One of the hardest things about communication is misunderstanding, particularly when we hear something that was more than what was said. When my wife and I were first dating she had a house and I lived in an apartment so I would come over to do laundry. We were both still dealing with the effects of having spouses who left us which often caused us to hear things in our former spouse’s voice. The first time I did laundry at her house, which was in the garage, I came back in and said, “Wow. You have a lot of spider’s in the garage.” Marianne quickly responded, “Well, you try and clean the garage with three young children and full time job.” She was incensed at my apparent criticism. I responded, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m not suggesting that you need to clean the garage. I’m afraid of spiders.” So we learned that we needed to take time to do that simple response, “What I hear you saying is . . .” And today, I would like to do that with Jesus’ words about the greatest commandment. "Jesus what I hear you saying is . . ."
Incarnate these words
For thousands of years, daily, when awakening and when retiring, the observant Jew recites aloud a creed, which is lifted from the book of Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It’s called the Shema, the first word of the creed, meaning “Hear.” It reflects the heart of Jewish spirituality and formation.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
This is the first prayer that Jewish children are taught to say and the quintessential expression of Jewish belief and practice. It sets out the purpose and means for spirituality, Scripture reading, prayer, what God wants, and who we are designed to be. As a good Jew, Jesus would have prayed this creed himself twice a day. So no one would have been surprised that he shares it with both his enemies and to his followers as critical for our spiritual formation. And before we get into the content of the creed itself it’s worth getting at the getting – how do we learn it and embody it? The spiritual pedagogy of Judaism and Christianity, anchored in the creed, and illustrated by Jesus hinges on one word: incarnate – literally “enfleshed” or embodied. And that has two essential components:
1. First, incarnate words are ones that you live in your body. Words are meant to be practiced, impact choices, and shape how we conduct ourselves. The opposite is what we mean when we say, “It’s just words.” Words without a body mean nothing. But that also doesn’t mean they are unimportant. No, in fact, we’ve also seen what happens when someone’s unkind or hurtful words anchor in a body. They can possess someone for great harm. God’s ultimate act of love was to embody his own love for us by being present, in the flesh. Jesus was a walking Shema. So to learn this creed means looking to Jesus and taking real, practical steps to acting them out. It’s understanding that what one believes is expressed by what one does. And that leads me to the second component of incarnate.
2. The second meaning of incarnate is that the practice of learning, the way we learn, must connect physically with who we are. This creed is full-bodied belief demanding our intellect, our emotions, our spirituality, and our resolve. It’s for the young and old to be talked about and discussed, at home or on the road, written on our hands, our heads, our doors, our gates. They belong in our mornings, our evenings, and wrapped around and weaved into our lives. Words are to touched, tied, written, and walked. We’ve become so technocentric we’ve forgot that the symbology of these physical acts of learning were more than metaphor for our ancient forebearers. Observant Jews wore phylacteries, tacked mezuzahs to their doorposts, hung texts of Scriptures around their necks.
They understood spirituality to be an incarnate reality much the same way modern advertisers with slick jingles do, though with less savory motives. We were made to habitually embody the words and beliefs that we hold most dear and the only way to do that is to bring our bodies into our learning. You must shape and bring with you all that you are to this task. Can you imagine me telling my wife, “I love you but I only want to hang out two hours on a Sunday, okay, sound good? Excellent. Oh and here’s a few bucks. Bye.”Commit to saying the Jesus Creed – morning and night. Commit to discussing our values with others, your children, your friends your spouse. Take this card and do something creative with it so that it becomes a feature of your day, a part of your prayer, a purpose of your life. Let its verbs activate your body, its nouns name you daily, and always remember that the purpose and goal, the beginning and the end, the one thing God desires is love.
There is no spiritual substitute for love.
Have you ever tried to substitute something in recipe. It can be a disaster changing the entire taste or texture of what you were trying to make. I found a website that documents people’s comments on failed recipes. They’re pretty funny.
