Encountering the Nike Jesus Matthew 22:34-46 Oct. 27, 2002, Year A, Proper 23 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and 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 the law and the prophets." But wait a minute, Jesus. Tell us how to do it. We're good bureaucrats; give us a policies and procedures manual. Then, we'll know and be able to do exactly what you want us to do and not do what you don't want us to do. Well, at least we'll be able to find where there is a little wiggle room. You know what I mean, some "if-then exceptions" by which we can appear to be in compliance but really doing what we want to do. Hey, I wrote the first draft of the certification standards for public mental health centers in Mississippi when I worked for the Department of Mental Health. A few years later, having left the Department and running a mental health center, no one was better than I in finding and using the loopholes in those same standards. Unfortunately, rather than a bureaucratic Jesus, we worship a Nike Jesus. The Jesus we worship, is the "Just Do It! Jesus." No policies and procedures, no instruction manual - just love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and, love your neighbor as yourself." Just Do It! Jesus' response is not about one-upmanship. His answer is an invitation to a new way of seeing things. It is the startling revelation that loving God is inextricably linked with loving our neighbor. Jesus did not write the great commandments he cites but offers the law and the prophets in the light of love. Jesus' primacy of love for God comes straight from Deuteronomy and is known in Judaism as the Shema - "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Perhaps it is in some sense a warning that loving God and neighbor is far more than a commandment, it is a way of life. So unified and unifying that God calls for a response in love from the whole person: the heart, the soul, the mind, the strength. God calls every part of ourselves into that love. Note that the God whom we are to love is "your God" - not some abstract higher power that we worship, but our God - a God to whom we belong and who belongs to us - a God who acted intimately in the past, and who continues to do so in the present - a God who created us in all our splendid complexity and who knows every hair of our heads. Note, also, Jesus is asked for one command but responds with two, the second, also not original to Jesus but a quote from Leviticus. Saying that the second is "like" the first does not mean merely that it is similar but is of equal importance and inseparable from the first. One cannot first love God and then, as a second task, love one's neighbor. The great command to love God has as its inseparable counterpart the command to love neighbor. I've sometimes wondered how anyone could command a person to love a neighbor. Isn't that like commanding a person to love brussels sprouts? Loving our neighbor is not something that comes naturally for us. A familiar communion hymn contains these words: "You will know they are Christians by their love." We too often think of love as a noun instead of a verb. Jesus does not confuse love with sentimentality - that love that avoids truth-telling. The love Jesus calls for is more than just warm feelings. It involves practice, preparation, and perspiration doing the deeds of Christ. To love God means a dedication of the entire person to God's will - placing God first in the mind and the heart. The love of the Gospel is a love that requires each of us confront the truth about God and the truth about ourselves. And that's the sort of love we avoid. To love neighbor as ourselves means looking at and treating others with the respect God gave them. While I can be a very kind, caring, philanthropic person without giving any thoughts to God, I cannot love God without loving neighbor and self, because God loves that neighbor and me, too. This love begins at home. It then extends to others beyond our family and friends to strangers, especially to the poor, the sick, and the sinner. Love of neighbor knows no national borders or class distinctions or barriers of any kind, because God knows no such impediments. Neighborliness isn't a strategy for being a good person. It is a gift one receives from God. No amount of laws or codes of conduct will ultimately bring about this love: the daily violence in Israel, the Washington, D.C. sniper, Sept. 11 and the incidences in which a few corporate leaders place personal wealth before the well-being of thousands of shareholders and employees prove this. The ancient Hebrews tried. Our governments try, only limiting freedom and escalating political gamesmanship, with no additional success of assuring we will not harm each other. Religions try, only resulting in legalistic fault-finding. God loves the unlovable because God sees not only our flaws but also our beauty and potential. Sometimes we know this love directly. More often we know this love because other people, loved by God, show us love. And, in so doing, they show us how to love. This past week the ABC News had a report focusing on a teacher who in 1992 took 8 inner city youth doomed to a life of poverty and crime, and seeing their potential instead of their flaws, loved them into success. Six of the 8 finished college - some with advanced degrees - and now have successful careers - some in teaching or other helping professions. A couple of weeks ago someone in our Christian education discussion raised the question - and I'll paraphrase as best I can - "Jesus threw over the tables in the Temple. Are we to go around throwing over tables." He also asked, "With work, family, and community commitments, how do we make time for God or time living out our faith?" Similarly, last week at the Marcus Borg lecture in Meridian, one of our parishioners asked about the steps we should take to live into the example and to bring about the justice for the oppressed which Jesus advocated. The answer to both questioners is the same. Jesus' commandment to love God and love neighbor is not a code of retribution or rewards or about what doctrines you espouse, but a commandment to assess who is lord of your life. When you wake up in the morning, to ask how will you live your life? When you encounter a rattled sales clerk, will you offer understanding or condemnation? When you venture into harm's way, who will walk with you? When you fail, who will pick you up? When you weep, who will catch your tears? When you are lost in anger, self-pity or self-loathing, who will come in search of you? When you mark off another day won by fatigue, who will keep watch during the night? It may be as simple as asking how does your recent parish pledge or yet to be submitted pledge reflect your answer to these questions? Just as we cannot legislate loving our neighbor, there are no laws that can answer such questions - no proofs, no arguments, no lists of holy attributes, no tips for holy living, no doctrines guaranteeing success, no instruction or policies and procedures manuals. There is only the Nike Jesus, the Just Do It! Jesus. There is only God, who loves first. God beyond religion, God beyond legalism, God beyond defining or controlling - God who simply is. Love of God, love of neighbor - easy to talk about but difficult to live out. If we cannot make that commitment, then we can take one step at a time toward our creator and our fellow human. Our encounters with Christ are invitations to look beyond the set of rules that govern our own lives and to bring the larger themes into focus. In light of the cross we can see just how costly this love can be. In the light of Easter, we can see just how much love can accomplish. And, Jesus says, "Just Do It!"