Love Without Categories

Transcript

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[0:00] Let's go now to the sermon, and our sermon text this morning is Matthew 22, verses 23 through 40. A few words of introduction about this passage. We're continuing here in Matthew during the Passion Week. As you may remember, Jesus has entered Jerusalem with a whole crowd of people. He's begun a weeks-long conflict with the religious leaders that ultimately ends in his own death. And he starts by disrupting the temple and what is happening in the temple, the way money is exchanged at the temple, things are sold at the temple, and he says, you've turned my father's house into a market and a den of thieves. He was mad. But there's this question then that hangs over all of this, because there are a whole lot of religious people there at the temple, and their question to him was, by what authority are you doing this? You can't come in here and do this. Who do you think you are? But they were afraid because the crowd loved him, so they couldn't deal with him the way they really wanted to, which would be by... by arresting him right on the spot. And so they challenge him instead in the hopes that he will say something that will get him into trouble, either with the Roman authorities, so they ask him about taxes, but that fails.

[1:08] Now, this week, we're going to see that they're going to try to, in essence, pigeonhole him into one of the many different philosophical schools of Judaism and thus sort of sideline him. Because if they can say, well, you seem to be a follower of rabbis, you're going to buy Hillel, for example, then...or somebody like that, you know, then... okay, and then we can ignore you, and you're going to lose a few followers because some people, you know, don't believe in Hillel or whoever. And so what we'll see is that Jesus defies all categorization because he's Jesus. He gives answers to their challenges, which are his own. And so he actually brings God's word and God's answers to two difficult, somewhat difficult questions that are brought towards him, which are attempts... to categorize him, to classify him, so that he can be marginalized or sidelined. And then, as we know, none of this works.

[2:06] Eventually, they give up having an open conversation with Jesus, challenging him verbally, and they wait until it's dark, until nobody is around, and then they arrest him when nobody's watching. They try him, and they put him to death.

[2:21] So, let's go to our reading, and we'll see two challenges, one from the Sadducees. And another from a particular Pharisee who's an expert in the law. So the first challenge, it starts in verse 23, and the second challenge starts in verse 34. Matthew 22, starting with verse 23. The same day, some Sadducees came to him saying, there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question saying, teacher, Moses said, if a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow. And raise up a child. And raise up children for his brother. Now, and here's the question, there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.

[3:23] Jesus answered them, You, you are wrong. Because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God? I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is God not of the dead, but of the living. And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

[3:57] And when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?

[4:13] He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

[4:38] Let's take a moment to meditate and contemplate that. Father, we thank you for this word that you've given us. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So I'm going to spend a little more time on the second question. But I want to treat real quickly on this question about the resurrection. The Sadducees thought they had kind of a funny story. This is a funny story, kind of an absurd story. Here's a lady. She has seven husbands. They're all brothers. This is the Leveret Law, the law of the Leveret marriage. That an obligation of a brother to his brother who dies is to marry the widow and raise her children, their children together. other. But one by one, all these brothers die, and this wouldn't happen. Seven, the odds are long, right? And so they ask kind of a silly question or an absurd question, and the thing about an absurd question is it doesn't make the person who's supposed to answer the question absurd, it makes the person asking the questions somewhat absurd, and it's an absurd question. So they thought they were really clever, and they said, well, who's she going to be married to? If there really is a resurrection of the dead, who is she going to be married to in the afterlife? The first?

[5:53] The last? The one she liked the most? Who knows, right? We don't know. But we want Jesus to say something that will kind of embarrass him. And so Jesus gives the answer. The answer is there is no marriage in the resurrection, which is a disappointment, honestly, I think so, because I have this kind of romantic idea of love, is that you have a forever and ever love, and you have a forever and ever love, and you have a forever and ever love, love in your life when you're living, and you're going to be together for eternity in heaven. And you will, probably, but just not as a married couple. You'll be with everybody else. The original reason for marriage, as we find, is that God wants to give us a form of companionship that looks like heaven. So if your marriage doesn't look like heaven, then something's going... No, I'm kidding. But we fail because we're humans, and so marriage doesn't always look like heaven, but that was God's intention for it, for the companionship and the protection of that companionship and a taste of the love and the presence of the Father. Now think about that. When you get to heaven, none of those needs exist anymore. You're in the presence of God. You're in the presence of all the others.

