Questioning Authority

October 26, 2023 Matthew 22:34-46 Questioning Authority 22nd Sunday after Pentecost Year A Stewardship Week 1 Prelude Welcome Call to Worship (Inspired by Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17) One: The Holy One has been our hope and our home. Many: God has been with us from generation to generation. One: We flourish and fade, bloom and renew in God’s time. Many: Our lives are temporal and precious and glorious. One: May the compassion and favor of the Holy One be with us. Many: May we be glad and prosperous in our work for our God! (United Church of Christ Worship Ways, Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay) Invocation Righteous God, your law is love. Your message is love. Your presence is love. May Love fill our atmosphere and our interactions as we gather together in your name. May Love transform us, renew us, and revive us. Amen. (United Church of Christ Worship Ways, Rev. Dr. Cheryl Lindsay) Song Make me a Channel of your Peace TFWS 2171 Children’s Sermon Then ask a volunteer to come forward and draw/color each of the following body parts while you come up with ways that you can use them to show love. Then see if they can think of another body part they can use to show love. • Ears (example: listening when others are talking, listening in church) • Eyes (example: paying attention to others needs, reading the Bible) • Nose & Mouth (example: singing hymns and praise music, speaking kind words) • Mind (example: learning about Jesus, thinking of new ways to help) • Heart (example: praying to God, telling your parents you love them) • Hands (example: holding the door, cleaning up the sanctuary) • Feet (example: going on mission trips, walking with someone to their car) • Before we get started, there are a few actions you need to know. When I say ‘LOVE’ I need you to cross your arms over your chest like your giving yourself a great big hug. When I say ‘HEART’ I need you to make a heart shape with your hands. When I say ‘SOUL’ I need you to point both thumbs at your chest. When I say ‘MIND’ I need you to put your hands on your head. And when I say ‘NEIGHBOR’ I need you to point at anyone else in the room. Now let’s get started. • The Bible has a lot to say about LOVE. It tells you God LOVES you. It tells you that God wants you to LOVE him. It tells you to LOVE your NEIGHBOR. There is so much in the Bible about LOVE that some people call it a LOVE letter. A long time ago when Jesus was on earth, people thought the Bible was just about rules. Do this. Don’t do that. Say this. Wear that. Go here. Worship there. Rule after rule after rule. • There was a little bit about LOVE, but there were so many rules that was all people cared about. • But LOVE was all Jesus cared about. He came here to show each one of us just how much He LOVES us. He LOVES us so much that even died for our sins so we can live with Him forever and always. • There were a whole bunch of people who really liked Jesus’ message of LOVE, but there were also a bunch of people who really liked the rules. They thought following the rules was all that mattered, but they forgot that everyone makes mistakes sometimes and disobeys those rules. And then what?!? Is that it? One broken rule and it’s all over? No way! Jesus came so that even when we make mistakes, He can save us. It’s such an amazing way to show just how much He LOVES us. • One day the rule followers wanted to know what Jesus thought was the most important one of all. If we could only ever follow one single rule, which one would it be? They expected Jesus to say one of the 10 Commandments; like obeying your parents, or keeping the Sabbath a day only for God. But Jesus had an even better one. The best rule of all, and it’s all bout LOVE. • Jesus said, “LOVE the Lord your God with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your MIND. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: LOVE your NEIGHBOR as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” – Matthew 22:37-40 NIV • Jesus turned all of those rules into just two simple ones. LOVE God. And LOVE others. When you keep the Sabbath as a day for Jesus, that’s a way of loving Him. And when you obey your parents, that’s a way of loving them. Every single rule can fit into one of those two. It was so simple. • Now what do you think it means to LOVE God with all your HEART, SOUL, and MIND? It really just means that you LOVE Him completely. So you can’t just say you LOVE God, or just put money in the offering, or just listen to the sermon; you need to LOVE God all the time and in every way. • And thankfully, Jesus LOVES us so much that forgives us when we forget to LOVE Him and our NEIGHBORS like we should. Which is great news, because everyone could use a little more LOVE. (Ministry to Children, Stephanie Fernandez) Prayer of Brokenness Loving God, we confess that we are quick to judge and move to judgment at breakneck speed. We do not slow down to consider another point of view or give pause to allow compassion to open our hearts. We want to do right and to be right, sometimes at a cost. Remind us of how deeply You love us, how Your Son bent down to draw in the dirt before the crowd that wanted to condemn another. Call us into that same sacred pause, to remember that we are all human beings, all made in Your image, all Your children. May we withdraw