Today’s sermon topic is on one of my favourite subjects – love. Those of you who have known me for a longer period of time would have heard me spout love-isms, such as, “you can’t look for love, it has to find you”, or “you know you love someone and are ready for a relationship when you are willing to let your heart be broken by this person and think it would be worth it” and so on .. Sometimes, these love-isms would be invited and other times not but I’d say them anyway! So much so that one of my gay male friends gave me the nickname, Venus and I would call him Aries.
The lectionary passage from today’s offerings which has provided me this opportunity to torture you with my love-isms (haha, no I’ll spare you) is Matthew 22: 34 – 46, which includes none other than the Greatest Commandment as articulated by Jesus.
The context of this passage involves firstly the Sadducees testing Jesus by providing him the riddle of the woman who had many husbands on earth, and who would be her husband in the resurrection – the basis of this riddle being that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. After providing them with a mind-transforming answer, the other school of teachers and upkeepers of the law, the Pharisees, take their turn with Jesus to test him, and this is where our lectionary reading for today starts.
[Read lectionary passage Matthew 22: 34 – 40]
The Pharisees were probably trying to trap Jesus by getting him to recite the shema, the greatest commandment for a Jew, articulated during the time of Moses after receiving the Ten Commandments and as found in Deuteronomy 6: 4 – 5:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
By reciting this, the Pharisees could then accuse Jesus of not adhering to the shema and instead breaking God’s commandments through behaviours such as healing on the Sabbath, mixing with the unclean such as prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, alluding to himself being the Son of God and so on. However, Jesus very wisely interpreted the meaning of the shema for the Pharisees in terms of its application, and added on:
“This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
In my opinion, this is so brilliant! When Jesus says the second commandment is like the first, he is in fact saying they are similar, they are like two sides of the same coin. Loving your neighbour as yourself is like loving God with one’s heart, soul, and strength! When he reaches out and touches, and heals, and loves those around him, the least surrounding him, on any day of the week, when the opportunity arises, these acts are the same as loving God. He is fulfilling and living out the shema in his life.
Jesus was not just adding this second commandment which is like the first, in a random manner, justifying his behaviours but rather had succinctly interpreted the Old Testament and its teachings, of how God is, and works, and explained it simply as, “love your neighbour as yourself” and “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”. It is through the law and the prophets that we understand God’s ethics, God’s way of governance, God’s identity and character, as well as will. Love of God always had to translate into loving one another, for others, for the oppressed and marginalised. Every time Israel misunderstood love of God to be navel-gazing and feeling proud of themselves, to the point of neglecting their relationships with each other and those who were suffering, Israel was punished, to the point of exile.
Thus, Jesus was wise to summarise and condense all the teachings of the law and prophets into their essence, their meaning: love the Lord your God, love your neighbour as yourself. It is one wholistic teaching and principle.
Part of the process of preparing for this sermon also meant looking at the other gospels where this passage appears, to see if they would further illuminate the teachings for today. I would like to include those found in the gospels of Mark and John.
[Reading from Mark 12: 28 – 34]
Between the readings of the shema found in the New International Versions of Deuteronomy, Matthew and Mark, there are differences in the way the shema is worded. The book of Deuteronomy states, “love the Lord your God with all your heartand with all your soul and with all your strength”; whereas the book of Matthew has it as “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”; and finally, the book of Mark mentions, “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”.
Looking at the Bible dictionary, the way the shema is phrased in Deuteronomy and Mark have meanings that are most similar and are the most comprehensive. In Hebrew thought, “heart” means the place of thinking and so would mean heart and mind; the “soul” means the life and vitality of a person; and finally, “strength” or in other translations, “might” means something like “resources”. Hence, we are called to love the Lord our God with all that we are, our entire being and every part of it – heart, mind, life energy, and inner resources. That is, “a total, undivided, and unreserved response to God is the only appropriate response” (Bible Dictionary).
But what does loving God mean, what does love here imply? The context of the word “love” here is not a matter of feeling, as in feelings of love, but is linked with keeping God’s commandments; love always involves an outward action. And what does living out God’s commandments involve, what do these outward actions entail? The answer is found in the second half of the greatest commandment – “love your neighbour as yourself”, demonstrated in the way Jesus loved his neighbours and was a friend to them. It was never just lip-service or an inward feeling but real loving actions.