This is more than silly. In my own life I have often tried a lot of substitutes for God’s main ingredient of love. I’ve tried obedience. It’s not a bad substitute but when I’ve used it I have often found myself outside the party with the older brother complaining about the fact that I have no party and that others who are at loss obedient are enjoying. I’ve tried theological certainty and I discovered people with a lot more fruit in their lives who believed differently from me. I’ve tried militant purity and found myself constantly holding stones ready to zing them at any and every sinner I encountered only to have Jesus disarm me time and time again. Listen to me well. None of those things are bad, in and of themselves, but they are not what the recipe calls for. Substituting the best mayonnaise in the world for heavy cream when making icing won’t make it taste better. Substituting good and holy things for love can’t replace love. If we use a plant analogy, the only thing that will produce fruits of love is roots of love. The Apostle Paul would remind us: every good spiritual thing done without love is nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3). So Jesus what I hear you saying is “There is no spiritual substitute for love. O and to stop putting kale in the carrot cake.” FYI One chef pro-tip – I want to confess that love isn’t simply one thing. I’ve seen love sweet and sour, hot and cold, cubed and diced. I’ve seen it sprinkled, poured, baked, and fried. Love isn’t served only one way and it’s a tricky ingredient – easy to misuse, undercook, or burn. But you can’t get away from using it. And you should listen and watch Jesus as much as possible. And don’t be afraid to ask another trusted chef, “Hey, can you taste this?”
Finally, we get to the Jesus Innovation: There’s only “like” one love, one commandment, and one neighbor.
Perhaps the most astounding element of our passage is that Jesus innovates and adds to Israel’s creed by taking an obscure passage from Leviticus 19:18: “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” Now, on one level it takes a lot of hutzpah to add to any sort of sacred thing. Imagine someone adding to the Lord’s Prayer or the Pledge of Allegiance. But Jesus is a wiley spiritual teacher. He knows that, despite incarnational realities and the element of love, it’s quite easy to say and even perform acts which look like love – particularly for a God that we cannot see or touch – that don’t equate to loving. And it’s important to understand that he is not adding Leviticus to rest alongside or be secondary to the commandment to love God but is telling us what loving God actually looks it. In other words, Leviticus 19:18 isn’t the cherry on the top of God’s love sundae. It’s hot fudge that’s been poured over, blended in, shaken, stirred, and mixed by Jesus into it and can’t be undone. He does this mixing by saying, “and the second is like it . . .” Friends, loving God will like always lead you to people and loving people will like always lead you back to God. I’ve spoken to before about how the ancient church created a symbol for this reality – a wagon wheel with spokes. They understood God was the center and that as we moved toward the center you also came to be closer to the spokes but also if you draw near the spokes you become closer to God.
Do you want to know if you love God? Asks people if they feel loved by you.
And Jesus’ Shema and Leviticus mixing and melding creates two important realities as we seek to worship God and love others.
1. First, everyone is neighbor. When you wish to love God you will discover that everyone is made for love and deserving of love. So don’t try to asks, “Who’s my neighbor?” in order to pick and choose or curtail that love. It won’t work. Remember in one of the versions of the Greatest Commandment Jesus will use a Samaritan, one of the more hated people of Israelites, to both define who a neighbor is and to praise for offering neighbor love. So we worship God and love Republicans, Democrats, LGBTQ+, Beaver fans, Duck fans, church members, church haters, skeptics, believers, etc. Loving others – loving all neighbors IS our worship. A worship song that we must sing often and loud was written by a Presbyterian minister. I think you know it.
It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
It's a neighborly day in this beautywood,
A neighborly day for a beauty,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.
So let's make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we're together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please,
Won't you please,
Please won't you be my neighbor?
2. Second, you must come to believe, as a lover of God and lover of neighbor, that you are also a neighbor worthy of love. If you can’t see yourself as one deserving of love you will never actually be able to offer it well to others. So inherent and implicit in our vision statement is the profound belief that could be stated “We worship God and love ourselves by living into these values.” So part of our work as a church remains each of us learning to be a neighbor to ourselves.
Friends, family, brothers and sisters, Trinity Covenant Church, incarnate these truths – there is no substitute for loving God and you love God by loving every neighbor that you meet. The second is like the first. We worship God and love others by living into these values. Let the vision begin.
To check out our Missional Values click HERE
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