Chris Bowman photo by Regina Bryan

Saturday, July 3, 2004
"Loving God and Neighbor"
Mark 12:28-34
by Christopher Bowman

You may find this hard to believe, but the religious community in Jesus’ day was not of one mind. It’s not just that the various sides didn’t see eye to eye with Jesus — the fact is, they didn’t even see eye to eye with each other!

Pharisees and Sadducees, Essenes and those at Qumran ... fighting like cats and dogs. They fought about where and how to worship, about who was right and who was wrong, about what it took to get into God’s good graces. One side claims “holy Warfare” and the other calls for “Spiritual resistance” and both go to the Bible looking for ammunition!

You may find this hard to believe, but religious people in Jesus’ day were in constant conflict ... with each other. It’s crazy!

They were surrounded by the most powerful military force in the world — the Roman Empire ; they were surrounded by idolatries and false religions — from Mithraism to materialism, surrounded by sexual promiscuity and socially acceptable violence— and they chose to fight, not against the forces of this present darkness, but against each other.

It’s as though they were on a Mack truck headed for the edge of a cliff and they were fighting over who gets to blow the horn.

When we look back at it today it looks rather foolish but for them it was a matter of life and death. In the more radical cases, some Jews were even killing other Jews in order to save the Jewish people! They felt they were fighting for the very soul of the Jewish faith. And when you’re caught up in that kind of rhetoric, it feels like there nothing’s more important in the world.

To the Galatians Paul wrote, “Love others as you love yourself – that’s an act of true freedom. [But] if you bite and ravage each other, watch out — in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?” (Gal. 5:14-15).

Nasty things happen when the body is at war with itself.

There is a disease like this. What happens is that your body’s immune system begins attacking your own nervous system. The immune system gets the mistaken idea that the nerve cells are the enemies and comes swooping in and attacks. The nerves are all chewed up— scarred for life.

These scars — technically called scleroses — stop the nerve signals from signaling and stop the body from functioning correctly. Over time, this happens in multiple spots in the brain and there are multiple scleroses.

In Multiple Sclerosis, the very part of the body created to protect the body turns and attacks the body it is supposed to protect. It’s one of the most helpless feelings in the world. Your own protectors are destroying you as they try to protect you from destruction.

The world is not out to get you! You are out to get you.
Your own protectors are protecting you to death!

It’s the image of Peter, swinging that silly sword to protect the Prince of Peace in the garden of Gethsemane ... “Don’t worry Jesus; We’ll protect you.”
We may think we are protecting the faith, but sometimes in our passionate protection we are actually destroying the witness and the heart of the very thing we are fighting to protect.

photo by Regina Bryan

How many angels can fit on the head of pin, ... what color should the carpet be in the narthex, ... is your pastor more holy than mine, ... Which is the greatest commandment?
Where two or more are gathered in Jesus’ name there’s bound to be a fight.”

Where will Jesus weigh in on the battle lines we’ve drawn?

The scribe comes to Jesus looking for ammunition and Jesus gives him love. “Rabbi, if you’d just make the rules clearer, we could nail things down once and for all. If we’d just get the polity straight, the legislation right, the rules enforced.”
But in our conflicts with each other and our conflicts in the church, the solutions will never be found in legislation; they are found in relationship. They cannot be coerced or enforced; they are shaped in self-giving love.

When we see ourselves in the midst of these struggles we feel trapped and helpless. But it need not be so. Warfare is not the way to get things done. There is a more powerful force, a clearer way, a more promising hope. Jesus turns us back to the basics.

Love God with everything you’ve got ... and Love your Neighbor as yourself.

These two, Loving God and Loving Neighbor, focus the life and ministry of the church in the midst of a conflicted and conflict-oriented world. These are the basics on which all the Law and Prophets hang. Two clusters of fruit drawing strength from the same vine, growing from the heart of God. It is the heart, not the cross, which triumphs. It is the love, not the warfare which wins.

First ... Love God.
The Bible talks about loving God and yielding to God. “Are we malleable in the hand of God?” Are we pliable, pliant, and shapable in the hand of God? Are we willing to be changed by God?

I recently learned how to turn pots on a potter’s wheel. It’s great. But the hardest part of turning a pot is learning how to center the clay. I’d add some water and some pressure and it was like I was in a championship fight .... Thump, thump, thump ... like a unbalanced load of laundry in the spin cycle of the washing machine.

It was so frustrating that on the first couple pots I tried to turn them without fully centering the clay. I’d just give up and say, “Oh that’s close enough.”

But you know what? Un-centered clay makes lousy pottery.
The longer the wheel turns and the faster un-centered clay is turned, the worse it gets. I can tell you from experience, stuff created from un-centered clay is weak; it’s deformed; It’s down-right ugly! If you don’t fully center the lump of clay, the rest of the process is toast!

And it makes me wonder: are we pliable, shapable in the hands of God. If God is the potter and we are the clay, I wonder ... are we “centering” well on the wheel? Or when we look at our spiritual life are we giving up and saying, “Oh, it’s good enough.” And I wonder, are we expecting God to turn Wedgewood china from an un-centered lump of clay.

If we are feeling a little wobbly in our spiritual life, maybe God is trying to center us more deeply ... maybe all our twisting and turning is actually wrestling with the hand of God as we are being centered on the wheel.

If that is why we’re wobbly, that’s good! That is something worth working for.

