Did you ever see a greyhound race? Greyhound racing is different from horseracing in that there are no jockeys, so they have to use some other means of keeping the dogs running in the right direction. The greyhounds are trained to chase a mechanical rabbit that runs on a little track. The remote-control rabbit goes just fast enough to stay ahead of the dogs. A few years ago at a racetrack in Florida, a funny thing happened. The dogs were all crouched in their cages, waiting for the start of the race. The starting gun sounded. The cage doors dropped open and the dogs took off after the mechanical rabbit. As the rabbit rounded the first turn, however, an electrical short caused it to explode and catch on fire. In seconds, all that was left of the rabbit was some black stuff hanging on a bit of wire. The dogs were so confused they didn't know what to do. Most stopped running. Some of them just lay down on the track with their tongues hanging out. A couple of them went on around the track at top speed, but without the rabbit to chase they ran into a wall and broke several ribs. Several of the greyhounds just started howling at the crowd. Not one dog finished the race. You and I are a lot like those dogs; we're all chasing something. We need some reason for living. What would happen to you if your goal, your reason for running the race, suddenly evaporated? Perhaps that’s happened in your life: what you thought was important suddenly went up in smoke, and you realized you were chasing an illusion. What are you chasing? What orients your life? What are the operating principles by which you can easily judge whether you are on the right track? How can you be sure you’re not chasing an illusion? We can set up standards or guides to help keep us on track, ways to measure whether we are living up to what we should do. These standards or laws may keep us moving for a while, but will it last? The trouble with using laws to measure ourselves is that we know the laws of our land vary and change. Not long ago, I came across a list of out-dated laws that remain on the books. They were probably enacted for very good reasons in their time, but today they look ridiculous. Did you know that: In Zion, Illinois, it is illegal to give lighted cigars to dogs, cats, and other pets. In Oklahoma, it is illegal for a person to take a bite of another person's hamburger. In Bexley, OH, Ordinance #223 prohibits the installation and usage of slot machines in outhouses. In Gary, Indiana, it is illegal to go to a movie, to the theater, or to ride public transportation within four hours of eating garlic. Nicholas County, WV has a law that hits me where it hurts. There, it is illegal for a member of the clergy to tell jokes or humorous stories from the pulpit during a church service. While various laws may come and go, the standard by which we are to measure our life should be consistent; it must not change. None of us wants to be chasing a mechanical rabbit only to have it blow up in our face, to have what we’ve been living for go up in smoke. God’s Word gives us a means by which we can gauge our lives. We call that standard God’s Law. Unfortunately, God’s Law is lengthy and at times may appear complex to us. We all like to reduce things, to keep it simple. God offers us a summation of the Law in Matthew 22:34-40. In our passage this morning, Jesus was confronted by another Pharisee, this time a man who was an expert in the law. His question was a common one asked, but one that was often debated. The question was a trick - for no matter what was said, another law could be stated. So how does Jesus answer the question as to which, of all God’s laws, is the greatest? 34. Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36. "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37. Jesus replied: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38. This is the first and greatest commandment. 39. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." WE MUST EXPRESS LOVE TOWARD GOD. The object of our love is the One who has loved us. This first and greatest commandment is not a call to love some vague principle which permeates the universe. Nor are we commanded just to love the supreme being of the universe. We are not told to love God, but notice what it says: “Love the Lord your God.” Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, the famous Shema, which was quoted by every pious Jews three times a day. This prayer was a constant reminder of their relationship with the God who created them and the God who brought them out of Egypt. The name used was Jehovah, the covenanal name, the name which God gave to Moses that speaks of God’s permanent presence. We are to love the Lord who is “your” God. This assumes that God has already done something in our lives which established a relationship with us. This law does not initiate any relationship; it assumes that it exists. The love we are commanded to have is an answering love. It is a love that responds to being loved. This is what the Apostle John understood when he said in 1 John 4:19 that we love God because He loved us first. The extent of our love is to be all-encompassing. With the heart: We associate the heart with emotions and feelings. In Hebrew that aspect of our personality were the intestines and stomach. The heart in Hebrew refers to the place of the will, the volition. It