1/13/57

Scripture: Mark 12: 28-34.

Jesus was a speaker whose teaching was eagerly heard by many people. But there were those who asked questions, heckled, and even tried to trap him into self-incriminating evidence. There were of course honest questioners as well, whose inquiry brought forth the answers that could stimulate the learning process.

Such may have been the kind of question asked of Jesus by a lawyer who asked what the Teacher considered the really great commandment in Jewish law. Jesus replied promptly with the utterance, learned by heart by every Jewish boy and man: "Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment." Then Jesus continued, "And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self. There is none other commandment greater than these."

There was general agreement with the Teacher by all those present --- ordinary hearers from the street, and also Scribes and Pharisees, and the one who had asked the question. The learned ones were discreet in acknowledging that these two statements do sum up the moral law. And Jesus commented that, in that position, they were really not far from the kingdom of God.

Of course, we may inquire, "Why did Jesus add the second statement to the first?" And it might be answered that the two really summarize or sum up the ethical and religious law. But it can be further observed that the two statements really stand or fall together. And each depends on the other.

1) Consider first that our love of God needs love of neighbor to be fulfilled. In a sense, our love of God is tested by our love of neighbor. One may look at a rare sunrise, over wintry hills or above summer trees, and say, "I love God for his beauty." One might look across a waving field of wheat, or at a bountiful garden and say, "I love God for his great generosity." But could one really love God if he did not love his neighbor?

We form our quick judgments of those who appear to be religious men or women in some respects, but whose actions and attitudes we feel, as if by instinct, to be out of harmony with a religious profession. We react promptly against the old sea captain of whom it is said that he prayed piously and regularly, but saw nothing wrong his business of transporting newly-captured black folk from Africa to Europe or the new world to become slaves.

The writer of a beautiful hymn, "In the Cross of Christ I Glory," was an Englishman, Sir John Bowring, who served for a time as governor general of Hong Kong. It is said that he encouraged the opium trade with China. We like and we sing the hymn, but we do not love the opium trade, nor any disposition to promote it. This last is a far cry from love of neighbor. Because there is, and has been, so much of saying "I love God" and so much, at the same time, of mistreating neighbors, the epistle of John flares out the words: "If anyone says ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." [I John 4: 20].

When Jesus was talking of the last judgment, you remember that he said the separation of those who would enter paradise from those who would not, was like the separation by a shepherd of the sheep from the goats in the flock. The sheep, on the Master’s right, would be the ones who had fed and helped the poor, the sick, those without clothes, the imprisoned. [Matthew 25: 31-46].

On the night that Judas left them at the Last Supper, Jesus turned to the faithful eleven saying, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." [John 13: 35]. You see, we have to show our love for God by our love for our neighbor. We have often been told this. But now we begin to perceive something further, that is not so obvious; we have to learn love of God through love for our neighbor.

We have been taught by Christ to think of God as our Father. How would a boy understand the love of God the Father, if he had never himself had a known father? One of the tragic realities of war is the number of small children orphaned in the killing of their parents, who have had to fend for themselves for months in the ruins of some city, living like animals competing for the crusts of food that may possibly be found in the trash and litter of a destroyed city or countryside, or stolen from some supply. When, at length, the wave of combat has passed on, and a humanitarian concern arrives to round them up and care for them, it takes weeks of persistence and patience to convince the little wolf-like kids that they don’t have to steal and fight and brawl for food or shelter or place. They have to learn love by a new experience. They may not smile for weeks, until they have known the security of affection by the workers who are concerned for them.

There are very few institutions left in the world where an orphan is just committed, to be housed, without the love of anyone. In most homes for orphans, there are those who really love the children and in whose concern the children find the security that was taken from them at the death or disappearance of parents.

But suppose there were an institution in which no love of any sort were shown a boy or girl, how could that child know anything about the love which God the Father has for each one? How could he understand why Jesus healed people who never even thanked him; why Jesus served folk who never paid him; why he died upon a cross for the very people who persecuted him and put him there? We people learn what the love of God must be like, and it, through our experience with others.

A Scandinavian novelist [John Bojer] tells of a man who went from a city to make his home, with his family, in the country. He had a beautiful, and very dearly loved, little daughter. A neighbor had a big brute of a dog that one day killed the little girl. At first the father of the child was both heartbroken and desperately bitter toward the owner of the dog. And his faith in God was shaken down. There came a prolonged famine in that region. And the man whose daughter had been killed took a little of his precious supply of seed corn and planted it in the field of the man who owned the big dog.

When asked why he did it, he replied: "I did it that God might live." Perhaps that does not sink in to us at first. But is not the author of that story trying to say that it is only by such sacrificial acts that we can really make God real and alive to us? Of course we think of God as ever-living. But he really "comes alive" to our experience only when we do something God-like for our neighbor. So, you see, our love for God requires love for neighbor in order to show itself, and to attain itself.

Now turn the table around and see the other side of the puzzle picture we are putting together in this morning’s thought.

2) When we hear it said: "You shall love your neighbor," we may frequently, and very well, say "How can I possibly love this or that person, or group of people?" The scripture, quoted by Jesus from an obscure passage in Leviticus [19: 18], says: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Let us, to be really honest, raise the question: is that practical? Or is it just a counsel of perfection that no one is going to achieve, or even approach?

Who can love all of his neighbors? Some of them appear most unattractive; their manners, ethics, language, interests, are so different that one wishes he could move to a "good" or at least a "better" neighborhood, just so that he may escape having to exist near them, let alone loving them.