our sharp words and judgments and instead break open our hearts for compassionate, deep listening to one another. In the name of Christ, who in all humility laid down his life for each of us, that we might have abundant life full of pauses, full of compassion, full of love, we pray. Amen. Rev-o-lution.com, Rev. Mindi) Blessing You are precious to God, so loved and so worthy of love. I know you may not feel it all the time, but it is true: God loves you madly. God’s love is written inside your heart and can never be removed, never changed, never diminished. Know this, in your heart of hearts, that you are made in God’s image and that image is love. Go share that love with the world. Amen. (Rev-o-lution.com, Rev. Mindi) Scripture Matthew 22:34-46 Sermon Questioning Authority Benjamin Franklin had 13 virtues that he felt necessary for every person to have in order to live a productive life – Temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility. Franklin did not consider himself a particularly religious person, but he did occasionally go to church, and even though he probably could not name the verse, they are all included in the bible. I think sometimes we would all like to have a short summary of what the bible is all about – it would be nice to have a little chart that tells us what the bible is all about. Well if you look at psalm 15 – it gives you the bible in 11 easy points, in Isaiah 35 – it gives you 6 easy points. In Micah 6:8 there are three points – what does the lord require of you – act justly, love faithfulness and to walk humbly with God. Amos says that there is only one thing – seek God and live. Jesus gets it down to 2 principles – love God with everything and love your neighbor. John Wesley and Martin Luther get it to one – grace. Rabbi Hillel (Died 6 years before Jesus was born) said,(when challenged by a Gentile to repeat the entire Torah on one foot) "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn" As we come to the last days of the Christian Year (December 1st is the new year), we come to the end of Matthew and the end of Jesus’ earthly life. Matthew has been following Jesus’ life, but mostly his earthly journey – when we realized that he was a prophet, all he has wanted to do was to go to Jerusalem – to question the powers that be and to teach the people. His dream has come true- he is teaching and people are listening. He has gotten the attention of the religious authorities – and now they are questioning him. Questioning is a great honor – it means that his teaching is worthy of debate. Matthew 22 is the chapter about that debate. Two weeks ago he talks about the kingdom of heaven – being a great party where everyone is invited and no one wants to come. In the middle of the chapter – he challenges the sadducees on resurrection and explains that in life after death that we are all equals – we stand before God. The saducees are mad because they don’t believe in life after death. The pharisees are impressed because they do – they want to hear more from this Jesus. Who seems to know the torah law, even though he never studied with him. He does well in talking about the shema – love the lord with all of your heart and soul. He even does well when he talks about loving your neighbor – that is in Leviticus how the treat the migrants amongst you. But does he really understand the 10 commandments – Jesus even says that they are testing him now. Who is the messiah? After all – the ten commandments says to honor your mother and father. If David says that the messiah is his lord in psalm 110, how could anyone today be the messiah. The messiah can’t be alive today – because we are all sons of David, thus less then him if we respect him as an elder. Jesus reminds him again that in the resurrection, all people are equal – we all have to stand before God on our own. He had just had this conversation with the saducess. In god’s world, there are no elders. The messiah could be anyone – and still respect his elders. Scripture says that at this point they stopped asking questions. This man was way too smart for his own good. Jesus does not say anything that is not already in the bible – he just presents it in a whole new way for a whole new generation. We are the generation the loves jesus and remembers his words to live by. Jesus reminds us that all of the bible be summed up in one word – used in two sentences. Love – which comes from God – receive it from God and give it to your neighbor. Yes, that is two sentences – but Jesus actually tells us about three loves. Love God, Love your neighbor and to love yourself. That is important – because I really think that a lot of time – we forget about the third one. As Christians we tend to think that love is selfless, and not selfish. We neglect our own self care. We think that if we show love to others, then we should not include ourselves. We think that is we are focused on God that we are not focused on ourselves. Loving Ourselves She was a beautiful Scandinavian girl. She had come to the hotel room of Dr. and Mrs. Walter Trobisch for counseling, just one day after they had given a lecture at one of the universities of northern Europe. As they talked about her problems, one basic issue kept coming up – one that seemed to be at the root at all her problems. She could not love herself! In fact, she hated herself so much