WWJD? -- A Different Perspective

Matthew 22:34-46 -- 

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law,tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."  41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord:
    “Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
    under your feet.”’

45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

** I have to preface this by telling you that I asked the congregation to show me by the raising of their hands if they perfectly understood the opposite gender, then I asked if they perfectly understood the same gender, and finally I asked them if they perfectly understood themselves. Hence, the reference to the serious of questions in the second sentence.    

No matter what you believe when it comes to the divinity of Jesus, at the very minimum at least part of him was human.  As this series of questions made pretty clear, we humans can sometimes have a difficult time understanding one another.  We can be more complex than we would like to admit.  Chapters 21 and 22 of Matthew depict Jesus a little differently than we may remember him.  Matthew 21:12-17 is the story of Jesus at the Temple with the vendors where he starts flipping over tables and benches.  In the next two verses of that same chapter we see Jesus getting ticked off at fig tree because it did not have any figs.  He yells, “May you never produce fruit again!” and the tree withers immediately.  The rest of chapter 21 and parts of chapter 22, which includes our scripture for this morning, we see Jesus getting into verbal disagreements with the Pharisees and Sadducees.  It is very rare that we have heard all of these stories grouped so closely together.  They are often broke up into their own sermons so they are not often compared to one another.  But it is important to be reminded of each of these situations because it helps us to understand who Jesus was.  Jesus was, at least in some part, human.  This means that he too can be difficult to understand.  He had the same range of emotions that we have to this very day.  How many of us have tripped over a tree root, a step, or a toy tractor and immediately blamed the object out of frustration?  Jesus did the same thing with the fig tree.  Jesus got frustrated, even angry at times, he was sad, he was hurt, he was happy, he laughed and sometimes cried.  Because of his human side, Jesus is more complicated than we think.  

This means that the words of Jesus can be more complicated than we first thought.  In our scripture for this morning, Jesus seems to make it pretty clear that love for God and neighbor are the most important commandments.  But what if I told you that the love Jesus is describing is more complicated than we first thought?   If we take the chapters of 21 and 22 of Matthew seriously, we are then confronted with the possibility that Jesus discovered that there are things in this life that are worth getting worked up about, there are things worth arguing about, there are things that call for those who are able to be both loving and formidable in the cause of righteousness.  In other words, there are things that are worth standing up for as long as you can do it in a loving way.  I am sure there are thousands of examples of this loving yet formidable stance but the one who comes to my mind is Martin Luther King, Jr.  He was peaceful in his protest, yet the fight for equal rights was something worth fighting for.  In the church, love too often means the path of least resistance instead of a path of excellence and righteousness.  When we think the truth is too difficult to hear, we water it down by using ambiguous language to conceal the truth so we can avoid fully committing ourselves and call it love.  In all honestly, I think Jesus would have a difficult time calling this love because this definition is all too easy on us.  

In verse 37, Jesus calls us to love God with our whole self, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.  The Jesus we see in Matthew 21 and 22 knows that this kind of love is demanding and risky.  This kind of love will lead us into debates and arguments but Jesus demonstrated to us that we must be willing to jump into these conflicts with our whole self.  Love lead Jesus into situations that were uncomfortable and dangerous.  It was this kind of love that eventually got him killed.  In all the stories of Matthew 21 and 22, Jesus never violated the law of love.  Sure, he got frustrated, and  even angry at times, yet he still loved.  It is easy for us to paint Jesus as something he is not.  Love is not easy.  It is too easy to think that Jesus just let things roll off his sleeve and just go with the flow.  The truth of the matter was that Jesus was a thorn in the side of societal norms.  This scripture is perfect in the sense that today is the day where we as a Church celebrate the reformation, which also was a thorn in the side of religious norms.  We are called to love, Jesus makes that perfectly clear, but the love Jesus is describing is not that clear.  We are called to be formidable and loving.  There are many Christian pillars and beliefs that we have let slip away because we thought we were letting go out of love.  We must stand up for these beliefs.  There are extremes that lead to violence and we need to stay as far away from those extremes but we can still be formidable without being violent.  In the midst of conflict, Jesus patiently explained that the most important thing of all is to love God with your whole self, and the other important thing is love your neighbor the same way you love yourself.  Jesus saw no contradiction between his formidable actions and the love he preached, which leads us to reconsider what Christian love actually looks like in daily life.  

All too often, Christians have done despicable things in the name of love.  Christian history is littered with good intentions gone bad, with people or groups destroying other people or groups in the name of God, and with wars waged in the name of religion.  This is not what Jesus meant for it violates one of the two commandments: loving your neighbor.  If we are going to stand up for our beliefs, we must keep the two commandments from our scripture this morning: love God with your whole self and love your neighbor as yourself.  It is a difficult balance, a very thin line, but we were never promised an easy path.  It is easy to see the love of Jesus in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, in the stories of healing the social outcasts, in the shadow of the cross.  It is more difficult to see the love of Jesus in the Temple throwing the vendors’ tables around and in the verbal conflicts with the Pharisees and Sadducees.  However, the best picture we can possibly paint of the love of Jesus is a combination of the two.  There is so much to learn about the person of Jesus when we see his range of emotions at work.  When we see Jesus in action.  The same love that drew the children to him is the same love that wrecked the tables.  The same love that healed the lepers is the same as the love that cursed the fig tree.  The same love that lead to verbal conflicts is the same as the love that lead Jesus to the cross.  He died for the people who were selling things in the Temple.  He died for those whom he was arguing with.  He died for you, no matter what you have done.  And he died for me.

Jesus had the power to wilt a fig tree on the spot, to heal the sick, to love the unlovable and 

he relinquished all that to power for the sake of God’s mysterious will.  Jesus was in part human 

which makes him like us.  Of course, none of are Jesus but we are like him and are capable of the 

same kind of love.  I encourage you to be both formidable and loving in all that you do.  But most 

importantly carry this with you: Jesus is a lot more complicated than we sometimes pretend, and the 

love he taught demands that we expand our whole selves for God and neighbor -- striving for 

excellence in all we think, say, and do. Amen.