Proper 25 "the greatest commandment? - love"

     Matthew 22: 34-46

 

A lawyer comes to test Jesus – “Which commandment is the greatest?”.

 

The books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy contain pages and pages, chapters and chapters of commandments – not just the ones we call the ‘ten commandments’, but many more besides, dealing with how to live, how to walk in God’s way, how to serve justice, what to eat, property law, rules of warfare, marriage, money..

 

How do you choose just one?

Jesus’ answer? He brings together the teaching of many of those pages and pages of commandments into this:

“’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

 

 

You shall love.. says Jesus.

All of the commandments are meant to bring us to a point where we can be people who love. Love God with all you have, and love your neighbour as yourself.

 

But it is hard sometimes, to love.

How can we love God with all our heart, soul & mind and how can we love our neighbour – when sometimes we feel we are struggling just to hold on in life?

 

If we are to love I think we need to know what love means – so let’s start by exploring God’s love for us.

 

I think we experience God’s love in three ways.

God looks after us

God looks for us

God looks at us

 

We know that God looks after us – we have spent quite a lot of the Autumn so far thanking God for our harvest, remembering God’s gifts in creation, and rejoicing that we have so much and enough to share.

God is our creator, the one who made all the gifts of creation we enjoy. God’s care for us is so great that Jesus called God ‘Father’. God looks after us.

 

God also looks for us.

Throughout the Bible God is referred to as a shepherd – think of the 23rd Psalm ‘The Lord is my shepherd’.

Jesus even called himself the Good Shepherd, and told us the story of the shepherd who leaved the flock of 99 safe, to search for the one who was missing.

In Jesus we see the God who comes to earth to be with us, who searches for us when we are lost, and who is always ready to bring us back into the safety and security of his love. God looks for us.

 

And God looks at us in love.

What do I mean by that?

In the last few weeks of my mum’s life I visited her as much as I could, and I got into a habit, I suppose, of saying, just before it was time for me to leave, “is there anything else you need me to do for you before I go?”. One day she answered by saying ‘No, I just want to look at you’. And we sat and looked at each other – and I knew how much she loved me and I hope she knew how much I loved her.

 

As we sit here today in this chapel, God looks at us – as the One who looks after us and looks for us, but also with the love of one who just looks at us and loves us.

 

Knowing we are loved, we are lovable, we are cherished by God helps us in our struggles, but it also enables us to love God and love others, as Jesus tells us.

 

All love begins with God and Jesus does not just say ‘Love God’ he says ‘Love the Lord your God’.

God is not a strange idea or an inanimate object.

God is the Lord our God.

God is the one who first loves us, who pours out love, who so loves the world that he sends his Son.

We gather here to worship and we remember that we are loved by God – we sit here bathed in that love – the Lord our God is here and he looks on us with love.

 

Filled with that love we can certainly begin to love God in return – with some, if not all of our heart, soul and mind.

 

And Jesus says ‘love others as you love yourself’.

If you can look at yourself and know you are lovable, and loved and lovely, despite your faults, it will enable you to show that measure of love and acceptance to other people.

From the knowledge of being lovable and being lovely comes the ability to love others as we love ourselves – to love freely and generously. We can love others knowing that God, who is the source of all love, is the Lord our God and fills us with love.

 

Which commandment is the greatest? Love.

Live in the knowledge of the Love of God. The God who looks after you, looks for you and looks at you.

Love God back with all your heart, soul and mind.

Know yourself loved, and Love others as you love yourself.

 

St Richard of Chichester, who was Bishop of Chichester in the 13th century, gave his followers these words, showing how following Jesus leads us to love God more:

 

Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ

For all the benefits Thou hast given me,
For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me.
O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother,
May I know Thee more clearly,
Love Thee more dearly,
Follow Thee more nearly.

 

Love is the greatest of the commandments.

Thanks be to God, who is love.

Amen.

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