First Reading: Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18
1The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
2Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
15You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. 16You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the Lord.
17You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. 18You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Gospel: Matthew 22:34-46
34When the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him, “ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
41Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42“What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
44‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet”’?
45If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” 46No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Let us pray. Spirit of the living God, you are already with us. But we pray that we might trust in your presence now – in this moment when stop to settle our minds and breathe in your Spirit. We pray that this uncontainable love would fill us up. In our prayers, and our singing, in your word and the people we meet, come and find us this day, Lord, and give us the love only you can provide. So that we might once again have a strength to love. As violence rages around us and around the world and as talks of peace fall to the ground, awaken us to your presence in every single person of the world and stir up among us healers and peacemakers. Help us to have the courage to turn toward each other and not away. In Jesus’ name, amen.
About nine years ago, I was in a play called When We Are Married. It’s a British comedy from the 1930s. It’s also the reason why at home, every once and awhile, I will slip into a British accent. It was fun to practice a British accent for the play, but 20 Minnesotans on stage doing their best British accents wasn’t great.
But it is an interesting play because the premise is that three couples are all celebrating their 25th wedding Anniversary. You see they all got married on the same day, at the same church, by the same pastor. They’ve stayed friends ever since and now they are celebrating 25 years together.
Except for one thing.
The new organist at the church had just discovered a juicy little secret. As it turns out – the three couples haven’t been married for 25 years.
You see, the pastor at the time didn’t realize for the first few months that there were certain forms he had to fill out in order to be authorized to perform the ceremony of marriage. Which means that the few weddings he did perform as a brand-new pastor 25 years ago…were null and void.
Which means these 3 couples are not and never were legally married.
Now, to many of us, perhaps that is a comical mistake that isn’t that big of a deal – they were married in each other’s hearts and in the eyes of God, but you can imagine back in the early 1900s that for you (and everyone else in your small town) to learn you’ve just been living together and are not actually married to your partner…well, that would have been shocking and devastating to the core. Like you’ve been living a lie.
That’s how it was for the three couples, and so, as a result, they spend the rest of the play wrestling with and wondering about one question – hang on, if we haven’t been married this whole time, would I marry you….now?
I mean, think about it, you’ve settled into the routine of life, you’ve built a life together, but now, you’re stopped in your tracks and you have to ask yourself and reassess, if given the choice, would I do it again? Would I marry you…still today?
Have you ever been halted like that with something? Stopped in your tracks, when you have to reconsider, or recommit to something? Where you have to pause and rethink everything – to kind of find the core of who you are again?
This got me thinking about the spiritual moments in our life when that happens. I think it happens a lot during big moments in our lives – like when a loved one dies and we are confronted with death. Or maybe when a child is born and you get a front row seat to the beauty and wonder and fragility of everything. Or maybe it’s when you just reach a new phase in life – like when you’re offered a new job, or the kids are out the house, or you’ve retired or your affirming your baptism – and you start to ask all those questions about identity. Like “who am I and what’s my purpose here?”
That happens in the big moments in our life. But here’s the thing – I think that’s not often enough – to wait around for the big moments of our life to make us stop and reconsider things.
A friend of mine is a Methodist Pastor and every year they have a worship service called Covenant Sunday. Together, on that particular Sunday, the Methodist Church prays a prayer together that recommits themselves to the covenant God has made with them, as children of God – made in the image of God, and the covenant they have made to God, as followers of Jesus. It’s kind of like renewing your spiritual wedding vows. And every year, when that Sunday comes around, I find myself a little jealous of it. A chance every year, like the three couples in the play, to reconsider and recommit ourselves – to God and to faith and striving to follow in the way of Jesus.
Like marriages and friendships and lot of things in life, we get caught up in the routine of everything and we often just go through the motions of life – without really thinking or considering our lives. And so the thought of a Sunday set aside every year to stop and pause and to consider and re-consider, to commit and recommit our faith together seemed like something I longed for.
But here’s the thing – even that doesn’t feel like enough.
I actually think I want Covenant Sunday – every Sunday. As one of my preaching professors used to say, “In the human heart, the shelf-life of the gospel is at best 7 days…after that it starts to wither and then you have to come back and hear it again.” I want something each week that catches me a bit off guard, punctures the ordinary and routine of life and faith. Something that says, “Stop. Are you sure? Are you sure want to be a follower of Christ? Again?”
Something like that happened a few weeks ago.
A couple of weeks ago, in high school youth group, we were reading this same passage from Jesus that we read in our gospel lesson, where he is asked which is the greatest commandment. Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We were talking about our call to serve our neighbors and what it means to love others through service. And it was a pretty routine conversation as far as Scripture readings go. It seemed there were not a lot of things to catch us off-guard with this passage. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
Except for when one of the high school youth says casually – “Yeah…but what if you don’t love yourself?”