The teacher of the law or Pharisee in the book of Mark confirms this and as we read earlier, reinforces what Jesus says and also adds that the shema, including loving neighbour as self “is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices”, to which Jesus approves and tells him that he is “not far from the kingdom of God”.
Burnt offerings and sacrifices were what the Israelites used when worshipping God. They would offer them at the temple, for purposes of praise and thanksgiving, as well as during times of repentance and asking for forgiveness. However, these forms of worship, of demonstrating love for God is not preferred; what is preferred and more important in loving God, or rather, what is intrinsically bound-up with loving God is the love of neighbour as oneself. In other words, our loving relationships with one another demonstrate, and is loving God, is worship.
Hence, loving and worshipping God can never only be inward-looking, or solely an inner experience. We turn inwards to communicate with God, with praise, thanksgiving, repentance, laments but if we say we love God, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, then it always can be seen in our actions towards another, and especially towards the other – the person who we rather not have anything to do with, who we perceive to be so different from us, who we think is unloveable and difficult to be with, whom we are embarrassed to be associated with and so on. To paraphrase Jesus’ words, he says elsewhere in the gospels that it’s no big deal to love those who love you, who are already your friends, but really the point of God’s love, or the kindom of God is to be able to love your neighbour, especially the challenging ones, as yourself.
Let us look closer at the statement “love your neighbour as yourself”. At first glance, we might take it to mean loving our neighbour as much as we love ourselves, or let us love ourselves first then love our neighbour – although it’s worth thinking about how what we reject in others is often what we reject in ourselves. But the statement does not say that; it calls us to love our neighbour as ourselves, not like ourselves, or after ourselves. In other words, our neighbour is us, I am to love you as me. This is very powerful, and I have to admit, I have never quite read this commandment this way before. I do not think this therefore means we are one and the same person, or that we become literally one person but rather, and this is the point, that despite our differences and diversity, we have to love the other as ourself – this is a tall order, a very radical and extravagant kind of love; something we will touch on again later.
In other words, all our prayers, meditation, worship singing and so forth are important forms of putting ourselves in touch with God, with connecting deeply with the divine and spiritual but unless they translate into loving our neighbour as ourselves, in visible acts of loving kindness, we are falling short calling ourselves lovers of God, or Christians.
I think this really bears thinking about seriously and what it means for us and how we treat others, or the other around us. There has been a lot of this unearthing, discussion and debate in Singapore this year about the other in our society – those who do not fit in, who fall through the gaps, who are left behind, neglected, discriminated against, without homes, depressed and hopeless and so on. These neighbours are everywhere around us - Singapore is such a small country after all. Perhaps some of us here might fit these descriptions. Are we really reaching out to our neighbour, loving them as ourselves? Are we seeking out the others in our midst, making ourselves available to them? Now more than over, with so much information available and opportunities to get involved, we cannot say we are unaware of the suffering that goes on around us, that we do not know how to reach out. It all starts with how seriously we take the Greatest Commandment.
Turning now to look at how the shema is contextualised within the gospel of John, it is not quoted directly from the book of Deuteronomy like how it appears in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. Instead, Jesus in the gospel of John is captured talking about loving God, and the love of God, himself and our loving one another using the metaphor of the vine-grower, vine and branches.
[Reading from John 15: 9 – 13]
In this passage, Jesus talks about the inter-abidingness between God, himself and us; because he has obeyed God’s commands, he and God abide in each other in love, and likewise, we are to obey Jesus’ commands and by doing so, abide in Jesus’ love which is also God’s love. The love flows between all of us when we obey Jesus’ commands. And what is the greatest command? We have been exploring this, and here again in verse 12, Jesus states, “my command is this: Love each other as I have loved you”. Again, loving our neighbour as ourselves is key and the highlight in abiding in God’s love.
Jesus does not say though that if we choose not to love one another that we would then be cut off from God but I do think though that it would be quite impossible to abide in God’s love, or rather, it would hold no meaning or substance for us as loving one another and abiding in God’s love is one and the same. We cannot experience or understand God’s love until we love our neighbour as ourselves.
