First Things First

(Scriptures: Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Psalm 90, I Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-46)

Our Gospel reading for this morning reminds me of a quotation – it was popularized by author Steven Covey, who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, but it may not have originated with him. Here’s the quote: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In the 1990’s there was a sense among some business leaders that their businesses had gotten so lost in the day-to-day details, the daily muck and mire, that they forgot why they were in business – and so there was a movement among businesses to create mission statements, short statements, just a sentence or two long, stating the purpose of the organization, the reason for its existence. For example, here is the mission statement for McDonalds, which is often cited as an example of a well-written mission statement: “McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.” I like that last phrase….”make every customer in every restaurant smile.” Now, I don’t say this because I want everyone to go home from here to eat at McDonalds; in fact, I’m not sure I want anyone to eat at McDonalds anytime – eating at McDonalds will not make your doctor smile; in fact, eating there on a regular basis will make your doctor very unhappy with you indeed. But I wanted to quote their mission statement as an example of how just a few sentences can cut through all the noise, all the distractions, to get at the point for a company’s existence. Management of such companies can make day to day decisions on the basis of these mission statements – does this or that action have anything to do with the company’s mission. Anything that doesn’t advance the mission is a distraction, and should be rejected.

In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is challenged by a teacher of the law, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The teacher was asking this question to test Jesus’ orthodoxy as a Jew, perhaps to entrap him into uttering some heretical interpretation – but Jesus, as always, turned it into a teaching moment. Jesus said to him, "'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 neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

These commandments did not originate with Jesus. They are integral to Judaism as well. The first commandment – love of God – comes from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” This statement is central to Judaism, recited daily in morning and evening prayers among the observant. The second, love of neighbor, comes from Leviticus 19, in a chapter on ethical behavior including these words: “You 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.” The importance of how we treat our neighbor was lifted up by Rabbi Hillel, perhaps the best known of the rabbis. He was famously asked one time to recite the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel stood on one foot and said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn it.” As Christians we often caricature Judaism as a religion of law, as compare to Christianity, which we call a religion of love. But Judaism is based in love as well, though a few of its leaders occasionally got lost in the details. While in Judaism there are indeed many laws – 613 by one count – Jesus saw all of them as an integrated system, hanging on these two commandments, love of God and neighbor. The whole thing hung on love. Love of God, love of neighbor – in a word, “love” - that’s the main thing.
We may have some questions. We may say to ourselves, I’ve got some people in my life I don’t love. In fact, I don’t even like them. They work my last nerve. They make me see red. Sometimes they scare me, make my skin crawl. And I get mad at God from time to time, when something tragic happens to someone I do love. How am I supposed to love God and neighbor at these times? Am I supposed to fake it, to be a phony?

The love of which Christ speaks isn’t about warm fuzzies. It’s about a commitment to stay in relationship – with God, with neighbor. Think of it as a mission statement, as our mission statement – to commit to staying in relationship with God, even when we’re angry at God; to commit to staying in relationship with those around us and help them, so seek their good as we seek our own, even if they drive us crazy. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ sermon illustration about love of neighbor was his parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan showed love toward his political enemy, the Jew who had been set upon by robbers, not by singing the guy a love song, but by picking him up and treating his wounds and carrying him to an inn and paying for his room and board till he recovered. We are to measure our own actions by the standard of love: does this or that action have anything to do with love of God or neighbor?

Our Old Testament reading includes a tribute to Moses at the time of his death, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses.” Moses loved God and loved the people whom he led. He didn’t always like them. He sometimes wanted to throw his hands in the air and give up – but he was committed to keep on keeping on in love. Our Epistle reading also gives us a picture of what Christian love in action looked like. Though he knew he faced opposition, Paul’s commitment to God’s love compelled him to go to Thessalonica to preach the good news of Christ. Paul writes: But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.

It was said of the early church, “See how these Christians love one another.” As the old campfire song goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” But will they? Do they? We have one, perhaps two generations of Americans who have for the most part had no contact with the church, for whom going to church isn’t even a long-ago, faded childhood memory, but a complete blank, a mystery. The Scriptures and hymns many of us know by heart, for these generations may as well be written in ancient Sanskrit. These younger generations, for the most part, know Christianity only from how they see Christians behave, on TV, in the news. If those with no first-hand church experience like what they see from the media, who knows, perhaps they’ll check out the churches. If what they see on the media repels them, likely they won’t.

So what do they learn from the news media about Christians? All too often, they learn that Christians are judgmental, intolerant, even hateful. In the news they read about gay teens going home from church after hearing their pastors call them abominations, and killing themselves. They see Christians in the news picketing funerals of military personnel. They may know that it says somewhere in the Bible that Jesus said “blessed are the poor” and “it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven” but they see Christian clergy in fine robes and stately buildings, or well-dressed televangelists endlessly asking for money. The Christians who are highly visible in the media aren’t poor, and viewers don’t see these well-off Christians doing much of anything to help those who are poor. They may flip between TV channels and see glowering TV preachers, their faces red shading into purple with wrath, thundering damnation at anyone who disagrees with their agenda. From watching Christians, outsiders may learn that Christians have many priorities, but love isn’t high on the list. Maybe it’s not on the list at all. They’re just plain not feeling the love! And yet Jesus said love is the main thing. On love hangs the law and the prophets. Jesus said that. Are churches keeping the main thing the main thing?

In last week’s Gospel reading, using a coin with an image of the emperor as a teaching tool, Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God’s. On the coin is the image of the emperor, and so to the emperor goes the coin. But human beings – you, me, our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, and yes, our enemies, are created in God’s image. As the coin bore the image of the emperor, we – all of us - bear the image of God, and so we are God’s. As followers of Christ we are to render to God what is God’s – love of God, love of neighbor – to live our lives as an outpouring of love in gratitude for God’s great love – in the words of our first hymn, God’s “love divine, all love excelling” - toward us.
I think at Emanuel Church we do a fairly decent job of keeping the main thing the main thing. As small as we are, we can’t do a huge number of different things, so it’s important that we choose wisely the things we do, and do them well. We may not be able to do huge things, but we do small things with great love. And when we get together on Sunday, I think we can feel the love, most Sundays at least.

Unfortunately, our neighbors likely will never see Emanuel Church on TV. We got an article in the Bridesburg Bulletin about our 150th anniversary – I wrote it - but it’ll be another 25 years till we have another “big” anniversary we can publicize. Given limited resources, we do what we can with a website, a blog, and free social media such as Facebook, but we can’t pay for TV or radio time. So if we want to show our neighbors that they can find love – God’s love, our love – at Emanuel, realistically, it’ll mostly happen one person at a time. As the old saying goes – and especially with multiple generations in our country who grew up outside the church - our lives – your lives, my life - may be the only Bible our non-Christian neighbors ever read. So let’s make sure that what they read in our lives is truly Gospel, truly good news. How we treat our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends, and yes, our enemies can draw people to Christ – or turn them away. Let us make a commitment that nobody will be turned away from Christ by any word or action of ours.

St. Francis once said: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” May we at Emanuel preach the Gospel, in our words and in our actions, at all times, to all with whom we come in contact. Amen.