The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, November 5th: Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28-34)

JESUS NEEDED ONLY TWO COMMANDMENTS

In this week’s gospel reading, Jesus summarized all the commandments and laws down to a simple pair: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Many centuries earlier, Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments, ten laws which, if followed, would put a person in a proper relationship with God and his fellow man. By the time Jesus walked the earth, the religious leaders, especially the Pharisees, had expanded the law to include well over 600 rules and regulations, everything from the correct way to trim your beard, to the permissible number of steps you could walk without violating the Sabbath, to the number of licks it takes to finish a Tootsie Pop.

If you think the Pharisees had a lot of rules, the Catholic Church’s current Code of Canon Law is a massive volume that makes the U.S. Tax Code look like a four-page pamphlet. (Well, OK, I exaggerate. NOTHING on God’s green earth is more convoluted and bureaucratic—and frightening—than the U.S. Tax Code.)

I’m not saying religious organizations should be without rules, of course. There has to be some basic structure, otherwise you’d have either chaos or the Unitarian church. (The Unitarian Creed: “I believe in…whatever. Doesn’t matter. Amen.”)

My point is, there’s just something odd about religious organizations that attracts accountants and lawyers and Type-A, detail-obsessed nitpickers. However, the founder of Christianity was anything but a nitpicker. Jesus was not into a long list of rules and regulations. He knew that people could seemingly follow all the religious rules on the outside, and yet still be hateful and cold-hearted deep down inside.

Jesus was not into doing; He was into BEING. He did not want people to do stuff to make it look like they loved God and loved their neighbor; He wanted them truly to be filled with love for God and neighbor—knowing full well that the doing part would follow. 

Most of the church-going folks I know do a pretty good job with the first of Jesus’ commandments, loving God. Certainly there is room for improvement. Jesus did say we need to love God with ALL our heart, ALL our soul, ALL our mind, and ALL our strength. Living in this complex modern world can cause our affections to be scattered in many different directions. Most of us could strive to have our love for God get closer to encompassing ALL of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, as Jesus described.

But I don’t know of a single person who believes in God who is completely without love for God. Anyone who claims that God is real but has no love for Him is not thinking straight. They are either under extreme emotional duress—such as a serious illness or the recent death of a loved one—or they really do not understand who God is.

Anyone who understands that God is our Creator, our Father, and our Redeemer; anyone who understands that the essence of God is love, and that He loves each and every one of us with an affection that is unfathomable in its depth; anyone who understands that God allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross to pay the penalty for our sins, will have some love for God in return, however weak and incomplete it may be.

Loving God is usually not the problem. Loving our neighbors as ourselves, on the other hand, is often a serious stumbling block. And the reason is simple: God is perfect and all-loving, while our neighbors are jerks.

Now, of course, by “neighbor,” I don’t mean specifically people who live on the same street. My neighbors, by the way, are wonderful (especially when I need to borrow some power tools). When Jesus said “neighbor,” He meant all of mankind.

It is difficult to love our fellow human beings because our fellow human beings are often not very lovable. It’s hard to have affection for people who lie, cheat, steal, gossip, dress funny, and root for the New York Yankees. 

There are many people who go to church each week and sincerely love God, but who absolutely hate everyone else. As I once heard someone say, “The more I’m around people, the more I like my dogs.”

There are two important truths that can help us love our neighbors in the way Jesus commanded. First, we must realize that we are just as much sinners as anyone else. Yes, it’s true. We are no better. We also lie, cheat, steal, gossip, dress funny, and root for the Boston Red Sox. When we understand our own sinfulness, we are less likely to judge others so quickly and so harshly.

The second truth we must realize is the fact that God created our neighbors in His own image and He loves them very much. Because each person we meet possesses an eternal soul, he or she is infinitely valuable. That’s the way God did it. When we understand that God loves a particular person, our next thought ought to be, “So then, who am I to condemn him?”

Jesus did not come to complicate our lives. If we follow His two basic commandments, we can enter into a loving relationship with God and loving relationships with our fellow human beings. And that’s the whole reason we were put on this earth in the first place.

©2006