[7:12] saints. You have community with God and all the other saints, and you don't need that protection anymore. So the reason for marriage being instituted, it makes sense on earth, but it doesn't exist in heaven. And so there's no marriage in heaven. And so you will be with the one you love if they also go to heaven. That's kind of a caveat. There once was a man who, there was a pastor who tried to do a stunt in front of his church. He dressed up as the devil, and he was waving at cars as they drove by, and he had a sign that says, don't go to this church, you know, because he thought that would interest people. And it was such a scene that the news crew came down from the local TV station and tried to interview him and interview people. And one man came down and said, I saw this on the news. I wanted to come down and shake the devil's hand because I've been married to his sister for all these years. So maybe that's a relationship. They're happy that there's no marriage in the resurrection. Because they were not getting along. Anyway, so they're wrong. They're wrong. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God that we worship is the God of these people. And if God is the God of the living, then these people are alive. And so you're wrong about the resurrection. And so he dispenses more

[8:30] or less with the Sadducees fairly easily. There's not too much more about that. But he does, then he does really throw in pretty much with the Pharisees who do believe in the resurrection. And it is true that he was saved. He was saved. He was saved. He was saved. He was somewhat pigeonholed that the Sadducees didn't want to believe what he believed because they don't believe in the resurrection. But again, Jesus uses these opportunities to teach and tell them why the resurrection actually exists and that the resurrection is real because God is the God of the living. Okay. So next, and this is the part we'll spend a little more time on, an expert in the law asked which commandment was the greatest. And this was a very common question. In fact, this was such a common question that, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard whole schools of thought kind of revolved around how people would answer this question because why there were 613 laws, according to Jewish tradition, there were 248 positive injunctions, things you shalt do. And there were 365 prohibitions, things that thou shalt not do. Right. So that's, that's a lot to remember. People actually did memorize them all, but not everybody could memorize that many. And so there was always this,

[9:41] sort of simplification, like you could call it cliff notes. You know, this is like the cliff notes on the law. Can you just summarize that for me? Make it a little more easy to digest. So here were some of the choices. And I'm going to give, this is a little bit of a side note here, but I think this is good sort of historical and biblical background on how people thought about this. There were several schools of thinking in Judaism about how do we answer this question? How do we come to a conclusion? And I think this is a good way to condense or compress these 613 laws into a more manageable number that we can remember easily. So Rabbi Hillel summarized the law in the negative form of the golden rule. The negative form of the golden rule you can imagine is do not do to others what you would not have them do unto you. Jesus expressed it in the golden rule in a positive way, right? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Functionally they're the same, but Jesus is a little bit more positive, isn't it? Right? It's not focused on the negative. What you wouldn't do. There was a rabbi named Simlai. He refers to the reduction of the 613 commandments of Moses to 11. And he says that David does so in Psalm 15. So I want you to count

[10:54] with me because I'm going to read you just a section or all of Psalm 15. This is what Psalm 15 reads like with David as the author. Right? Speak the truth from their heart. I'm up to three now, right? Who do not slander with their tongue, do no evil to their friends. We're kind of getting similar to the things, do not do evil to the other people. I'm going to recount, restart counting on this hand because I'm using this hand to move pages around. Nor take up a reproach against their neighbor, that six, in whose eyes the wicked are despised, but who honor those who fear the Lord. You know, I'm not sure the number, the first one was, I'm going to go back one because it's more of a, description. But who honor those who fear the Lord, who stand by their oath even to their hurt. Now I've lost track. Who do not lend money at interest. Now we're up to nine. And do not take a bribe against the innocent. I guess the other one was one. So that's 11. Don't take a bribe against the innocent. Those who do these things shall never be moved. Psalm 15, that's a good one to memorize. You could imagine the kids were like, let's just memorize Psalm 15. We'll have a pretty good list of things to condense the law into. Isaiah 33 verses 15 and 16 reduces the list to six.

[12:17] Okay. Those who walk righteously and speak uprightly, who despise the gain of oppression, who wave away a bribe instead of accepting it, who stop their ears from hearing of bloodshed and shut their eyes from looking on evil. That's six. They will live on the heights. Their refuge will be the fortresses of rocks. Their food will be supplied. Their water assured. Isn't that beautiful? Isaiah 33. Now I'm getting shorter and shorter as we go. Now there's one passage of scripture that just has three. Micah 6, 8. He has told you, O mortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Walk humbly with your God. Isn't this getting easier as we go? Okay. Then Isaiah 56 has just two. Thus says the Lord, maintain justice and do what is right. For soon my salvation will come and my deliverance be revealed. Now we're down to one. Amos 5, 4. You can take notes if you want. This is interesting. Amos 5, 4. For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel, seek me and live. Seek me and live. Isn't that simple? That's actually my favorite. I'm going to ask you what your favorite is. Also in Habakkuk 2, 4, 1. But the righteous

[13:50] live by their faith. That kind of applies. And then Leviticus 19, 18. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. This is what Jesus is quoting. I am the Lord. So of all the variations, which do we like? Do you want, does anybody have any favorites? What? Micah 6, 8. He has told you what is good. Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Who else? Any other favorites out there? How about seek me and live? Is that a good one? I like that one. I mean, that's simple. That's simple. So what does Jesus answer, right? He says, well, there's two. You know, there's actually, which is the greatest, they say? Well, he says, there is a greatest. Love the Lord your God. And this is what's called the Shema. This is the hero Israel, the Lord your God, your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. And Jesus says, and the second greatest commandment is much like it, is that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. From Leviticus 19, 18. And so the task was to get Jesus to pick one of the, you know, that's the thing. You know, that's the thing. You know, that's the thing. You know, that's the thing. You know, that's the thing. You know, that's the thing. You know, that's the thing.

