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The Heart of Christian Faith
(Matthew 22: 34-40)
(A sermon preached July 16, 2006 at University UMC by Kennetha Bigham-Tsai)
I know that you are all curious about your new pastors. You want to know what we
believe––what we stand for--what we most care about. And for the past two
Sundays, John Ross has shared with you some of his beliefs–some of the things he
stands for. He has shared with you his beliefs about what it means to be a
Christian and what it means to be United Methodist.
Well, I want to take this opportunity this morning to share with you one of my
most basic beliefs--one of my most basic beliefs about the Christian faith–a
belief that inspires me and makes me passionate about Christian ministry. It is
simply this--I believe, in line with this passage in Matthew, that the love of
God and neighbor is at the very heart of Christian faith. I believe that such
love is at the center of what it means to be Christian–it is the foundation of
our faith–it is that upon which all else depends.
Now I understand that you have probably heard a lot of talk about love that is
often full of nothing but meaningless sentimentality. In our culture, talk about
love is often devoid of any connection to action or to how people really relate
to one another. But, don’t tune out, because the love that I am talking about is
not some sentimental expression on a hallmark card. It is not just some
emotion–some feel-good experience. This is not the love about which I speak and
about which I am passionate. For the love that I am speaking of today is a
difficult love, and it is expressed in this passage in Matthew–this call in
Matthew to “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind
and with all of your soul. And then to love your neighbor as yourself,” (Mat 22:
36-38). This is the love about which I speak and about which I want to make
three propositions to you today.
What I want to suggest to you this morning is first and foremost simply
this–that the kind of love that I believe defines the Christian faith is a love
of God that is expressed as surrender to the will of God. It is expressed in the
fundamental disposition toward life that, “God’s will not mine be done.” I then
want to make a second proposition and suggest to you that surrender to God’s
will means taking the action of loving our neighbor. And third, I want to
suggest that the love of neighbor is fundamentally expressed in acts of
tolerance, social justice and missions.
Let’s begin with my first proposition–that the love which defines Christian
faith begins with obedience to the will of God. This passage tells us to “Love
the Lord our God with all of our hearts, with all of our mind, and with all of
our soul,” (vs. 37). This is not simply a statement about different ways to love
God, but a statement about the totality and wholeness of our love for God. It is
a call to love God with our whole selves. It is a call to love God with our
every thought, intention and desire. It is a call to turn our whole lives over
to God and to direct our wills toward the will of God. This passage suggests
that we love God with all that we are and with all that we do –that we give our
very lives over to God and do God’s will as Christ did.
Think about the life of Jesus. He loved God with his whole self. And, for him,
loving God meant sacrifice. It meant the surrender of his personal desires and
wants–of his very life-- for the sake of doing God’s will. Remember
Gethsemane–Jesus prayed that the cup of persecution be taken from him, (Mark 14:
32-36). Jesus struggled at Gethsemane with the prospect of obedience to God’s
will carried out. But even in his darkest hour he uttered the words “Not my will
but thine be done,” (Mark 14:36). Now don’t get me wrong. I do not believe that
it was God’s will for Jesus to die. But I do believe that it was God’s will for
Jesus to live in a way that would ultimately lead to his persecution and death.
Friends, we are called to love God as Jesus did with our whole selves–to
surrender our whole selves to the will of God. We are called to love God by
being about those things to which God has called us. And God has called us to
love our neighbor as ourselves. And this leads to my second proposition–that
doing the will of God, as Christ did, means loving our neighbor.
This call to be obedient to God by loving our neighbor is stated again and again
throughout the Bible. The Ten Commandments, that summation of the Law stated in
the Book of Exodus, are all about how we treat others–how we treat our neighbor,
(Exodus 20: 1-17). They tell us not to murder, commit adultery, steal or bear
false witness against our neighbor. They tell us not to covet what our neighbor
owns. Literally almost all of these commandments have to do with fair treatment,
with right treatment of our neighbor. They all have to do with loving our
neighbor.
In the Book of Leviticus, which restates these commandments in a different form,
we get injunctions against defrauding our neighbor, stealing from our neighbor,
or being unjust toward our neighbor, (Leviticus 19: 1-18). Leviticus tells us to
provide for our neighbor who is poor by not reaping everything from the fields
and not stripping our vineyards bare, but to leave something for those who have
less than us. And then Leviticus 19 sums this all up with the call in verse 18
to “...love your neighbor as yourself”–the same call that we see in our passage
in Matthew.
And you will find the same emphasis in the prophetic books of the Bible, for
upon such love of neighbor hangs every prophetic call for justice and every
promise of help for the downtrodden. For what else but love of neighbor was
Isaiah talking about when he called the Israelite people to, “...learn to do
good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the
widow,” (Isaiah 1:17). What else but love of neighbor was Micah talking about
when he called the Israelite people to “...do justice, and to love kindness, and
to walk humbly with (their) God, (Micah 6:8). The justice and kindness that
Micah was speaking of had to do with justice and kindness in relationships with
others–it had to do with justice and kindness toward the neighbor. All of the
Law and the prophets, all of the Gospel, the whole of Scripture calls us to
extend a hand to those who need help and to practice tolerance and justice–to
love our neighbor as ourselves.
