Mark 12:28-34    NT p. 46 or 1244

28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"

29 Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;

30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

31 The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

32 Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other';

33 and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,'--this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him any question.

INTRODUCTION:

In a cartoon, Frank and Ernest are standing in front of row after row of shelves of books. On top of one of the shelves is a sign which reads, "Law Library." Franks turns and says to Ernest: "It's frightening when you think that we started out with just ten commandments."

It is sort of frightening isn't it? We started out with 10 and now we have an estimated 35 million laws on the books in the United States alone. Some of them are very good and deeply needed. But there are some that probably need to be repealed.

For example: Did you know there is a law in Florida that makes it illegal for a woman who's single, divorced or widowed to parachute out of a plane on Sunday afternoon.

In Amarillo, Texas, it is against the law to take a bath on the main street during banking hours.

In Portland, Oregon, it is illegal to wear roller skates in public restrooms.

In Halethorpe, Maryland, a kiss lasting more than a second is an illegal act.

And in St. Louis, there used to be a law that if your automobile spooked a horse, you had to hide the car. And if hiding didn't work, you had to start dismantling it until the horse calmed down. (1)

Today we meet a scribe who wants to know which of the 10 Commandments is the most important. He wasn't trying to trap Jesus. He wasn't trying to be impertinent. This Scribe was a seeker. He was wanted to know which one of the commandments would get him closer to God. It appears that he was running a sort of Spiritual Checkup on himself.

I. LAW:

A. It's no accident that this Scribe asked this question. He was one of those who was highly interested in every aspect of the law. He wasn't searching for loopholes but ways to fulfill it. The problem was, there were too many laws. No one could keep them. There were 613 laws that the Jewish people felt you had to keep.

I really don't know how they arrived at that number. I think they practiced some weird kind of math like Frank and Ernest. Did you see the Halloween comic? To paraphase it a little. What do you get when divide the circumference of a pumpkin by it's diameter? The answer: "Pumpkin Pi."

It's that sort of math that seems to show 4+6=613. The 4+6 stands for the Ten Commandments. I have a friend, a retired United Methodist Minister, Dr. Don Strobe, who likes to put it into cooking terms. He says they boiled the 10 Commandments down to 613 laws.

If you look at those 613 laws, 365 of them are negative (the "you shall not" variety) and 248 of them are framed in positive terms (you shall). No wonder the Scribe wanted to know which one was the most important.

B. Jesus turned everything on its head, as he often did. He took the 613 laws and boiled them back down to the original two. Not ten but two. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." And "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." And then he said, "There is no other commandment greater than these."

You see, if you look at the Ten Commandments, this is what they are all about. The first four are about loving God. The last six are about loving our neighbors as ourselves. Rather than burdening us with another list of laws to remember, Jesus strip them of all of their excess baggage and made them so that anyone and everyone could not only understand them but live them. And Jesus made it so that we could live them without feeling shackled and weighted down with the guilt of failure.

II. LOVE:

A. Here we are in the middle of our Stewardship Campaign, it's All Saints Sunday, and Communion Sunday. And you're probably thinking, "Well, so what?" What does all of that have to do with stewardship? What does all of that have to do with All Saints Sunday? What does all of that have to do the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

The answer is simple. EVERYTHING!

I personally believe that there are four verses which Jesus spoke that can sum up everything in the Bible. These two and John 3:16-17. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

Now don't get me wrong, I believe there is more to God's message than just those four verses. But I can't think of any verses that sum up Jesus' mission and purpose better than John 3:16-17. And I can't think of any verses that sum up how we are to live as Christians and children of God than Mark 12:30-31. You can't get any simpler than that. They both put God first.

And isn't that the whole point of the Christian life? Putting God first in everything we do.

B. Our Saints, those people who influenced our faith the most. Those people who were shining examples of what a Christian should be put God first through their saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Whenever we celebrate The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and partake of the bread and wine, we are reminded how Jesus put God first and the high cost of our salvation.

And when we begin to ponder any form of stewardship, we are reminded that God IS first. That's why these two verses "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." And "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." are the foundation of all stewardship.

All stewardship begins with our love for God and our love for neighbors. Everything we do in the Church, every ministry we start, every program we underwrite, every building we build, every activity we start, every person we reach out to is because of one of these verses. We reach out, we teach, we serve, we give because we love God and because we love others. It's as simple as that.

Now I know, some of our neighbors aren't very lovable but then neither are we, at times. So, we can't fall into that judgment trap. Judgment isn't our business. It's God's. Jesus didn't come to condemn, remember. He came to save.

Besides God's judgment came through Jesus. God looked at a sinful fallen world and judged us lovable, forgivable, redeemable and worthy of His Son. And if God says we're lovable, forgivable and redeemable then we better be careful how we treat one another, don't you think.

Our job is simply to love. Love inspires. Love inspires change. Love inspires hope. Love inspires action. Love inspires giving and sacrifice. And Love draws people in.

A particular church was having Vacation Bible School and the five year olds were outside playing Red Rover. You know: "Red Rover, Red Rover send Jimmy right over." Then if you break the chain, you get someone for your team. If they catch you, you join their team.

On this particular day, one team was clearly in the lead. In fact, all that was left of the first team was one little girl, Betty. The second team yelled, "Red Rover, Red Rover send Betty right over."

Betty squinted, dug in her heals, reared back ready to go, and then just plopped down on her knees and started crying. Big old tears ran down her cheeks and soaked her T-shirt. The pastor went running over to see what was wrong and Betty hollered out, "I don't want to play anymore! I don't want to play."

When the preacher asked her why she said, "I can't win. They've got each other! And all I have is me." (2)

There are a lot of people in our world who feel just like Betty. They look at the world and feel alone. They look at the world and cry out "I can't win. They've got each other! And all I have is me." Our stewardship, our giving, our loving God and loving each other, invites them to be a part of something and someone bigger than all of us together, God.

CONCLUSION:

An ancient rabbi once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was on its way back.

"When you see an animal in the distance and can tell what kind of animal it is" answered one pupil.

"No" replied the rabbi.

"When you see a tree in the distance and can tell what kind of tree it is" replied another.

"No" answered the rabbi.

"Well then" his pupils asked "how can we tell when night has ended and day has arrived?"

"It is when you look into the face of another man or woman and see that he or she is your brother or sister. If you can't do this, no matter what time it is, it is still night."

Jesus is the Light of the World and the most important thing we can do is to let His light shine by "loving God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength." And "Loving our neighbor as our self."

Now I know, there are folks who are thinking, "Is That All? Just love God and neighbor?"

The Biblical answer is "Yes! That's all there is to it."

When we do it, when we love God with all that we have and love our neighbor as ourselves, it's then that we see our neighbors as brothers and sisters. It's then that we are able to truly give. Because God is first in all we do.

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Bibliography

1. Autoillustrator

2. Author unknown. From Stewardship Sermons from a Stewardship seminar hosted by Texas Methodist Foundation.

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