November 21, 2003 We hope you enjoy  Sample Sermon Number 3 from the Sunday Sermons CD-ROM Collection Dear fellow preacher: We are delighted to offer free sample sermons selected from the Sunday Sermons CD-ROM Collection Classic Edition. Click here to order the full version (1,147 full-text sermons).

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The "Golden Rule" or The "Rule of God"?

"You shall love the Lord your God ... You shall love your neighbor"
Mark 12:30,31

There is a wonderful story about Queen Victoria on a visit to "Balmoral," her castle on the River Dee in Scotland. It was on a weekend, and she spent all day Sunday being rowed around the river. A pious woman who saw this happening was horrified. She said to her minister, "Isn't that dreadful!" "What's dreadful?" the minister asked. She said, "The queen's rowing on the river on the Sabbath!" The minister said, "But you must remember that Jesus was on the Sea of Galilee on the Sabbath." The woman drew herself up and said indignantly, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

"Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden." How we have misinterpreted this word of Jesus! We think it has to do with our work down at the office or around the house. But Jesus was talking about the burden of living negatively: grimly going about the duty of obeying the Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount in order to earn God's love. Jesus wants us to realize that God wants to give us the gift of His life. It is not for sale and we cannot earn it. Ours is to accept it. And once we have accepted the gift of God's love, the Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount take on a whole new positive meaning in our lives. And we obey, not out of a grim sense of obligation, but in the spirit of joy!

Legend has it that back in the time of Jesus, a young divinity student went to the second most famous Rabbi in Jerusalem with a problem. He said that the 667 Old Testament laws were too confusing for him. "Can't you give me a summary of the law in the time that I can stand on one foot?" he asked. The Rabbi picked up a big stick, started beating the young man with it and finally chased him out his study. The Rabbi considered the young man's question as an act of impertinence. He had spent his whole life studying and interpreting these hundreds of laws and it was an insult to be asked to summarize them so briefly. The young man then visited the most famous Rabbi in Jerusalem and asked him the same question. The Rabbi said, "Stand on one foot." The young man obeyed, and as he stood on one foot the Rabbi said, "Do not do to anyone else what you would not have done to yourself. This is a summary of the law." The Rabbi had summed the law up into a negative "Golden Rule."

When the man in today's Gospel Lesson came to Jesus with this same request, He did not respond with the "Golden Rule," negative or positive. Rather, Jesus took one law from Deuteronomy and one law from Leviticus: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength ... You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mk. 12:30-31). On these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets. All the hundreds of laws, all the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount summarized for us, simplified for us in the Commandment to love.

As Christians, we should be deeply concerned that the Commandment to love runs totally opposite to the flow of the tide of our time. Books have been pouring off the presses proclaiming the gospel of "Take Care of Yourself":

You are the only person who is going to take care of you, and it is foolish if you do not. And it is wrong to feel guilty about that. The Church has been making you sick with guilt.

The frustrating thing about this whole modern gospel of selfishness is that it is self-defeating. It will not work. There was a recent TV special on life in a large California County. Per capita income in this county rates as one of the highest in the U.S. Per capita unhappiness in this county rates high also:

More per capita tranquilizers,
More per capita divorces,
More per capita alcohol consumption.

One of the school teachers who appeared on the program said that 75 per cent of the children in his class came from homes broken by divorce. Most revealing of all was the scene in which a teacher stood before an attentive adult education class and delivered the modern gospel in these words:

You've been taught all your life that the word "selfish" is an ugly word. It's a most beautiful word. You've been told that you are supposed to take care of your kids. Haven't you noticed that if you leave a kid alone he'll survive, with or without you? You think you owe responsibility as a parent to your children. You don't. You are only responsible for one person on the face of the earth, and that's you. So whatever you do for yourself, whatever you seek for yourself, whatever pleasure you grasp at for yourself, it's all right! Don't feel guilty about it.

At the end of the program the commentator pointed out that in many ways this particular county had been a trendsetter for the rest of the country. He also said, "The vacuum is there in every life in this county -- an emptiness, a probing, a searching to have it all now, and the recognition that they don't have it."

I want to emphasize the fact that it is not wrong for us to spend time getting in touch with our feelings, discovering who we are as persons. Genuine self-examination will serve to make us stronger in our loving relationships with other persons. But when this modern gospel tells us to concentrate on self as the basic principle of life, that is wrong. It is self-defeating, self-destructive, and destructive to others.

There is a story from the Old Testament tradition that pictures the Hebrew people standing on the shores of the Red Sea. God has promised them liberation. They know that and they believe it. But now they are standing at the edge of the sea and the Pharoah's Army is in hot pursuit. But nothing happens. Indeed nothing happens until the first man actually steps into the water and shows through that simple act that he has faith in God's promise of fulfillment. And when that first step into the sea is taken, the waters part, and liberation comes.

It is an Old Testament symbol of what Jesus is telling us in the New Testament. In today's Gospel Lesson, the man who asks Jesus to identify the highest commandment in the Old Law wholeheartedly agrees with Jesus' answer. "Excellent, teacher!" the man replies. "You are right in saying 'He (God) is the One, there is no other than He.' Yes, to love Him with all our heart, with all our thoughts and with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, is worth more than any burnt offering or sacrifice." Jesus approved the man's insight, saying, "You are not far from the Reign of God."

We are not far from the Reign of God when we have heard His promise of liberation and wholeness of life. But nothing happens as long as we remain standing at the Kingdom's edge. Indeed nothing happens until we actually step into the Kingdom and show, through our acts of loving service to one another, that we have faith in God's promise of fulfillment.

When you know that love of God and love of neighbor are the greatest of all the Commandments, you are not far from the Reign of God. When you know that love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable, and then live accordingly, you have stepped into the Kingdom of God.

 

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