This is why this passage in Matthew says that the second commandment is like the
first–is equivalent to the first. “Love the Lord your God with all of your
heart, with all of your mind, and with all of your soul. This is the first and
greatest commandment. And the other is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments hang all of the Law and the prophets,” (Mat 22:
37-40). On these two commands hangs also the example of Christ. Indeed, the will
of God exemplified through Christ was a type of radical self-giving love of
neighbor. Jesus’ ministry was to reach out to and advocate for those around
him--to see them as his neighbors. Jesus touched and healed lepers because he
saw them as neighbors. He had table fellowship with sinners and outcasts because
he saw them as neighbors. He turned over the tables of the money-changers and
called the people to practice justice toward the poor–because the poor were his
neighbors. This was the love of Christ–a Christ who loved beyond religious
observance–a Christ who loved God by surrendering to God’s call to love his
neighbor as himself.
Indeed, the Christ event at its essence was an exercise in the love of neighbor.
For what is Jesus’ message but the message that all of the sacrifices and
religious observances are nothing if we do not love those around us? Jesus
continually railed against the Pharisees for tithing the mint and the cumin, for
praying to be seen in public, for ostentatious display of religious ritual while
neglecting the widow and robbing the poor–while failing to see them as a
neighbor, and failing to answer God’s call to love them, (Mat 23: 23).
This love of neighbor is the meaning of the Christ event and is at the center of
the Christian faith. And as disciples of Christ, we are called to such Christian
love. And, such love starts close to home, for our neighbor may be our own
children, our parents, our partners--members of our families–the person sitting
next to us in church–that person serving on a church committee with us. And our
call to love those closest to us can be the hardest call of all. This again is
not some call to sentimental emotion. This love includes tolerance, kindness,
and patience. This kind of love means loving what seems sometimes unlovable
about those closest to us. It despises judgment and gossip and backbiting. It
embraces tolerance and acceptance and prayer for the other. It forgives seventy
seven times a wrong. It reaches out in reconciliation, and it says, “I am
sorry.”
Then this love of neighbor extends beyond those closest to us. It extends to the
stranger and to those who are different from us. It extends out of our churches
and into our communities and then beyond those who are in our immediate
communities. Such love goes out into the world as acts of missions and social
justice.
You have likely heard the story about a man and a woman in the midst of a river
rescuing people who are caught in the current. This man and woman see folks
coming from upstream, drowning in the river. They begin to work together to pull
the people from the river. They are barely able to keep up with the bodies
coming from upstream. Finally, the woman wades out of the river and starts to
walk up the hill to leave. The man says to her, in alarm, “Where are you going?
I need help to save these people.” The woman responds, “I’m going upstream to
find out whose throwing them in.”
This story is a story about the interplay of missions and social justice and
about the call of the Church to do both–to pull people from the raging current
and to go upstream and stop them from falling or being thrown in--both missions
and social justice.
We have seen throughout history expressions of such love as social justice. Such
love expressed as social justice is what sent Harriet Tubman into dangerous
places singing “Let my people go.” Such love, expressed as social justice, is
what sent Martin Luther King to a Birmingham jail and ultimately to his death.
Such love is what landed Nelson Mandela in a prison for twenty years and then
brought him out of that prison, not with bitterness and hatred, but with
forgiveness and a heart for reconciliation.
Such love has been expressed as acts of social justice and tolerance, and also
as acts of Christian missions. Such love--pulling people from the river of
poverty and despair-- is what sent a Mother Theresa to work with the poorest of
the poor. Such love is what has fueled centuries of Christian missions. Such
love is what today fuels United Methodists ministries such as UMCOR, which
provides relief for those affected by disaster–or our global ministries, or
ministries carried out by groups like United Methodist Women or United Methodist
Men.
This is love that cares about what is happening in Iraq and Darfur and Israel
and Lebanon and then works with others to help. This is love that addresses the
needs of the homeless and the mentally ill. This is a love that seeks ways to
lift people out of poverty. This is love that seeks all kinds of ways to meet
the spiritual and material needs of people.
This is a love that you know about at this church. For this is a love that cares
deeply about Christian education–about the Christian nurture of children, youth,
and of the adults in this congregation. This is a love that cares about
providing for the spiritual needs of college students
through the Wesley Foundation. This is a love that helps to train pastors to do
ministry in the world through the School for Pastoral Ministry. This is a love
that opens its doors to a Korean congregation. This is a love that makes church
facilities accessible to those who are differently-abled. This is a love that
collects books and school supplies for children in Zimbabwe. This is a love that
takes a week off in the midst of summer to go to a work-camp to help the people
of Somerville, Tennessee.
This is not some sentimental, feel-good emotion. This is a love putting time,
comfort, reputation, and money on the line to help somebody else. This is a love
that risks everything. And it is the foundation of our faith. It is that about
which I am most passionate. It is what I care most about. It is that which I
believe to be at the heart of Christianity. Without this kind of life-risking,
self-giving love of neighbor, Christianity would not exist and we may as well
all go home.
It is this kind of love that inspires me and makes me passionate about social
justice and missions. So when I speak about helping the poor and taking steps to
end poverty, I am talking about love. When I speak of working for peace and
providing help to children in war-torn countries, I am talking about love. For
me, acts of social justice and missions are acts of love. They are acts of love
called for by Scripture and exemplified in the life of Christ. They are acts of
love that are at the heart of the Christian faith.
This is love expressed as the love of God and neighbor. And you are a church
that has been built upon the foundation of such love. This is the love about
which I am passionate–the love which has drawn me to Christian ministry. This is
the love that I know inspires all of you and that has drawn you to this church.
I want to join you in this kind of love. I want you to join me in my vision for
this kind of love. I want us to walk together seeking to live out such love--the
very essence of our faith–to live out this first and greatest commandment and
the second like it—to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and soul,
and then to love our neighbor as ourselves–to love–not as sentimental emotional
expression, but as obedience to God’s will to practice acts of justice and
caring–to love as an extension of Christ and as faithfulness to our call to be
the Church. Amen.
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