What does it mean to love?

The Hebrew Bible has lots of rules to follow, there is the ten commandments, but also many rules in the old testament that cover what to plant, and what and when to sacrifice, and tithing and numerous other rules. Rabbis were often asked to interpret these rules. Here Jesus is asked what the most important of the rules are; and he responds:

“The most important one is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment more important than these two.” [Good News version]

He doesn’t speak of tithing, or sexuality, or what clothes to wear, or how to worship, or what structure the church should follow. He speaks about loving God and loving neighbour.

Reminds me of the song: All you need is love. it is just so simple, all you need is love, so says the Beatles classic.

“All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love,
Love is all you need”

But what do we mean by love?

These days we think of love as a romantic feeling.

I wonder what it means, to love God with all that we are, and to love our neighbour as our self. 

Loving God has to be easier than loving our neighbour, maybe we should start with the first one: Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Maybe not so easy, so we will come back to it later, and move to the second most important commandment: “love your neighbour as you love yourself” .

In Luke’s gospel we have the story of the Good Samaritan in response to a question about who is my neighbour? Our neighbour is someone who is in need, and I get that we can, and should, help such people, but love them???

We heard a few weeks ago about the rich man who went away sad- Jesus told him to sell all he had and give it to the poor – is that what loving people is about, giving them what we have worked hard for? It doesn’t sound like love.

Matthew has the story of the Sheep and Goats at the judgement, and the sheep asking when they have visited or fed or given water or clothed Jesus and the response is : “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.” [Matthew 25 CEV]

Love your neighbour as yourself, doesn’t sound simple either; maybe we can start with the part about yourself, loving our neighbour in the same way as we love our self.  I can remember early in my time as a Christian being told that I was at the end of the list, J O Y, Jesus first, yourself last and others in between, , there was a song about it. Yet, Jesus is saying that the second most important commandment is loving our neighbour, the person who is in need, in the same way that we love our self.  One person explained this by thinking about it like the oxygen masks on an airplane: the instructions are to ‘ “attach your mask first before assisting others.” The point is clear: If I do not take care of myself, I cannot take care of others. If I do not love myself, I cannot love others.’ [Seasons of the Spirit]

This passage then is about love, but not love that is a warm, romantic, sentimental feeling; love of neighbour = non-exploitation [Binding the Strong Man p318 Ched Myers].

I wonder what loving God and loving neighbour means in our world today.

·    In a world where people are cleaning up after the super storm Sandy [2 pictures]

·    In a world where making changes that mean a more liveable environment is thought of as strange [1 picture]

·    In a world where wanting to learn is considered dangerous [1 picture]

·    In a nation where the entire country has been removed from the migration zone

·    In a city divided by geography, wealth and education.

What does loving God and loving our neighbour as our-self mean?

Well, first of all we need to love our self, which can be difficult for many of us, because if we don’t love ourselves, how can we love others? This doesn’t mean thinking we are better than others, or that we never get anything wrong, but it does mean recognising and valuing the person that God has made you.

Loving our neighbour, living in ways that do not exploit people, in Biblical times this meant leaving grain for people to glean, which you can read more about in the Ruth story; not oppressing your workers; not discriminating against the disabled; not speaking falsely about people. Loving our neighbours seems to me to be about living in ways that offer life to all people, the fullness of life that Jesus speaks about.  

Which brings us back to the greatest commandment - Loving God with all out heart, soul, mind and strength. What might loving God look like? The scribe agrees with Jesus’ answer, and continues on that these two commandments are more important than burnt offerings and sacrifice - remember this was a time when ritual and sacrifice was considered very important, more important than how you treated people.

This is a reminder that loving God is not shown in burnt offerings, or these days we might say in an abundance of good works or giving to charity or pious living.

I have one more picture for you this morning, it was on the front page of the Leader on Thursday, this woman is recipient of the carer category of the NSW Grandparent of the Year awards; she has raised her grandchildren from the time they were quite young due to the breakdown in relationship of the children’s parents. The headline caught my eye.

