Living the Great Commandments

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• Scripture: Deuteronomy 34:1-12 and Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17  • 
 
• Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 and Psalm 1  • 
 
• 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8  • 
 
• Matthew 22:34-46

This week Jesus teaches us the "Great Commandment" which is a combination of the first part of Israel's great Shema (Hear): "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, The LORD is one. You shall love the LORD you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." And from Leviticus 19, 1-2, 15-18, particularly: "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD."  

Professor Alyce MacKenzie tells us in "Reality-Show Jesus: Reflections on Matthew 22:34-46," that Matthew's gospel account has Jesus teaching the Great Commandment after he was tested  by and confronted the religious leaders of his day by overturning the tables of the money changers, telling the parables of the vineyard and wedding feast, and after answering those who seek to entrap him with the question of whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar.

What is Jesus teaching us about the Great Commandments? About Love? See MacKenzie's article (above), and The Rev. Sharron R. Blezard's "Living the Gospel of Love."

But what does it mean to love in the context and meaning of the Great Commandments? In The Greatest Commandments, Debie Thomas tells us it is much more than emotion. It is commitment, discipline, sacrifice, and obedience - after all, they are Commandments. 

What is Caesar's and What is God’s?

 Click for Link to Scripture.

As we approach the coming election, how fitting that our Year A lectionary gospel reading contains Jesus' famous and often quoted, "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's." He was being set up, seemingly trapped, by the Pharisees who wanted to expose him as a heretic, or by the Herodians who would have him tried for sedition.

In her essay, "What Belongs to God," Debie Thomas tells us about her own situation, fears, and concerns, and puts them in the perspective of what God requires of us, and comes to the  conclusion that regardless of our political views - for that matter, any view we have, any possession we have - all belongs to God, and we should act as Jesus taught and showed us how to act.

Look at the totality of his mission, his love and sacrifice, and those he came to save. Those who many of us treat as lost and untouchable. Love your God with all your heart, mind, body, soul and might. And love your neighbor as yourself. On these Commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

What will we give to God? To our neighbor?

Just When We Think We've Got It...

 Scripture: Exodus 32:1-14 and Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23  • Isaiah 25:1-9 and Psalm 23  • Philippians 4:1-9  • Matthew 22:1-14

Just when we think we've got the lesson of the parable this week, Jesus turns the tables on us... again. In Luke's account of this parable, as in the first part of Matthew's account, we get the message - all are  welcome at the wedding feast given by the king, cutting through the legalism, hypocrisy, self righteousness, ownership and control asserted by the religious leaders of the day. But things take a violent turn in Matthew's version of the parable. When a guest does not have a wedding robe, the king orders him taken out, bound and thrown into the outer darkness. Why the violence? Is God rejecting him? Is there no room at the feast for him? What is meant by "many are called but few are chosen?" What is the wedding robe? What is God's grace in all of this? What is meant by Bonhoeffer's saying that there is no such thing as "cheap grace."

Consider Janet Hunt's "The Wedding Robe," and  Samuel Zumwalt's "Ready for the Feast." Debie Thomas asks if we believe in a God of wrath and cruelty, and asks what if Jesus is teaching us not to project our own rationalizations and wishes on God in "The God Who Isn't."

Law and Order - what does God want for us?

 Scripture:  Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 and Psalm 19  • Isaiah 5:1-7 and Psalm 80:7-15  • Philippians 3:4b-14  • Matthew 21:33-46

This Sunday we study the Ten Commandments - words carved in stone, or are they more? Laws to be obeyed, or more? Love to be earned, or more? God on high, or more? Laws of dominion and control, or love and justice? Read The Rev. Kate Matthew's "A Rule of Love."

In "Crazy Love," The Rev. David Lose makes some cheeky good points about Matthew's account of another vineyard parable which Jesus gives us. This one is about the vineyard workers who kill servants sent by the landowner to collect his die from his tenants, including the landowner's son. Jesus is reaching the climax of his ministry as he confronts religious authorities on his way to the cross -  to humiliation and exaltation and glory. Why does the landowner keep sending his servants, and even his son to these "bloodthirsty hooligans?" Jesus says it best when he tells them, and us, that "the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes!"  

Does the gospel account have anything to say about how we should read and live out the Ten Commandments?  What do they both say about God and us?

The Rev. Kellan Day, in "Parables," sheds light on reading parable, and gives us an insight as to how to read, interpret, and apply this one.