[15:05] And so on that list I just gave you, they were saying, which one of those condensations of the law are you going to plant your flag in? And then we can kind of say, well, now we know who you are. And the people who are listening, some of them are going to turn away from you. Because their goal was to diminish his power, diminish his influence. They did not like what he had done, coming into the temple and turning over the tables. But what does Jesus do? Jesus gives his own version. I don't fit into your categories, he says. I have the power. I don't fit into your categories. I don't fit into my own category. So Jesus teaches new things. Jesus comes up with a new formulation that they hadn't seen yet, right? And so that's what they should have been expecting, but they didn't realize that they were dealing with the Messiah, the Son of God. Of course he's going to teach. Of course he's going to give a new truth that they hadn't seen before. But I want to talk about this, and this is sort of the next part, is you could say, well, that's great, because God tells us that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we should love our neighbors as ourselves. But what does that look like?

[16:13] And how do we do it? You can say it, that's great, but doing it, that's hard. That's a hard thing. And I come up against the brokenness of the world. And it could be somebody that yelled at me in traffic, or it could be the state of terrorism or war in the world and people who are making the world a world. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing. And I don't want to Right. Right. Right.

[17:05] that you confront their evil actions and you speak truth into their life so that their evil is exposed and can be dealt with. So it doesn't mean you agree with them and it doesn't mean you cooperate with them in evil. It means you love them and you love them for their best, the best thing that could happen to them is for them to give up evil, all right? And that's hard. But when I do that, then they stop getting free rent in my head. You know, I don't like it when other people have free rent in my head and they do sometimes. But if I decide to love them, then the free rent in my head is given to the question of how can I help them? How can I serve them? How can I bring them to know God in a way that would change them in a good way that would make them less evil or less bad? I'm not saying that people who yell at me in traffic are evil, I might deserve it, you know. But on the grand world stage, I am deeply, deeply concerned about how much evil is afoot in the world right now.

[18:00] So this is the peaceful way to live, to decide to love people, doesn't mean it's easy. I don't do this perfectly at all. I want to maybe ask what would this mean for us in the big picture of Jesus compressing the law into two parts, to love God and love others. And I want, I would say, it's just like Jesus is kind of encouraging those people. It means we resist categorization of other people, right? We don't put, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are trying to put him in some sort of box. They're trying to put him in a box that they can handle. Oh, okay, you're a follower of Rabbi Hillel. Okay, we can disregard you now because we disagree with Hillel. And that makes it easy for us because then we don't have to spend any mental energy on trying to understand you. We know you're in a group we disagree with. And so now we've dealt with you, that's easy. So for us, I would say we would do the opposite, is we start by resisting categorization of other people. And we don't always pick sides in the world, whether that's schools of philosophy, or political parties, or any organization that operates on human principles. We can't say, oh, I'm in this club or this group, and all the people in that group, I'm not gonna spend any time on them.

[19:14] I'm not gonna love them. I'm not gonna give them my attention. We stand with Jesus for something else. We stand with Jesus for the new thing that God is doing in the world, the new teaching that comes out. So that means we can't enter this binary all right, everything on this side is right and everything on the other. Everything on this side is wrong. That's what the world is offering us. And I think it's offering it to us in every possible way in more intense ways than it ever has. It's telling you, pick the side, and these are your friends, and everybody else on the other side that disagrees with it, they're your mortal enemies. And you have to spend 50 hours on social media telling them that they're wrong or something like that. You have to spend all your time hating them. I think that's driven, this is my own personal opinion, this is not the gospel. I think that's hugely driven by anxiety. I really think that's what drives that binary view of the world, is I'm anxious about the world and the world feels safer to me if I know who the bad guys are. And obviously I'm never the bad guy. That's how the world thinks.

[20:21] And we can't live that way. I think that's what this law of love tells us. We give people second chances. We give people the benefit of the doubt. We seek to understand what they're saying, not classify or categorize them right away so that we can give up on them, right?

[20:40] And as soon as you disconnect from somebody, you lose any chance to influence them. This is true in families. This is true in friendships. This is true in all sorts of things. We need, this is what I want you to be, and if you wanna write this down, write this down. We need to be inconvenient people, like Jesus was inconvenient. That defies categorization. That they'll look at us and they'll go, I have no idea what side you're on.