All you need is love.

Maybe that is all we need, maybe the Beatles song isn’t too simplistic after all.

All we need is love

Love God with all that we are , and love our neighbour as we love our-self.

What does this mean in your life?

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

Jeremiah 4:23-28

Psalm 19:1-6

Mark 15:33-39

 

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

Who has time to look at the sky?
 

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

What about when the sky turns dark?
 

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

But it isn't enough to capture our attention.

The Psalmist tells us that the heavens are telling the glory of God. In the Old Testament heaven refers to the sky, it is a reference to the sky above us, not to some place where God might be. In Mark's gospel we hear of the sky turning black at the death of Jesus. The passage from Jeremiah reminds us of the interrelationship between our living and the creation around us.

Jeremiah isn't particularly talking to individuals, he is speaking to a community that are about to go into exile. Jeremiah tells the people that they have forgotten who they are, they are ignoring God's way, they are living for themselves and themselves alone.

 

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

In many places it's hard to see the sky, tall buildings cast such long shadows, pollution, bushfires and dust storms cloud the sky at times. The heavens are telling the glory of God!  what does that mean when we can't see the sky, or we don't look any more.

On the news this week there have been reports of violence in parts of the Middle East, targeted against Americans. This hasn't happened in a vacuum.  A filmmaker based in the US made a movie which he acknowledges was  ‘intended [his film] to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.’

People's concern about the movie, and the way that the Prophet Muhammad is presented, has led to demonstrations, rioting, injury and death. There is a place for discussion about different religions and their role in the community and in the world, but making a movie of this nature reveals an ignorance about the interconnection of life.

We live in a time when self overrides community. It's the time of the ‘I’ Revolution, iPhones, i-Pads, iPods, a whole range of technology that puts us, as an individual, into the centre of our world. Can we all really be the centre of our own little universe? We live in a culture that tells us that we can have what we want, and be what we want, and say what we want. That is not the message of the gospel of Jesus. The good news of the gospel is about losing our life so that we can find it in Christ, together we are the body of Christ. The gospel is not about me or you, the gospel is about Jesus, about God acting in and through creation, God coming in human form.

The Psalmist writes:

“There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
⁴ yet their voice^* goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.”

 

We live not only in a culture where it is normative to be the centre of our own little universe, but all so a culture are which relies heavily on words. Or it seems that the way to get your voice heard is to yell louder, to be more controversial, to the point of obscenity. It is not only our words that can hurt or heal relationships and the universe, our actions, our behaviour, also have the ability to hurt and to heal.

Our actions have consequences, consequences for people, for creation. When we forget who we are, when we forget that we are part of the whole Web of creation, when new live as isolated islands, we no longer live as the people that God created us to be.

Over the last two Sundays with been reading the creation story from the first chapter of Genesis. We read about the various parts of the creation, night and day, land and water, plants and animals and treatments. And we read of God seeing that all is good, the creation in its wholeness, its Holiness, is good.

Our words, our actions, the way that we treat people and all of creation tells about who we are and what we value. The only value our little i-world own little i- universe that we create for ourselves; do we value people, human beings, over other parts of creation. Is it only people like us that we value?

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

In the gospel reading that we heard from Mark this morning the heavens declare that Jesus is the son of God, not in bright shining stars or clear blue skies but in the darkness of his death. It is like the whole creation was grieving at the death of the Messiah, the one who came to heal and renew the whole creation.

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

In Jeremiah has a picture an image of a world gone awry, of the world are no longer living in harmony of all creation, no longer living as a community of God's people.

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

in the Psalmist reminds us that our lives our actions are relationships our behaviour speak just as loudly as our words.

The heavens are telling the glory of God!

In what ways do you see the glory of God in the world around you?
In what ways does your living reflect the glory of God?

 

the image of God?

