decisions. When we are making big decisions, e.g. choosing a vocation, or returning to school, or changing jobs, or relocating, Jesus calls us to ask whether our decisions reflect love of God, care for self, and love of neighbor. When we decide how to use our resources of time, talent, and treasure, and especially when we ponder how much to return to God, Jesus calls us to ask whether our decisions reflect love of God, care for self, and love of neighbor. Even in the small decisions we make in the course of a day, we can take a moment to ask ourselves, “In what I am now doing, am I serving God, am I helping myself, and am I loving my neighbor?” We can all do this: you don’t have to be a saint or a monastic to reflect on your decisions and actions from this three-cornered perspective. As Mother Teresa reminded us, “Holiness is not a luxury for the few; it is not just for some people. It is meant for you and me, for all of us.”
So here is my invitation to you this week. In the next decision that you have to make – whatever it is, big or small – stop, take a deep breath, and ask yourself, “God, myself, and neighbor? All three?” Then follow Jesus’ leading to grow in love.
1. He relates the story in Feasting on the Gospels (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2013), 200ff.
No comments:
Post a Comment