Furthermore, Jesus makes it very explicit here what he means by loving one another in verse 13: “greater love has no one than this; that he lay down his life for his friends”. Thus, again love is not a feeling but is an action, and the greatest love one can have for another can be seen when one is willing to lay down one’s life for another. It is the greatest form of sacrifice or giving, and this brings us back to the earlier point of radical or extravagant love – the type of love that God gives, and which is our ideal. It is the type of love we abide in and are called to give.
The term in Greek for this kind of love is kenosis – which means self-emptying or a pouring out. This is the kind of love, a kenotic love which saw God pouring out, or emptying out in order to be incarnated as a human, in the form of Jesus; and is the same kind of self-emptying love that allowed Jesus to journey with the least of us, in the humblest and most difficult of circumstances, and allowed himself to be led to the cross, to lay down his life for his friends. This is the kind of love we abide in, and are called to model.
Lest this kenotic love sounds very daunting and so difficult that makes us feel like not even trying, I’d like to share this beautiful and hopefully, inspiring imagery that Cynthia Bourgeualt who wrote, The Wisdom Jesus, and which I included in my last sermon, shared. This concerns understanding the dynamics in the Holy Trinity and what it means for us, seen in the metaphor of the vine-grower, vine and branches.
The concept of the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit was first articulated by the Cappadocian Fathers, an area in modern-day Turkey in the 4th century CE. They were Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazainzus. When formulating the Trinity, they were not interested so much in looking at individual persons within the Trinity but rather the flow of energy between the persons. Also, the word “person” is not a very accurate description and translation of the Greek word, which is hypostasis. This word does not mean an individual but more a state of being, just like how water can manifest as ice, liquid or vapour but remains the same chemical compound throughout. So God is well, God-substance or chemical compound or as we call it, kenotic love, and can manifest as material being in the form of a human called Jesus, or as Spirit as in the Holy Spirit.
But again, why the Trinity was articulated by the Cappadocian Fathers or what they were interested in was how this movement, or change of state, takes place; they saw it as an outpouring of love: from Father to Son, from Son to Spirit, from Spirit back to Father. And the word used to describe these mutual outpourings is kenosis. The Trinity shows what pure relationality is like, of giving and receiving and giving again and so on; it is really an icon of self-emptying love.
This pure relationality and inter-abidingness of kenotic love is also to be seen in the vine-grower, vine and branches – between God, Jesus, ourselves and others. All parties pour out a self-emptying love to each other, and in turn, receive love, and again pour it out. Through this, we abide in God’s love.
I think what makes the movement within this icon potentially inspiring for us is another Greek word that characterises the way the Trinity relates, and that is perichoresis – which means “the dance around”, and is “the complete intercirculation of love”. The way Father, Son and Holy Spirit abide in love and relate, of mutual outpourings, of giving and receiving is like a dance. I like to call it the dance of love, or the dance of life and we are called to participate in this dance, to abide in this kenotic love and to keep it flowing, to keep the love moving, to keep the dance going, and from stopping.
And so even though we are provided with an ideal or the greatest form of self-emptying love - laying down one’s life for another, as long as we are able to give to one another as we are able, I believe we are still participating in perichoresis, in the great love dance of life, allowing love to flow freely and move. We are passing it on, and receiving, and passing it on again, and in doing so, we incarnate God to one another. Because as Bourgeault wisely puts it, God is never the object of love; a fundamental flaw is to picture God as an object, a “someone” or “something” that we can love all the way. “God is always and only the subject of love, flowing through our relationships, through our opportunities and also our challenges, through each and every one of the particular conditions we find ourselves in at any given moment. No one and nothing is excluded.”
As such, every time we give to someone else, be it a friendly hello, or a word of concern, or providing a shoulder to cry on, or food to eat, shelter for their bodies, being with the forgotten, doing social justice and advocacy work and so on, we are abiding in God’s love; we are participating in the kenotic love dance of life, giving to one another and giving back to God, the Source and at the same time, receiving. We are flowing. Every small act of self-emptying love counts, and contributes to this flow. I find this very beautiful, and let us not be disheartened by the high ideal that Jesus has set us, something for us to always bear in mind and be humbled by and strive towards, but not to be overwhelmed and give up.