That feeling ... when the wobbly, argumentative lump of clay finally finds true center ... that feeling ... is an amazing, beautiful, sensual experience. There is no more fighting, no more working, no more effort .... actually, there is no more clay. The hands of the potter and the centered clay feel like they are one and the same.

Often times, as a potter, I would actually stop when we got to this point. A pure and centered piece of clay, gliding through your hands on the wheel, is enough. I would stop and look at the clay and ask, “Well, what should we make you?”

And you know what? After awhile, the clay started talking back!

From my experience as a potter and my experience as a Christian, I believe that the clay is in conversation with the potter.

In Romans 9:20-21, Paul asks, “But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’”

Does the pot talk back to the potter? For a long time I thought that the answer was obviously “No!” But I’m not so sure anymore. Perhaps that which is molded needs to ask the one who molds it, “Why have you made us like this?”

We are malleable, of course, but God is a living God who wants to be in conversation and cooperation with his creation. The creating hand of God is not an assembly line. What God is doing with you, what God is creating with me, what God is changing in us... is formed in the conversation of Love which God has initiated with us.

Do we love God?
Well, let me ask... are we in conversation about what God wants us to be? As the world tries to make us into patriots and warriors, are we willing to be shaped instead by God’s peace and love? Are we being centered and shaped by the loving hand of a loving God? When the potter turns to us and asks, “What shall we make of you?” Can we answer in faith: “All that you want me to be!”

This is the first commandment and the call of faith: “Hear, O people, you shall love God with everything you have” ... allowing ourselves to be shaped by the will, the hand, the heart of God.

But there’s a second commandment. Asked for one commandment, Jesus gave two.
And the second is like unto the first: “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

It is not until these two commandments are combined that Jesus has completed his answer. It is not until love of God was wedded with love of neighbor that the Kingdom of God is at hand. It is not until our personal love of God is made evident in our relationships with our neighbors (even neighbors classified as enemies), it is not until loving God becomes inseparable from our neighbor’s good that we have finally understood the will of God.

Now let’s be honest. This is pretty difficult to do. Right?
We tend toward judgment rather than grace when it comes to other people. This “love thy neighbor” stuff ... that’s not our strong suit. At least it’s not mine.

To love the saints in heaven above,
  ‘twill be our theme in glory.
To love the saints down here below,
  now that’s a different story!

For our twentieth wedding anniversary, Sherry and I went scuba diving for the first time. We took a class to learn the signals for up, and down, and okay, and the other essentials for our big adventure. We joined a small group for a 30-foot dive to an ocean reef. As our little boat headed out to the dive site, our instructor, Julio, kept offering us coupons for free margaritas at his favorite nightclub. I wasn’t sure I liked Julio all that much.

Let me give you just a little mental image: Julio spends all day in the sun, carrying heavy oxygen tanks, and flashing his perfect smile. He obviously felt it would have been a shame to cover his rock-hard abs and broad shoulders with clothing. And about half way out of the harbor, Julio stripped down to his swim trunks. (I thought he was already in his swim trunks!)
And his swimming suit!! I’ve seen more cotton in the top of an aspirin bottle.

I looked at Julio, and I looked at me. And I decided I didn’t like Julio very much.

At the dive site, we dove in and made our way down to 30 feet. I was scared to death.... trying to remember to breath in and out. [breathe breathe] It was all I could do to remember how to live. This was a foreign world ... we didn’t belong there.

But after ten minutes, I began to relax ... and discovered that this wonderful, alien environment was absolutely beautiful. It’s like a lot of things in life. If we learn to relax a little, to be less scared and less defensive, we might just find more beauty than we every expected.

After about twenty minutes [breathe, breathe] I was about 20 feet behind the group and my air stopped. First, little sips. Then nothing. “This can’t be good!” I looked at my Oxygen gauge and the needle was down to zero. I switched to my reserve regulator... sucked on that mouthpiece with all I had .... and that’s all I got.

And just then Julio — you remember Julio — turned to look at me ... and I gave him the universal signal for respirator distress !!!!!!!!!

Just when I thought I could hold my breath no longer, Julio was at my side. He shoved his emergency regulator toward me ... and I grabbed it with both hands and sucked in that cool, clean, air [breathe]... Life! ... Air! ... Julio’s air.

And I just loved Julio!
Skimpy Speedo swim suit (or no swim suit at all for all I cared)— I just loved Julio.

I learned that when we’re in a world that is not our home, out of our element and starving, dying, drowning ... God’s gift of life is right there beside us — often on the back of our neighbor.

And I also learned that air, at 30 feet below sea level tastes really, really, really good!

But you know what? The air above water and the air at 30ft is the same air!! God gave me air above water because that is God’s nature. Julio gave me air at 30 ft because that is his job. But it’s the same air.

Do me a favor and take a deep breath.
Can’t you just feel it? Take another – it’s free.
What you going to do with all that life?

Turn to your neighbor. Give them some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Just kidding!!
But not really.

Every day, God will send you people who are running out of air — people who are physically and spiritually drowning. (Some we will agree with; some we don’t even like.)
But as we have been graced by God, we are carrying the gift of life. And what we do with the gift of love God has given us will change our lives and will change our world.

I don’t know what the scribe did with this information. We are told that he agreed with Jesus. But we are not told if he did anything about it. I think that if we are going to call Jesus Master and Lord, then perhaps we should listen to him — and do what he says!

Perhaps it is time to turn our efforts and our energies back to the basics — loving God and loving neighbor, living lives for the glory of God and our neighbors’ good.

That is something worth our passion, something worth our protection, something worth our lives in the Body of Christ.