is out of the heart that one determined what one would do. Love is understood to be a matter of choice and that our love of God was to flow from our heart, our will. Love is not just a matter of feelings, but a matter of choice. With the soul: The soul (nephesh) was the basic life principle, it was what makes us, us. This involves our passions, our personality, every fiber of our being. If we love God with all our soul we are loving Him with our very life. With the mind: Thirdly, we are to love God with our mind, our intellect, our understanding. Our thoughts are to express love toward God, the ways in which we think and the truth we consider is all to be under the control of our love for God. When we come to faith we do not check our minds at the door of the church, imagining that love of God is some sentimental aspect alone. The all-encompassing love is to characterize our life. We so easily compartmentalize our faith, thinking that religious fervor belongs in the realm of the emotions, so that we think we are loving God if we tear up when we sing “And Can It Be?” but that what we believe really doesn’t matter. We may mistakenly think love has nothing to do with the mind, that it is just a feeling. This passage shatters those misconceptions. We are to love God with our minds. Likewise, we can be equally mistaken if we think that love of God is to be equated with our theological constructs. That love is best expressed with our statement of faith, so that our hearts may be stone cold, that God’s Word doesn’t prick our consciences, but at least we have an air tight theology. There can be no dark corners of our life in which our love of God doesn't reach. There may not be any aspect in which we do not allow Christ to claim complete authority over us. Our love for Him must flow through every aspect of our lives. How do we measure up? We often imagine a sliding scale when it comes to this kind of love. But Christ, as He quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, reminds us that we must respond to God completely. Imagine thinking you were a good employee. You hold you company in the highest of favor. You enjoy your job. But you only show up for four hours of work each day. That may be better than the person who never comes at all, but it is far from meeting the expectations of the job. What are God’s expectations? Every fiber of your being must love the One who loves you. This verse destroys that smarmy notion of prioritizing our life by having God first, then your family, then your job, then you. What may look good on paper is meaningless in reality. What does it mean to put God first and then others. If we order our life like that we are still idolaters. Rather what God demands is that He be loved in every aspect of our life. Others will imagine that if we keep the Second commandment well enough then it counts for the first. We’ll take a look at the Second in a moment, but some imagine that if we love our neighbor that should count for love of God. If you believe that and if you’re married trying telling your wife, “Honey, all that attention I give to other women is actually incontrovertible proof of how much I love you." Or we may allow the pendulum to swing the other way. We may think that we have done fairly well with the first, so that it should count in favor of fulfilling the Second. "My love for God is so deep that I don’t have to worry all that much about how I treat others." In the same way, try telling your spouse: “Honey, in the wedding ceremony I told you that I loved you - and that should have settled the matter. So why do you keep after me about it? I've got more important things to do than spend my time telling you how much I love you." WE MUST EXPRESS LOVE TOWARD OTHERS. The object of our love must be those around us. Here the rubber meets the road. We can say we love God with every fiber of our being, but the test comes as it plays out in how we relate to those around us. It is not as though we can chose one over the other. People love to swing one way or the other. They think that their love for God needs only to be seen in their knowledge of God’s Word, their love for the truths of the Christian faith. But when it comes to others, in their selfishness they wouldn’t consider for a moment the needs of another person. John makes this point when he says in 1 John 4:20 that if we say that we love God but hate our brother we are liars. Others will harp on all the needs around us, the many people who desperately are in need of help, but all the while they would never consider reading God’s Word or spending time in prayer. Love of another person can only spring from love of God. The foundation of all love begins with God’s love for us; then as we reciprocate our love toward God we love those around us. We can’t pick and choose which it’ll be. It is not a choice, God demands both. The extent of our love must be complete. We are to love others in the same way we love ourselves. This “love of self” is not a command, it's an assumption, it is something each of us is very good at. Kurt and Amy will not have to teach little Arie Jay how to love himself; he does a fine job of that whenever he is hungry and cries for milk. What God demands of us is that we apply that energy of taking care of ourselves to others. This comparison is a reminder of how far we are to go. We are to love