[21:08] And I'm like, yeah, you don't, and you never will. No, I'll be like, I'm on God's side, or I'm on your side, but I'm not on the side of this clan or this clan or this tribe or the other. We need to be inconvenient people that cause people to slow down and go, wait a second, I'm not, they're so nice to me, yet they believe something different. What's going on? That's not normal. So we need to be inconvenient people. Someone who says, well, I disagree with you, but I don't wanna stop being your friend over it. I remember once I went to visit some friends, and this was a while back, but it was still kind of happening at the time, and we were talking, of course, about politics, as it turns out, because that's the big tribe thing we've got in our country. We were talking about politics, and it turned out that we disagreed on some stuff, but it wasn't really big. And they were just so sort of upset about that.

[22:00] And I just stood up on that, and I just said, well, we disagree. Can we still be friends? And it took them back. It was a great moment. It took them back. And again, I'm not saying I am perfect at this, but they were like, oh, you're right. Why are we, why did we have to make it all about that? But that's how we enter every part of life, evidently. And so I think that was good. So we stayed friends. And we're like, I have friends that I disagree with. That's not the end of the world. I wish the world could think this way.

[22:32] So I want to end with a story. This is a made up story. And I want to ask you to close your eyes if you want to and imagine it with me, OK? Imagine this is a story. And I'm going to use the word I, but it's not me. It's just somebody else as a narrator, OK? So just imagine, close your eyes, that I have a friend that I meet every month for coffee just to catch up on life. And we meet the same time every month in the same place.

[22:58] And then in time, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, And then in time, my friend falls in with some racist people. He goes to meetings. He gets whipped up into anger by them. And he tells me about it. And he wants me to start coming to their meetings. But I tell him, I won't go. I don't agree with what they're doing. But I said, I want to keep having coffee with you. And as we meet, he keeps bringing up all the conspiracy theories that he's hearing at his meetings. And I say, well.

[23:29] I see it the same way you do. And then he says, he doesn't think we can be friends anymore. His new friends have told him that he should cut me off. And I say, well, I can't stop being your friend. And I can't stop wanting to spend time with you, because I care about you. But eventually he does stop meeting me for coffee.

[23:51] But every month, a week before we meet or would have met, I reach out to him and I say, hey, can we meet? And at first, he replies back. He says, no, I can't meet you. And you know why. After about a year of that, he stops replying to my messages altogether.

[24:09] But I keep sending them. Doesn't matter whether he replies or not. And I say, I care about you. And I miss talking to you. After three years, one day he replies to my invitation. He says, I know we're supposed to meet next week. But can we meet right now? I say, no. I don't know. And we meet. And he tells me that he had started questioning his group of friends. After they became more extreme and they started advocating violence, he didn't agree with what they were doing. And they didn't like his questions. And they demanded on that spot that he would swear an oath of loyalty to their cause so that they knew he was a safe person for them. But he wouldn't do it. So they cut him off. And he was devastated, because he lost all his friends in one moment, except one.

[25:01] And he says, thank you for always reaching out to me, telling me that even if you disagree with me, we could still be friends. And he cries in my arms. And he thanks me for always trying to stay connected to him.

[25:15] And over time, we keep meeting once a month, of course. But slowly, he comes to see that the people he had been with, and even their ideas, were wrong. He stops looking at the world. And he says, I'm sorry. Right?

[25:32] Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? That's the end of the story. I hope you enjoyed it. But I think about this, and this isn't me, but I think this is what God's love looks like. If this was reversed, wouldn't I want a friend who never gave up on me like that, who kept with me even though I was way off the path?

[26:08] And why wouldn't that friend give up on me? Because he loved me. Because that's what God's love is like. God's love never stops seeking the lost. It never stops sending messages. It never closes the door on the relationship, no matter how lost we are. So I think we could put some people in this tiny parable. The person who's always faithful is God, and the person who goes off and does the other thing, that's us. But we are to love as God loves. So Jesus reduces the law to this simple but incredibly difficult and long-suffering command. Love God with the same kind of love, and love your neighbor as your neighbor. Love yourself. Seek your neighbor when they're lost. Turn the cheek when they attack you. Affirm their humanity at every turn, remembering that they are the image-bearer of God. That's what love for neighbor looks like. It does not mean you agree with their wrong ideas. It does not mean you join them in their bad motives or bad actions. If they are doing something destructive, you tell them. But you can't control them. You stay connected to them even when the relationship is strained. So that's the love for neighbor. That's the law of love. It's simplified. And this is how eventually we can learn to do it.

[27:26] Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you that you show us in two simple sentences what you expect from us. Father, help us to love you in the way that you love us. Help us to love our neighbors in the way that you love us and that we want to be loved. In Jesus' name, amen.