The Most Important Thing (Sermon)

“The Most Important Thing”  

Mark 12:28-34

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

7/12/15

         Jesus has come to Kingsport for what promises to be the mother of all presbytery meetings. All the gatekeeper types are in a stew at the way he’s been walking that fine line between prophet and heretic. They claim that he has thumbed his nose at scripture. They have him on record saying, “I know the Bible says that you should take an eye for an eye, but I disagree. If a person hits you on the right cheek, turn the left to them, as well.” Whether by word or deed, rewriting scripture is like a recreational sport for Jesus. And he has thrown the Book of Order out the window. Imagine, letting his disciples go to Food City on Sunday, letting them rub elbows with Hispanics, AIDS patients, drug dealers, Alabama fans*, and people who drive Fords. 

         This apostasy won’t do. It’s time to nip it in the bud. So the Committee on Ministry has scrambled. They’ve cobbled together an ad hoc committee to bring charges against this itinerate preacher from Johnson County.

         The presbytery gathers in a large sanctuary for a called meeting. Tension hangs in the air like an odor everyone is pretending to ignore. The committee clusters in the back. They compare notes. Their eyes are fierce. They’ll try first to challenge Jesus’ authority.

When the meeting begins, Jesus tells them he’ll answer their questions, after they answer one of his.

“Dr. Martin Luther King,” says Jesus. “Did he preach the gospel, or was he just some rabble-rousing black man?”

The committee members look at each other in silence. They’re not about to touch that one.

         They shuffle some papers.

“Teacher,” someone says, “we work hard for our money, but the government taxes us blind. Wouldn’t God prefer it if we kept our money and gave it to those in need as we see fit?”

         “Will someone loan me a dollar?” asks Jesus. A wrinkled bill floats hand-to-hand through the crowd. Jesus holds it high and points to a place on the back of bill. “What does that say?” he asks.

         “In God We Trust,” reads the man.

         “Well, do you?” asks Jesus. “Do you really trust God more than you trust this dollar?”

A snicker ripples through the room. Some are beginning to enjoy watching the committee sweat for a change.

         Members of the press have come to the meeting, too. Of course, they don’t care about all the religious stuff. They just want to sell papers, so they begin to mock everyone.

“Hey, Jesus!” one of them yells from the balcony, “when you die and God gives you you’re fancy nightgown and wings and stuff, if you die young will you be young in heaven, and if you die old will you be old in heaven? If so, would you pray that a truck runs over me today? ‘Cause I’m pretty young and feel pretty good right now. I wouldn’t mind feeling like this forever!”

         Jesus peers into the balcony. Grief and Love collide on his face. Every person in the room who sees his expression, and who has ever truly loved, feels the sad ache of Jesus’ disappointment.

“You sound kind of dead already,” says Jesus. “Yes. I’ll pray for you.”

         The reporter’s grin flat lines.

More silence. Who will speak next?

         The committee’s secretary steps out of the crowd and walks up to Jesus. “Teacher,” he says, “in your opinion, out of everything we teach, preach, and debate, what is the most important thing of all?”

         His voice is genuine, his face honest. Jesus feels his own heart lift.

“Jehovah is one,” he says. “Love God, then, with all your courage and enthusiasm. Love God with all your forward momentum, with all your thoughtfulness and cleverness. Love God with all of your God-given breath. That is the first most important thing. And the second follows inseparably from the first: Love one another. Love one another as if you were loving yourself. Nothing is more important than Love. Nothing.”

         The man nods thoughtfully and says, “You’re right. Honest-to-goodness, fearless Love is more important than any religious tradition or moral code.”

         “You’re on God’s path,” says Jesus. “You are not far from home.”

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         A scribe asks Jesus about the most important commandment. When he hears Jesus’ answer, in the midst of a very tense and public conflict, the man boldly agrees with Jesus. Loving God and neighbor always trumps doctrinal correctness and ritual purity. This constitutes a brand new and radically transforming foundation: Faithfulness to the Law is a matter of Love, not of adherence to the mandates of legalistic religion.

         Years ago, the great Fred Craddock summed it up well: “Important as the search for truth is,” he wrote, “the kingdom of God is not agreeing on the right answers…It is rather living, doing, and relating in ways that the love of God and love of neighbor inspire, inform, and discipline.”

         That is profoundly liberating, redeeming – and challenging. Of all the answers that the scribe might expect or want, nothing could be more demanding than the command to Love with every stitch and fiber of our being. It’s demanding, because it is clear that by “neighbor” Jesus means pretty much everyone, even – and maybe even especially – those folks we don’t much like.

Christlike Love is not a romantic emotion. And the covetous materialism of saying things like, “Oh, I love your new car!” actually impedes Christlike Love. Christlike Love is the cross-bearing work of striving for the well-being of others and of the creation, even when it means sacrificing our own carefully scheduled comfort or pleasure. It means speaking hard truths, though not in order to beat down and conquer, but rather that all people and all things might be lifted up into the boundless grace, and mercy, and Love of God.

Now, we don’t even see eye-to-eye on what those “truths” are, much less who’s right or wrong. That’s why individual Christians, just like congregations and whole denominations, are always falling out with each other. It would have been so much easier if Jesus had just said that the most important things are to say “please and thank you,” to remove your hat when you come inside, sacrifice a goat once a week, a bull every fifth Sunday, and wash your hands before meals. On the whole, human beings tend to prefer measurable, black-and-white codes. But as first-century Pharisaism illustrates, codifying behavior always devolves into comparative, competitive, and thus abusive religion.

         I know I keep harping on this, but in the deep polarization of our times, it is tempting to deal with our neighbors competitively rather than cooperatively, fearfully rather than Lovingly.

         The story of Jesus and the scribe offers gospel hope to us. In the midst of a chaotic sea of division, these two adversaries step onto an island of understanding and unity. On that island they embrace as brothers. They remind all of us that regardless of differences, the most important thing, the unifying thing, is the long and demanding road of Love.

Could God ask anything simpler than for us to Love one another?

Could God ask anything more difficult than for us to Love one another with the same Love with which Jesus Loves those who crucify him?

         Jesus, the Christ, embodies the immeasurable, technicolor Love of God. And that living Love empowers us to do that which by ourselves would be impossible.

There is simply nothing in this life, says Jesus, nothing more important than striving to Love as God Loves us.

*It’s an SEC thing. Forgive me.