Loving our Neighbour in a World of Angry Tweets - Mark 12: 28-34
preached by Joshua on Sunday the 31st of October 202 1
Earlier this week a storm brewed on Twitter, that infamous social media platform that isn’t exactly prone to nuanced and stimulating debate.
Broadcaster and artist Hamish Keith put up a tweet- and I will quote him “The unvaccinated will feel isolated and picked on. So, they should.” (I edited out his salty language).
This was followed by the musician Dave Dobbyn chipping in saying:
“I thought we’re fighting COIVD, not humanity.”
Dave Dobbyn was then lambasted by multiple users of twitter. There was a pile on, and Dobbyn’s twitter account was deleted.
In the wake, Dobbyn made clear his own vaccination status – he has been double vaccinated and is supportive of people getting the vaccine.
Yet, to voice any concern over the dialogue and level of division just seemed to highlight it more.
The issue of how we best fight covid and keep one another safe has become more and more polarized over the past few days and weeks. It feels as if the rhetoric of being a “team of 5 million” is behind us and now we have tribes forming and throwing verbal rocks at one another.
In amongst all of this – we have this week’s beautifully timed lectionary reading in which Jesus speaks about loving our neighbour.
The issue of loving our neighbour is something I have been ruminating on, and we have been talking about as a society constantly over the past couple of years.
So, this morning, we will dig into this topic together and explore what does Jesus mean when he speaks of loving our neighbour?
First of all – a little disclaimer as we tread difficult ground.
Let me start by being very clear about what I am saying and what I am not saying.
First what I want to say:
In this sermon I want to address the way we treat one another, even when we disagree. I want us to consider what does it mean to love our neighbour, even if we are divided on such issues as to how to face the covid-19 pandemic.
Also, I truly believe that vaccinations are a good thing. I’ve received my doses, and in doing so have placed my trust in medical professionals as they advise us on how to combat this pandemic. I happily encourage others to do so also, for the sake of our common good. Let me make that super clear.
Second - what I am not saying.
As I reflect today on what it means to love our neighbour, I am not saying it equals agreeing with them or endorsing their views. I am not advocating support for conspiracy views – I want to make that as clear as I can from the get-go. After watching the storm in the wake of Dave Dobbyn’s comments – clarity up front is important.
Neither will I say that “loving your neighbour” directly means getting the jab. This implies far more about a complex medical decision than I think the text itself warrants and elevates not getting it to the level of disobedience toward Jesus Christ.
To love our neighbour, is broader and more comprehensive and as I will argue – it will mean loving others even when we come to different conclusions and divergent views.
So, with those disclaimers in hand – let’s turn to the burning issue:
In an increasingly divided world how do we love our neighbours?
First, we will look at the passage together, and then some reflections on it for our context today.
Mark 12 – Setting in Context.
In Mark 12 Jesus is approached by a scribe/lawyer and is asked which commandment is the most important?
The lawyer wants to get the heart of the law.
The University of Otago runs a “three minute thesis” competition each year where they get doctoral students to explain their 100,000 word project in just three minutes.
The question from the Scribe makes me think of this competition.
It’s a request to boil it all down to the big point.
This desire to get to the fundamentals of the law was common enough in Jesus’ time.
The Rabbi Hillel when asked said: “What you yourself hate, do not do to your neighbor; this is the whole law, the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.”[1]
Jesus when asked says:
The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Jesus gives a version of the “Shema” a prayer that Jews would pray each day. In doing so Jesus claims that through his life and teaching the fulfilment of the law has come. The promises of God are being fulfilled in his work.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus does something similar, saying “You have heard it said, but I say to you.”
And so, Jesus carries on the trajectory of the Shema and claims that here in his ministry the promises of God are being fulfilled and continued.
Coming back to the Shema, it is an important and significant prayer.
The Bible Project give a really helpful definition of the meaning of Shema that I want to share with you.
“The opening line “Listen, O Israel” does not simply mean to let the sound waves enter your ears. Instead, the word “listen” here means to allow the words to sink in, provide understanding, and generate a response. In other words, in Hebrew, “hearing” and “doing” are basically the same thing, but how should Israel respond to hearing that the Lord alone is their God? “Love the Lord your God.” In this context, love isn’t simply the warm, fuzzy, emotional energy we feel when we like someone. In the Bible, love is action. You love someone when you act in loyalty and faithfulness. For Israel, to love meant faithful obedience to the terms of their covenant relationship. Those terms are the laws and commands that will make up the body of the book of Deuteronomy. Obedience to these laws was never about legalism or trying to earn God’s favor. Obedience in the Old Testament is about love and listening. If an Israelite loves God, it will make it easier to listen and absorb his teachings and guidance. This is why the words “listen” and “love” are so tightly connected and repeated through these opening speeches of Deuteronomy.”[2]
Loving and listening. Isn’t that connection so vital?
The first place of listening and loving is stated clearly by Jesus: -Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.
In other words – Love God with everything you have got. Unreserved loved. You can never love God too much.
Love of God is the place that we begin.
When we consider all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ, we will be moved to awe, wonder, gratitude and worship.
Even in our rejection of God, even in our sin, our brokenness, and amidst the mess we make of things – God is merciful and graceful to us in Jesus Christ. He doesn’t write us off. Instead he reaches out to take upon himself the consequences of our sins and chooses to forgive us as we repent and turn to Him.