Genesis 1: 26 - 2: 3

The section of Genesis we heard read this morning, continues last week’s poem of creation.  The same pattern; God said.. let there be.. and there was and God saw that it was good, then evening,  and morning,  etc. Last week we heard about light, and separation of light and darkness for day and night; then the separation of water above and below the dome of the sky; then the land appeared amidst the water and plants grew;  then the sun, moon and stars appeared; the fish and birds and finally the animals that move on the ground.  The next part, which was read this morning is about humans, or rather God and humanity:

 “²⁶Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;…..²⁷So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” [Genesis 1:26a, 27, 31]

I wonder what it means to be created in the image of God, what does it mean to us as we live out our discipleship.

The people of Israel had avoided the making of anything that could be considered an idol, an image of God. Other religions in nearby countries at that time used images made of wood and stone in places of worship or in rituals. The people of Israel did not make images of God. The idea of each person being in the image of God, a living image may have been quite shocking to people whose tradition banned images of God.  Yet this image is not in wood or stone, but living images of God.

What might it mean to be created in the image of God? As we reflect on that question, here is a possible conversation:

Jesus and Peter: In God’s Image [pp. 71-74]

One way in which we are made in God’s image is that each of us is unique. Looking at what we know about God, how else might we be made in God’s image? Creativity, seeing the good in creation, resting.

An issue which this passage raises is how we relate to the rest of creation. When it says that God created people and gave them dominion of the earth, gave them plants and birds and fish and animals as food, what kind of relationship is this meant to be.

If we had read a little bit further and looked at the second account of creation in Genesis chapter 2, we find different words to describe the relationship; here God takes the man and puts him in the garden to till it and keep it.

The first version has suggested to some people that we can do what we like to the creation, the second version has a more nurturing aspect to it; but maybe part of being made in the image of God is that we are to care for the creation as God cares for it: relating to the creation as God does.

Another aspect of being made in the image of God is that there are is an openness from God about some of the characteristics of God. God is not some distant, mysterious, unknowable God; by the God who was present and engaged in relationship with all of God's creation.

We are made in the image of God, but do we live as if we are made in the image of God?

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This week I have heard of 2 different ways people are trying to come up with an alternative to the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, as a way of measuring the health of the nation. GDP measures how much money is flowing through the economy, that means the more people in prison the better, because it costs money, and health counts in the amount of money spent, not how healthy we are. The terrible bushfires in Victoria last year add to the GDP because of the extra building activity. GDP is a very limited and limiting way of looking at the progress of the nation.

On the front page of the Herald yesterday there was an article about The Wellbeing Index, another alternative to GDP is the Australian National Development Index – these are different to each other, but both aim to look at more than how much money is flowing through the economy. Mental well-being, education, social inequality, being healthy, volunteer hours, are all included in these alternative indices, whereas GDP only measures economic activity.
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If we remember that we are made in the image of God, whatever that may mean for each one of us, what would we value and promote:

• Rest as well as work
• Relationships
• Creation itself
• The uniqueness of each individual
• The ‘good’  in life – remember “³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” [Genesis1:31]

In what ways do our lives reflect these values? Are there areas where you can see a need to challenge your existing patterns of living? I have heard from people who are retired how hard it is to find a few weeks to go on holidays - yes we will miss you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have holidays.

 “God rested from all the work that he had done in creation”

The idea of resting from work, or keeping the Sabbath, is that life is about more than work, more than economic activity.  When we don’t allow ourselves down time, away from work, computer screens, committees etc., we make work more important than life. Work, Church, community groups are all important, and being involved in the community is a great way of living out our faith; but not at the expense of time with God, times of refreshment. All too often I hear people say: I am so busy, and I am one of those people at times.

But we all have the same amount of time in the each day and each week, we need to make choices about what we do or do not do. When we say yes to every request or opportunity, when we fill all our days with activity, is that living in the image of God?

We hear a lot about fulfilling our potential, I agree that is a good goal. But what is our potential? what is it that God created us to be? We are made in the image of God, unique, creative, and nurturing;

In what ways does your living show the image of God?