I’d like to start today off by reading an encounter Jesus had with a particular Scribe
Mark 12:28-37 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Here Jesus is answering yet another tricky question from the Scribes and Pharisees. Yet something interesting happens during this particular encounter. Unlike the questions he answered a little bit earlier in this Chapter, the Scribe that approaches Jesus this time seems to not have the same underlying agenda.
He asks Jesus and seems to genuinely want to know Jesus’ answer. And the big question up for discussion is: “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
As we celebrate the reformation today. We celebrate the strong promise of living according to God’s grace. At the end of our reading in Romans we hear the classic words:For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
The reformers faithfully held onto this promise and broke free from the works righteousness they had been educated in by the Catholic church at the time.
Being a good Catholic in Luther’s day ment that you did the right things, you said the right prayers, you made the right pilgrimages and you did whatever you could to work your way out of purgatory and into heaven.
It was a way of being christian that had wandered far from the words of Scripture. It had turned the promises of Jesus’ death and resurrection into a sidebar compared to the laundry list of things a Christian needed to do to make sure they made it to heaven.
And so we rightly celebrate the hard work, sacrifice and daring of the reformers to call the church back to its roots. Back to holding onto Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone and Scripture alone. Discarding all of the trappings that had been added as “Christian” that were little more than superstitions.
But here we just listened to Jesus talk about the most important commandment of God. Now things can begin to get a little confusing. On the one hand we are celebrating our freedom to rely on Jesus and his sacrifice apart from anything we do. On the other Jesus is talking about God’s commandments or things we should be doing.
So which is it, are we free from doing or do we have to be doing things. How does this all work together? How do we reconcile the commandments of God with the grace of God?
As we dig into this this morning we need to take a step back and look at Jesus’ answer to the question. Jesus does not dismiss or diminish God’s commandments. In fact he is very direct, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6. Which reads like this: “Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” Deut 6:4
Shema very important in Jewish devotional tradition. Treated like we would a creed
Loving God and one another more important than sacrificial system
How does this apply to us? We live in an interesting time in the course of God’s grand narrative of history.
Talk about relationship between old covenant and new Hebrews 9:15 “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.”
Hebrews Fulfillment not abolition Jesus is a better high priest offering a better sacrifice.
Hebrews 9:22 “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
This does not mean God’s commandments are meaningless. We hear a lot about being free from the old covenant and the old testament laws. It is easy to tune out as if this is not an important question for us
Celebrate the reformation freedom from the superstitions that had taken over the catholic church. We live by faith alone
“Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works; evil works do not make a wicked man, but a wicked man does evil works.” ― Martin Luther, On Christian Liberty
Jesus specifically instructed his disciples to teach the observation of His commandments.
But it is Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Which makes sense. Jesus is the word of God who spoke creation into being as said in John. so he is also the one who gave moses all the commandments on Sinai. And now on his time on earth he has given us a new covenant.
Jesus uses words from the old covenant to sum up the principles of the new covenant. Isn’t that incredible?
A helpful image to understand how the old and new covenant relate to one another is the growth of a flower. A seed is planted into the ground as just that: a seed. And as it grows it turns into something completely new, a beautiful flower. The old gives way to the new as a flower grows out of a seed.
When we look back to old testament stories and commandments we are looking back at the seeds of God’s promises and pattern for our way of life. The old covenant is a foundation upon which the new covenant brings into existence some things so amazing and revolutionary that it can only be called new.
The new covenant brings about nothing short of the inauguration of a new world. The beginning of the complete restoration of not just humanity but the whole world.
Jesus’ answer actually helps us to see how this is true for us. The command has two major relationships mentioned.
With God and with others
With God there is nothing we can do to be worthy before God.
With others we are free from the law. Don’t have tassels on your cloths and we all love some bacon.
We are not constrained by the specific laws of the old covenant but we are call to a fuller life that holds to the underlying principles God has always had
The big orientation flip we often struggle with is that following the principles of God’s commandments are not about me. So often we get sucked into doing good works or as hebrews says “dead works”. The difference is summed up like this
Hebrews 9:14 “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our7 conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
We are called to serve God not because of what it does for me but what it does for others. We are not free from but free for.
This orientation switch needs to happen everywhere. An easy place to start is coming to church. We go to bible studies or church because of what we want to get out of it. That is true we do get stuff out of it but the most important part
The most important part of the new covenant is about love for others. It starts with Loving God and it flows out to loving others. What a shift that is to come to church intending to love someone else.
When we begin to think like this something beautiful can happen. We each have something to contribute. God has placed talents and abilities within us that are meant to be used to build up the church and our community. We are freed from the endless debates of the scribes and Pharisees trying to always make sure things are “technically” correct to unleashing the powerful Love of Christ to all those around us.
To get your imagination started thinking about what this might mean for you, I want to tell you about two congregations that I have encountered who are living out this mission to love one anothers.
Wurtzes church plant. Mostly people who had never been in church before.
Sister congregations in ferguson Mo launching projects to rebuild the city. Not just watching the city fall apart but actually doing something about it.