The Law Hangs on Love

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

November 16, 2014

Matthew 22:40

The Law Hangs on Love

†

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I.

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting something different to happen. By this definition, the enemies of Jesus were insane. They were so jealous of Jesus and so offended by His teaching that God's forgiveness is free that they tried to stump Him with trick questions many times. And every time their questions and traps only revealed that this Man was not just a man, but the Son of God, holy beyond all goodness and wise beyond all wisdom.

But here's the upside: Because of their many failed attempts to ambush Jesus with words, we today get to enjoy the wisdom of our Lord.

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:34-40

Today is a fine example of Jesus' brilliance. A man asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest. He was asking Jesus which of the Ten Commandments was the most important to keep. Maybe Jesus was a big proponent of Remember the Sabbath. Or perhaps He was a backer of You Shall Not Commit Adultery. Whichever commandment Jesus proclaimed was the most important, then this questioner would have Him. Or so he thought. He thought once Jesus committed to Third Commandment (Remember the Sabbath), His enemies could jump in and slam Him for giving adultery a pass. This was the trap they set for Jesus.

II.

Here I think I should point out that what this expert in the law was doing is something that all sinners do. We compulsively rank God's commandments and our sins.

Perhaps you get physically ill with only a little wine, but your live-in boyfriend can put the beers away. So you rank sobriety as the greatest commandment. On the other hand you chide your drunk boyfriend. Strangely no attention is paid to the Sixth Commandment, which tells us about God's gift of marriage and how the blessing of a man and woman living together as husband and wife is only for those who are husband and wife.

Perhaps you rank the gift of parents as the most important. You had great parents and always found it easy to Honor Your Father and Mother when they were alive. But you complain to anyone who'll listen about how disrespectful young people are. So you rank the Fourth Commandment (honor your parents) highly, but the Eighth Commandment (don't be a busybody) takes a distant ninth in your book.

Examples aside, the bottom line is that sinners always rank the sins that they think they don't struggle with as most important, and ignore the other ones.

III.

So back to Jesus and His answer. When asked which is the greatest commandment, He didn't pick one commandment and pit it against all the others. Instead, the very same God who wrote the Ten Commandments cuts to the heart of them all: Love.

The greatest command of the Law is love. Love God and love all other people more than yourself. Everything hangs on love. And when we insanely try to find happiness in being loving to others and being loved by them in return, we will always be disappointed in the end.

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember Your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, You were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:4-6

We are sinners whose righteous acts are filthy rags. This means that no matter how hard we try to put others first, we always find a way to look out for number one, Me. Even when we are kind to others in order to force God to love us, we reveal that we are only using other people as a means to an end. We don't love them in and of themselves. We are trying to use our niceness to others to get something from them and from God.

IV.

Jesus' answer devastated His enemies. He preached the absolute demands of love. Anything less destroys those who try to love. But Jesus loves His enemies and doesn't want them to be destroyed. So He followed up with a question of His own.

"What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?" They replied, "The Son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls Him 'Lord'? For [David] says, " 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand until I put Your enemies under Your feet." ' If then David calls Him 'Lord,' how can He be his son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. Matthew 22:42-46

Jesus told these men that He is the Son of God who has come to save the world from its filthy attempts at love. Everything these men had believed about religion was swept away. Jesus told them that the only Way to life is not through their love, but through His.

And through His love, we become His children who love in truth and purity. And our filthy rags become the messy drawing of sons and daughters.

Kids love to draw. But most of it isn't going to any museum or art gallery. Most of it is only worth the fridge or the circular file. The kid thinks its great and offers the dog-monkey-bird to their father with delight in their eyes: "Look at what I drew!" And the father praises the child's good work and treats it like the Mona Lisa. The father takes pictures of the drawing and posts online for all world to see: "Did you what little Ezra drew?!" Wow!

This is how our heavenly Father treats our good works, like they are the greatest thing since He created sliced bread. He proclaims our works as the greatest, all for the sake of His good and holy Son, Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.