Another teaching that perichoresis, this dance around of mutual indwelling provides us is to see the sacredness of God all around us, in each other, and in all of creation. This source of kenotic love manifests itself in life that surrounds us, is unfolding before us, flowing through, conveying the presence of God. We just need to be able to see with the wisdom of our hearts. There is no separation between God and us, we are all inter-connected, and it is God, the subject of love that connects us, and all of creation is participating in a dance together. To love our neighbour as ourselves is to see our neighbour as part of that sacred flow, a continuation of our very own being, which abides in God’s love, and is sacred; and similarly, to steward creation is to see it as coming from the same source of kenotic love, caught up in the same flow and dance, a continuation of our very own being, to be loved and is sacred as well.
This line by Augustine, the well-known theologian of the early church who said, “the chief end of [humankind] (he of course used the word, Man), is to glorify God and to enjoy [God] (he used Him) forever” has always stuck with me at a deep level. I think whenever we are aware that we are flowing in the self-emptying love dance of life, of giving and receiving love is where we glorify, and are enjoying God.
Finally, and on a related note, in one of the verses read just now in the gospel of John, Jesus mentions in verse 11, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” He is referring to the inter-abiding love that is present between God, him and us if we obey his commands. He then goes on to give the command to love one another as he has loved us, touched on earlier.
So this perichoresis – the intercirculation of love brings joy, and is joyful. Whenever we give of ourselves, pour out ourselves for others, is where joy resides. Have you experienced this before, where you gave of yourself to someone else, be it in a small or big way, and experienced joy in doing that? I know I have, although the joy experienced was not always immediate, and sometimes when the sacrifice was great, it involved a lot of pain first. I think other times, in faith, we wait for the joy to arrive and be realised. And anyway, perhaps joy is only able to emerge where there is also some level of pain, as all forms of giving involves some level of sacrifice.
In addition, not only does Jesus state that he is saying these things so that his joy may be in us but also that our joy “may be complete”. Alongside preparing for this sermon, I was reading Viktor Frankl’s, Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning. Frankl was Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School, and a well-known psychotherapist. His Logotherapy or Existential Analysis is now internationally known and practiced. He was also a holocaust survivor, spending three years in concentrations camps during World War II.
Frankl mentions the importance of humans’ search for meaning or “will to meaning” in order to live well. We are essentially persons striving to find, and fulfill, meaning and purpose in life. This is opposed to just being driven by unconscious drives and impulses, or changing behaviours to create changes to our situations in life. There may be truths in these schools of thought but ultimately, humans are meaning-making creatures, and we strive to understand, and integrate and construct meanings from our experiences.
When talking about happiness, Frankl states that it cannot be sought directly but is always a by-product of doing something, or being involved in something. And most notably, true happiness or joy arises when there is self-transcendence, when we are able to arise above and go beyond ourselves. I could not help but relate this to what Jesus said about loving our neighbour as ourselves, which is the same as abiding in God’s love, so that our joy may be complete. When we love our neighbour as ourselves, we are practicing self-transcendence, we are abiding in kenotic or self-emptying love, giving of ourselves to others and this is where the heart of true happiness or joy resides.
Jesus is espousing great wisdom here, giving us the so-called secret to life, to happiness and joy - “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”; “this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices”; “so that your joy may be complete”.
To end, and coming back to the shema, the core statement of faith for the Jews (for all the Abrahamic religions actually); it is so foundational that early Jewish tradition had phylacteries, cubical boxes containing the text of Deuteronomy 6: 4 – 9 and other related texts bound on the left arm and forehead at times of prayer; as well as mezuzot, containers with two of the same texts affixed to their doorpost. This is in response to interpretations of instructions given by God through Moses, in verses 8 – 9 of the passage. I am not sure if this is still widely practiced by Jews today? In any case, it demonstrates the importance of the shema as a foundation and core belief and practice, something they would recite twice a day, in the morning and evening, everyday, and also the last thing recited when facing death.
I think the cross is our modern-day, Christian phylactery and mezuzot. It is our symbol to remind us of the shema, of the greatest commandment. It reminds us of our call to love our neighbour as ourselves, where we abide in God’s love, where we are caught up in self-emptying love to God and one another, and where we receive this same love back. It is a symbol of joy, where ultimate meaning can be found. Perhaps we too should recite the greatest commandment twice a day, everyday, to remind ourselves of our identity, of what worship means, and to motivate ourselves to always reach out to the other. I know what I’ll be thinking of when I see the symbol of the cross.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.. [and] love your neighbour as yourself.”
Shall we dance?
Amen.
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