Is not love a spontaneous, favorable feeling called forth by the loveableness of a person? How can one feel that way toward Russians, or Zulus, or Japanese? Toward Buddhists or Hebrews or Mormons? Toward the proud people of society or race track gamblers or street sweepers or mountaineers or share croppers?

But the whole world is a neighborhood. The needs of a community make it so. The ticker machine and the airplane make it so. Yet how can a Caucasian [Hawaiian] American love the millions of Africa, or Asia, or even Europe? To be quite frank, I suspect that all this talk about love from pulpits and Bible-readers may sound more pious and sentimental than real.

But let us look at the matter long enough, and earnestly enough, to see that God does not expect us to love our neighbors with the same type of love that we have for our own intimate family. Linguists tell us that when Jesus speaks, in the New Testament, about loving father or mother, he uses a word in the Greek which means intimate, personal love -- the kind of love you feel toward your wife or husband, toward your child or your parent. But when he talks about loving your neighbor, or your enemy, he uses another word in the Greek which means intelligent, consistent good will. It would be undesirable, and even unnatural, to have the same feelings toward everyone we meet, as the feelings we have toward the intimate circle of our own home and family. But God expects of us that we will have the same kind of intelligent good will for our neighbors that we have for ourselves. "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Well, how do we love ourselves? That does not mean that we always like ourselves, does it? The fellow who always likes himself is simply blind to his own faults. He may be quite an insufferable egoist.

A couple of girls were discussing a fellow they knew in their school. He looked pretty good to any visitor in the school. But one of the girls said to the other: "Why I wouldn’t enjoy going anywhere with him. He’s stuck on himself." Well, when a fellow is stuck on himself, he may be stuck with himself! Nobody really wants his company.

That is not what the Bible means. A British writer [C. S. Lewis] helps to make clear the distinction between liking oneself and loving oneself. C. S. Lewis has said that however much he might dislike his own cowardice, or conceit or greed, he went on loving himself. In fact the very reason why he hated the unlikeable things in his own nature was that he loved himself with such a deeply underlying self-respect and concern that he was sorry to find that he was the sort of man who could be cowardly or greedy or conceited.

Is that not the distinction? To love yourself is to want yourself to be worthy of your own self-respect. And when we see ourselves in the light of God’s love for us, we get a heightened sense of self-respect. No matter what the crowd may say about us, no matter how obscure or humble or how prominent and demanding may be our position, when we look at ourselves under God’s light we see ourselves as the ones for whom Christ died. It then dawns on us that we are persons worthy of self-respect, for we are immortal souls. We are expected by our Creator to be more than the limited creatures some suppose us to be.

A boy in school brought home a series of very unimpressive report cards. When his mother admonished him for not earning higher marks, he replied: "The teacher isn’t worrying about me; why should you? She says that, considering my IQ, I am doing good work." It happened that the boy’s mother had a considerable training in psychology. She said, "If your teacher doesn’t worry about you, it’s high time I did." She called on the teacher, only to be told that in view of her son’s unimpressive IQ [about 88] he was doing as well as could be expected. "That is what I was afraid of," insisted the mother. "If you do not expect more of him, no wonder he doesn’t do better. In spite of his IQ, I expect him to do better. And what is more, I’m going to see that he does." And she did. And he did.

I have known of a fellow who had a supposed mediocre IQ who went on the finish college and then proceeded to work toward masters and doctoral degrees in a university, because those who knew him just knew that he could, and he became sure that he could.

God does something like that. He sees our inequalities, and knows our talents. He sees that we are ten-talent people, or five-talent people, but He also sees our incentives and looks at them too. He takes hold of a life like that of a certain boy who was so poor at studies that the teacher said to the parents: "Take him out of school. No use educating him." The boy turned out to be an electrical wizard named Thomas A. Edison.

God looks at a fellow named Levi -- a tax collector who was despised and hated by his fellow Jews as a servant of the Roman government. Jesus walks by Levi, and something like a chrysalis stirs, presently winging its way out to follow Jesus. He became Saint Matthew. Jesus loved Levi into becoming Saint Matthew.

Think of the woman who was taken in a sin that called for stoning. There she was cowering before the crowd; ashamed, frightened, expecting even to die. Who could, or should, like her as she was? At first Jesus, with the infinite courtesy of a gentleman, did nothing to add to her embarrassment. He looked down and made some marks on the sand. When she had time to recover a little of her poise, he said, looking at the crowd, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." No one threw. Jesus then looked at her and said: "Has no one condemned you? Neither do I. Go and do not sin again." [John 8: 1-11].

Jesus took a little man with a physically handicapped body like Paul, and made him the creator of the culture of a whole continent. When any of us begins to see himself under God’s light we see what it means to love ourselves. And love for neighbor is something like that.

But how can we love our neighbors? A first practical step is to become acquainted with them. For many of our unruly prejudices are based on ignorance of what people really are. Yet just being in the same block, or under the same boarding-house roof or in the same business does not of itself generate good will or love. It is not necessarily true that "the more we get together, the happier we’ll be." We must get together in a different atmosphere from that of suspicion or careless carousing, or mere casualness. We must try to create neighborhood. Just as people create a home by the fusing of conjugal and parental dedication, so must we create a neighborhood by cordiality and respect.

When we love God, we come to see that we must love our neighbor. And when we set about loving our neighbor we see that we need God’s help to make our love real, intelligent good will. And that kind of love, as taught, illustrated and lived by Jesus our Lord, and urged upon all his followers, is the hope of the world.

-----------------------

Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, January 13, 1957.

Wisconsin Rapids, September 7, 1958.

Wisconsin Rapids, July 28, 1968.

Kalahikiola Church, January 19, 1969.

Waioli Hiuia Church, February 20, 1972.