This is the miracle and wonder of grace.
God’s mercy is so big and beautiful that words will hardly do it justice.
And this mercy, this love, will inspire our love for God, and in turn our love not only for God, but also for every other person whom God deeply loves despite their flaws, and their particular way of messing things up and being broken.
Notice, that Jesus is asked for one commandment by the scribe, but he gives two. Jesus is asked which commandment is the most important and what he gives is the double love commandment – they belong together.
As one biblical commentator, Morna Hooker puts it:
“Faith and ethics are so closely bound together in the Old Testament as to be virtually indistinguishable. The command to love one’s neighbour arises from the command to love God, and the love of God is empty unless it issues in love of neighbour.”[3]
And as John writes:
1 John 4:19-21
“We love because he first loved us. 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. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
In verse 33-34 of Mark 12, Jesus affirms that outward forms of piety, sacrifice and worship are all hollow without love. This echoes the great prophets, and the apostle Paul will also make a similar point to the church at Corinth.
And so, this is where we turn to the command of loving our neighbour.
Out of love for God and out of the great mercy with which he loved us, we are turned outward to love our neighbours.
Who is my neighbour? Luke 10 – Good Samaritan.
So – who are our neighbours?
This is the very question that another Jewish lawyer asks Jesus in Luke chapter 10. Who is my neighbour he asks?
In response, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. In this story, to a Jew, Jesus casts the Samaritan as the hero.
The Samaritan who was the enemy to the Jew. We cannot overestimate the rivalry and disdain between these peoples – Jewish and Samaritan. And when asked who is my neighbour, Jesus says – that Samaritan. The one you hate. The one whom you despise, the one who in your mind is less than you and not even worthy of your attention, let alone your love.
This is your neighbour.
Jesus in the sermon on the mount says:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
(Matthew 5:43-47)
As a follower of Jesus, I am challenged to love the person who is least lie me, even the people I don’t really like – actually – especially them.
In light of the divisions and discussions, the debate and the intensity of our current moment – this invitation must be made clear.
As Christians we aren’t measured by our opinions but by our love.
In these times I believe that we need to re-connect with the truest definition of tolerance which is this: I totally disagree with you, and I’m more than happy to disagree but I still see you as a beloved creature of God who deserves love and respect.
To be tolerant is not to claim there is not truth and that all opinions are valid – rather it is to acknowledge that you don’t equal your opinion. As a human you are much bigger and much more precious than your opinions.
This week, I was on Facebook and saw several threads of conversation unfold where people who claimed to be Christian were saying awful things to other Christians. A friend of mine was asking an honest question about the vaccination process and another Christian posted a comment underneath which read “It is a joke that you even call yourself a Christian.”
That lack of charity, hardness of heart, and lack of compassion must be called out.
How we debate, how we disagree, and how we speak to one another will give witness to our love, or lack thereof. It will give witness to the Christian faith, or undermine its validity in the public eye.
Who are we to allow anyone to stumble because being right in our own eyes is more important to us than loving our neighbour?
Will bullying and coercion and harsh words bring anyone to Christ?
I really don’t think so.
The medium matters – the “how” of what we say is just so important.
Charles Spurgeon, one of the most famous Christian preachers of all time, and a man who knew the importance of our words – once said this:
“We are bound to be just and right towards all men as men, whatever their religious convictions, or irreligious notions. Injustice is no friend to truth. We must not fight God’s battles with the weapons of ill-will. For us to hate those who are in error, or talk of them with contempt or wish them ill, or do them wrong, is not according to the Spirit of Christ. You cannot cast out Satan by Satan, nor correct error by violence, nor overcome hate by hate.”
-Charles Spurgeon
Wesleyan Pastor and radio broadcaster Francis Ritchie put it really well in a social media post recently. He said:
“No matter what our views in the various debates around the current situation, one of the biggest challenges we will face over the coming months, amidst all the tension and tiredness, is not behaving and speaking in ways that we will regret out the other side of this.”[4]
I found these words from two faithful pastors really helpful.
Of course – it’s easier said than done.
At times we get frustrated, we get tired, we lose our cool, and we struggle to see outside of our limited experience and knowledge.
We can’t love perfectly.
We fall short according to God’s commandments.
As Paul says in Romans 3 – none of us are righteous.
We all rely on the saving grace of God.
And it is this truth at the very heart of the gospel that should give us reason to bite our tongue and look to Jesus.
When we do so we will see his mercy and grace for us.
Jesus – the one who made friends with unlikely people and who brought people from across political divides together. Just think of Simon a zealot who wanted to be free from Roman rule, and Matthew, the tax collector, cosying up to the Roman bureaucracy. Somehow Jesus held these two together – and since then has been holding together all kinds of different people.
One of my greatest concerns at this time is that the church will be divided, and that barriers will be put in the way of people coming to know Jesus.
Let us not turn on one another in this hour – but instead let God’s mercy and love rule in our hearts and inspire us to love each other as Christ calls us.
How will the world know that we are people who follow in the way of Jesus?
By our love for one another.
Amen.
[1] Quoted by Larry Hurtado, UBCS: Mark.
[2] https://bibleproject.com/blog/what-is-the-shema/
[3] Morna Hooker, Black’s Commentary Series: Mark.
[4] Francis Ritchie, Posted on Facebook profile on the 25th of October 2021.