others with a love which we place on ourselves. Love of others is realized as we habitually replace the other person with ourselves, so that we ask the question: “How would I want to be treated here?” The phrase “as yourself” in this second command, then, is simply another way of saying what the words “with all that you are” said in the first command. Throw yourself into personal encounters. This love is specific; we cannot say with Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon, “I love the human race, it's just people I can’t stand!” Karl Marx, it is said, loved the working class, but couldn’t stand individual workers. In the same way, people can love the world, the Third World, or the poor very easily, until they meet obnoxious representatives. The way we love the world is through loving attention to each single member of that world as each passes by on a typical day. We love the whole whom we cannot reach through the part we can. This command, as with the previous, was not something Jesus pulled out of thin air, but is a command from God’s Law in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 19 there is a collection of various laws that at first seem rather disjointed, but among them is the reoccurring theme of laws that are meant to curb selfishness. By way of summation comes verse 18 where we are commanded not to seek revenge or bear a grudge but instead love the other person as though they were us. LOVE EXPRESSES GOD’S INTENT IN ALL OF SCRIPTURE. Jesus concludes by saying that these two commands, commands to love, is the hook on which all the rest of Scripture hangs. These two commands summarize the two tablets of the Law, the first four commandments which specify how we are to respond to God and the second tablet dealing with how we are to view others. Just as the Decalogue describes how we are to understand how God relates to us and how we are to respond to the God who has called us to be His own, so this briefer summation tells us that all God’s law can be summarized by the simple command to love. It would be a terrible mistake to image that this law of love somehow superseded or replaced the Law. Jesus is not saying that at all. Rather this is a nice handle to enable you to understand what God commands us in other places throughout Scripture. Love is the hermeneutical key, the lens through which we are to understand what we are to be and do. It is not as though love and law were antithetical to one another. Rather we are to understand the Law through love, for without understanding the Law through love, all we are left with is a sterile set of rules. How are we to order our lives? What is the guide by which we are to structure what we do, what we say, how we respond? The structure of our life is to be based on these two precepts which encapsulate the whole of Scripture: love the Lord your God and love others. That is the basis of what God expects of us. So what does God expect? This law means we can not look at obedience as our duty, as some rigid, cold standard which we must attain. God is not asking that we comply with regulations, but respond out of love. At first this may seem to be a great relief. It is far more personal than the alternative, of harsh duty and compliance. When we think of love, the millstone of the law seems, at first, to be lighter. But then the implications set in, There is something easier if the Law was just duty, just performance. Obedience that does not require my heart is not that hard to fulfill. The police officer does not care if I am happy about driving the speed limit. I can mutter all I want, just as long as I obey. The IRS doesn’t mind if gripe about taxes or take my check to them and stomp on it and shake my fist every April 15th. All they want is obedience. God on the other hand demands far more. Our obedience to Him must come out of love. When we consider this, that is when the pain of obedience sets in. It is there as we see the totality of our being that is required to obey that we begin to recognize that the standard which we are following is so hard. On the greyhound track, the little mechanical rabbit is regulated to keep the dogs moving. It will go faster or slower depending on the dogs. The standards we often set for ourselves are flexible to accommodate our inabilities and foibles. But not so with God. When we gauge ourselves by what God demands, it is perfection with a smile. There can be no aspect of our lives which does not love God, no person that cross our paths which we should not count as important as ourselves. If that is our only standard, we will be exhausted greyhounds at the track. Fortunately, in the race of our life, God places before us not only the impossible Law, the demand for perfect love, but One who ran the race and completed it for us. Hebrews 12 commands us to run the race, but do so with our eyes fixed and focused on Jesus. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. The law that is summarized by the command for perfect love finds hope in the One who ran in our place and is now seated before the Father. He is not just a wonderful role model for us, but one who has perfected the faith, so that as we look in faith to His completion it becomes ours. It is only as we look in faith toward Christ, then and only then will we love God with every fiber of our being and love others as we love ourselves. |
