JAN. 28, 2007 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
JER 4:1-10; PS 71:1-6; I COR 13:1-13; LK 4:21-30
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
O.K. everyone, I want you to grab a piece of paper and something to write with…we’re going to start out this morning…with a little quiz. Didn’t you just hate hearing those words as a student? I have to tell you, though, they’re actually kind of fun to say. I guess our teachers need some kind of rewards in their thankless and low-paying jobs.
So, anyway, here’s the first question – no, I’m not joking…it’s worth 10 points of your final grade! What is the 1st Commandment? I am the Lord your God – you shall have no other gods. Very good.
Now, for 100 points, would someone please tell us what it means?
-don’t worship others gods -don’t put anything in this life before God
Next, I’ll give a thousand points of extra-credit to anyone who can give the answer from Luther’s Small Catechism… You shall have no other gods means that We are to fear, love and trust God above anything else.
Luther goes on to assert that this commandment is the sum of the entire Gospel! Any ideas why he would say that? Many Christians talk about the need for us to choose God, which then places the burden of maintaining our faith on our shaky shoulders rather than where it belongs, on the Rock, the Fortress, the firm foundation of Heaven.
Instead, when the Lord says, I am your God it means that the God of all creation is, in a very real sense, head-over-heels-in-love with you, and me, and, well, here’s the kicker, everyone else as well! All that we need, all that is important in life, all that will be helpful to us as we seek to live God’s will in or lives, has-been-is-or-will-be-provided by this, the Author of life, the Savior of life, the Spirit who breathes life into us daily.
Here’s your next ten-point quiz question: Which commandment does Jesus say is the first/most important? Hint: it’s kind of a trick question.
Says the Lord: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself (cf. Mk. 12:28-34; Mt. 22:34-40).
So the next question, I guess, must be: What does it mean to love?
On the one hand, we have a beautiful delineation of love from I Cor. 13 – turn to the back of your bulletin where you can read those amazing words: Love is…patient, kind; love is not…arrogant, boastful or rude. Isn’t that an incredible portrait of prose…?
On the other hand, this heavenly depiction of love…leaves me wondering about the hardness of my all-too-human heart. I love the poetry and its beautiful, ethereal, almost astral image of love…but I have to tell the truth: it’s probably the most attractive…accusation I’ve ever heard.
Because I don’t love like this – even at my best I don’t come anywhere near this paragon, this archetype, this epitome of love. And to think that it is being demanded of me only makes it worse. What hope can I have to live this kind of love when I can’t even make it work momentarily? Or am I the only one here afflicted by selfishness and suspicion, envy and greed?
But here’s the good news, it’s another passage about love that actually sets me free from my dilemma and sets us all on the right course for how to live as Christ’s loving servants. Listen to these words from John’s 1st Letter,
In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another (I John 4:10-11).
This is the truth that Luther sees in the 1st Commandment. In those words: I am the Lord your God, our Creator is like a shepherd who finds some lost sheep, then cries out in a joyful voice, Finders keepers! Wandering on our own through the wilderness of life, God’s Spirit calls us and claims us, finds us and forgives us, loves us…then leads us into the world to love others…that they, too, may hear and believe in this life-giving love of God.
Where in life, or, I should say, from whom in life do we learn to love? Mom, Dad, relative, friend, teacher – someone leads us to trust that as we can look to another human being for love, even more so can we look to God.
A print hanging in our living room shows a young native child, hand to its mother’s face, looking into her eyes with that essential, bone-of-my-bones, flesh-of-my-flesh acceptance and affection. It is entitled, simply, First Love.
This is what makes God’s love for us the first and the best. It’s not some sterile ideal sent down to earth from heaven on high, but that real love manifested in and through Jesus, who learned about it from Mary and Joseph, from Peter and Mary Magdalene and his other followers and friends. It’s a love that helped him when he languished and laughed, when he was lonely and longed for a word of kindness and compassion…who, through it all – still – loves as he has been loved. Amen.