What if you don’t love yourself?
Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Seems pretty straight forward.
Yeah, but what if you don’t love yourself? How can you love your neighbor as yourself?
And this young person asked in a way that didn’t make us worry about them, but in a way that took us a little deeper into ourselves and our faith for just a moment. It made us pause and reconsider these greatest commandments and what they might mean. This youth unknowingly became a spiritual director to us all in that moment, as we all went…”Whoa. What if I don’t love myself?…Do I love myself?”
What do you think? Do you? Do you love yourself?
I wonder how many of us ever ask that question. I wonder how many of us have ever noticed that part of one of the greatest commandments, as Jesus puts it. Love your neighbor…as yourself. Do you love yourself?? Can you look yourself in the eyes – and like you would with your child or your parent or a beloved, can you say, “I love you”?
It’s a vulnerable question, I know. Maybe some of us want to turn away from the mirror and ignore it completely. Let me ask it again…do you love yourself?
Even just saying it out loud feels a little silly. A little self-helpy. A little cheesy and saccharine sweet. A little too curved-in on one’s self, as Martin Luther would say.
And yet, it is right there in Jesus’ words for us today and I think it might be not just the greatest commandment but also the greatest struggle each one of us has – the struggle to love ourselves.
Some of us struggle to love God, because of our image of God. We have taken into our hearts an image of God as angry, vengeful, abusive God. We have not taken fully into our hearts that Jesus is the image of God. Jesus, the Prince of peace. Jesus, the one who has come to save and not condemn. For us as Christians, Jesus is the image of God. But some of us have not fully absorbed that truth, which makes it hard to love God.
Some of us struggle to love ourselves because of our image of ourselves. We see ourselves as something unlovable, unforgivable, unworthy. When, in fact, the God, who is love says to each one of us, “You child, I made you. I made you to look like me. You are made in my image – you look like love. And not just you but everyone around you. So love yourself – for you are made in love and by love and for love.
Many of us have been taught that to be a person of faith, to be a good Christian, our job is to love God and others more and to love ourselves less. But that’s not what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 22. Love the Lord Your God and love your neighbor and love yourself. Each one a crucial part of a life of faith.
In our Christian tradition – the source of this love, the strength to love comes from the promises of baptism. Baptism is the way we embody the realest reality about who we are. It isn’t augmented reality, baptism reveals real reality. Baptism is the proclamation of a love that never washes away – a grace that never dries off. Baptism is a pool that is never closed. Baptism is shouting from the roof tops that this person (big or small) is and has always been made in the image of God. And not only this person, but every person. And doesn’t that get hard when the culture we live in wants to separate people into good people and bad people. Culture says you are good or you are bad. You are what you do. And so we can see why the gospel has a 7 day shelf life when there is so much that deteriorates it every other day of the week. Our cultures can deliver such deteriorating lies – like you are grades, you are your wealth, you are the state of your home, you are your body, you are your popularity, you are your relationship status, you are your worst moment. But God says, “No, you are mine. You are my beloved. You are worthy of love. And not just my love, but your love. Don’t just love your neighbor as yourself. Love yourself as a neighbor, as a child of God who has a place and a purpose here.”
That’s the promises of God in baptism poured out upon you. And even if you have not been baptized these promises are still true and for you even now. Martin Luther says we are called to remember our baptism every day. When you are showering or washing your hands. Which I’ll admit often sounds silly to me – except on the days when it doesn’t. Those days when I look myself in the mirror and remember how desperate I am to be reminded of the promise of being made in the image of God. Because I’ve had a different and distorted image of myself for too long.
God looks at you and says, I love you. Can you look at you and say, I love me too. How else can we be God’s presence in the world, the body of Christ on earth, if we don’t love what God loves?
It’s what we are invited to give our lives to – today. To recommit, to renew our vows to today. In a few moments, when the confirmands stand up here and affirm their baptisms, by saying yes to God’s promises, you get to do the same in your hearts.
You too can renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God.
You too can profess a faith in God who made you in their image
You too can rely on the presence of Christ, who has come to be with you.
You too can trust in the holy spirit, who promises to go with you and sustain you along the way.
You too can renew your baptismal call to love yourself, love your neighbor, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.
Maybe it’s a bit overly optimistic, but I think my prayer today is that every Sunday would be covenant Sunday. That every Sunday would be affirmation of baptism Sunday. Because it is. Every Sunday we get to decide to, commit to, covenant to say yes to God’s promises once again in our life for another week.
I’m glad it is Sunday. I’m glad you’re here. May you see you as God sees you. May you love you as God loves you. And may that love give you a strength to love for the next 6 days.
See you next week. Amen
Untying the Cerebral Knot 