Holden Evening Prayer – The Big Why: Reformation

Matthew 22:34-46

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He 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 neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”

He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”

No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Dear Beloved of God, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus who is the Christ.  Amen.

Surely there is more to it.  It can’t all be summed up so neatly, so tidily in two little sentences, can it?  Jesus said, “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 of the law and the prophets.”

All of the law and the prophets?  Everything?  I mean I understand this is Jesus we are talking about and if anybody can distill something down to it’s essence it would be him.  I mean after all we are talking about the individual who brought the totality of the divine being to exist within one human body, but still.  

I have trouble believing that anything that fits on an 8×11-inch framed piece counted cross-stitch handicraft has the ability to carry the full weight of God’s intentions and desires for humanity.

And I appreciate counted cross-stitch and framed handicrafts.  My mom was a cross-stitcher.  Throughout my childhood I have pretty distinct memories of my mom unwinding at the end of the day by doing some counted cross-stitch, while watching “Miami Vice.”  Which might explain why when I was seven years old, I was Sonny Crockett for Halloween.  But that’s for another Sunday.

My mom would spend hours and hours on each of these projects.  They were tiny and intricate. It was a labor of love for her for years, so I tend to notice these needlework projects out in the wild.  And in my experience, the Venn diagram between pithy bible verses and counted cross-stitch projects has a lot of overlap between the two ovals. 

A quick Google image search brings up but a few different renderings of Jesus’ words from Matthew’s gospel that are in front of us today.  

And look, I’m not against the intersection of scripture and handicrafts, by any stretch of the imagination.  Art has helped to tell the story of God and God’s people for centuries.  But I do worry about bumper sticker or sound bite Christianity.  And seeing as how today is Reformation Sunday, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge our theological tradition is chock full of some great one- and two-liners.  

Lutherans have long confessed that we are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.  Luther held that we are simmul justus et peccator — simultaneously saint and sinner.  Luther also famously wrote that the Christian is the freely free, lord of all, subject to none, and the perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

These would look great on your wall.  Or as tattoos, as some of my seminary classmates demonstrated.

But is it enough?  Is it enough to be able to see it?  To visually surround yourself with the “right answer”?  Is it enough to be able to know it?  To be able to rattle off the greatest commandment part one or two?  Or is there more?

The Lutheran tradition has long been critiqued for the passive role that the believer has in the whole salvation enterprise.  In Lutheran theological constructs we need only believe and trust in the sufficiency, the enoughness of God’s grace and mercy and love, to be saved.  Which for many outside the Lutheran tribe has seemed like, I don’t know, laziness.  It’s almost as if we believe we don’t have to do anything.

And that’s not an unfounded critique. In his book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer tries to offer a corrective to what he encountered and called cheap grace; he would preach that cheap grace says, “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.”

So what do we do with Jesus’ distillation of all of Hebrew Scriptures into two commandments? Love God. Love your neighbor. It doesn’t feel weighty enough. It feels too simple, too basic.

Here’s the thing.  It’s not the end.  We aren’t done when we hear these commands or memorize them or hang them on our walls.  It’s just the beginning.

Faith is always just beginning.  Faith is a gift that is continually being rekindled and reawakened.  We come together week after week because we need to be told again and again that God has restored and renewed our relationship, God has forgiven us, God has given us life, not because we earned it, or worked for it.  God just does it.  For you.  Forever.

There is nothing you can do about that.  It is gift and grace and beginning.

In Jesus’ life death and resurrection God has fundamentally and forever repaired this relationship, the divine/human one.  You don’t have a role to play there, but to say thank you.  That one is good to go. Instead, we celebrate that gift by letting that love that has been poured into us flow through us.

I want to end today with a quick detour into the Book of Leviticus.  Not common fodder for reformation Sunday sermons, but I figure why not.  

As a side note, I gotta say, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a cross-stitched wall hanging from the Book of Leviticus.  But I wouldn’t say no to a little work up of Leviticus 3:16b, which simply states: “All fat is the Lord’s.”  My birthday is December 22nd, in case any of you counted cross-stitchers out there are looking for ideas.

But in the beginning of Chapter 19, the Lord says to Moses, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”

God declares that the people will be holy.  God makes them holy.  By virtue of God’s activity and God’s work they will be God’s people and God says here’s what it looks like.

You must not steal nor deceive nor lie to each other.

You must not oppress your neighbors or rob them. Do not withhold a hired laborer’s pay overnight.

Do not go around slandering your people. Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed; I am the Lord.

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself.

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.

My fellow children of God.  We have been given this life, a life that extends into eternal life and love of God so that we can join God and bring healing and wholeness to this world.  Today that life begins anew.  Today is a new beginning.

Today you will have heard once again that you have been set free.