that she was only a step away from ending her own life. She had been raised in a very religious home. Her parents were sincere, no doubt, but they had given her a terribly distorted understanding of the Christian life. Because of what her parents and pastors had taught her, she was afraid of affirming any good thing about herself. She was afraid that self- appreciation would lead to pride, and pride would lead to alienation from God. So, for her, the life of faith required self-depreciation – putting herself down! She believed that rejection of the self was the only way to God! That’s why her religious convictions led her to the brink of suicide. During the counseling session there in the hotel room, Dr. Trobisch led her to a mirror where he asked her to look carefully at her image. She turned away, unable to look at herself. He held her head gently but firmly and made her look into her own eyes. Obviously the experience was painful for her emotionally. Dr. Trobisch asked her to repeat after him: “I am a beautiful girl – I am a beautiful girl.” But she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it - because in her eyes that was sinful. Where did we ever get the idea that to affirm ourselves, to appreciate ourselves is wrong? Certainly we didn’t get that from Jesus. When we read the gospels carefully, we discover that Jesus went around day after day looking for the good in people, pointing it out to them, and asking them to celebrate it. And, in the scripture from the 22nd chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us to love our neighbors. How? As we love ourselves. Notice that Jesus does not say we are to love our neighbors instead of ourselves. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is inarguable: Jesus wants us to love ourselves! James McCormick, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Being Compassionate Is More than Kindness Being compassionate involves more than kindness. It is the passion to develop strategies and structure to lift up those who are down. If our political and economic systems allow the marginalized to fall between society's cracks, then we who have been loved into action by a compassionate God are encouraged to challenge the existing order or to find ways to alter their predicament. To fail to do this is to lose God in the chaos of society. The great Norwegian novelist, Johan Bojer, makes that point powerfully in his story, The Great Hunger. It happened that an anti-social newcomer moved into the village and put a fence around his property with a sign saying, “Keep Out.” He also put a vicious dog in the fence to keep anyone from climbing it. One day, the neighbor’s little girl reached inside the fence to pet the dog and the dog grabbed her by the arm and savagely bit and killed her. The townspeople were enraged and refused to speak to the recluse. They wouldn’t sell him groceries at the store. When it came time for planting, they wouldn’t sell him seed. The man became destitute and didn’t know what to do. One day he saw another man sowing seed on his field. He ran out and discovered it was the father of the little girl. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.” The father replied, “I am doing this to keep God alive in me.” David Zersen, Searching for Better Questions Keeping God alive inside of us takes practice, preparation and perspiration – act justly, love faithfully, walk humbly. I want to give you some scenarios – and in each one I want you to think about what you would do. But the challenge is to be as selfish as possible. You are having lunch with two friends. And when it comes to dessert there are only two cakes – and you love cream cakes. What do you do? You family has had a dinner party – and now that the guest have left, there are tons of dishes in the sink and there are five people in the family. What do you do? Remember to be selfish. Whatever you thought of to do for yourself – Jesus challenge to us – do it for others. When Jesus says that we should love God and Love our neighbor – he is not just talking about 2 loves, or three loves, but 4 loves. Love God, Love neighbor, love ourselves – and love Jesus. When we think of those 4 loves – everything else falls into place. In Love with Christ Legend has it that a wealthy merchant traveling through the Mediterranean world looking for the distinguished Pharisee, Paul, encountered Timothy, who arranged a visit. Paul was, at the time, a prisoner in Rome. Stepping inside the cell, the merchant was surprised to find a rather old man, physically frail, but whose serenity and magnetism challenged the visitor. They talked for hours. Finally the merchant left with Paul's blessing. Outside the prison, the concerned man inquired, "What is the secret of this man's power? I have never seen anything like it before." Did you not guess?" replied Timothy. "Paul is in love." The merchant looked bewildered. "In Love?" "Yes," the missionary answered, "Paul is in love with Jesus Christ." The merchant looked even more bewildered. "Is that all?" Smiling, Timothy replied, "Sir, that is everything." G. Curtis Jones, Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching, Nashville: Broadman, 1986, p. 225. One way to cope with the abundance of laws is to just use your common sense and to work by rules of thumb. For example, for driving: go the speed limit, yield to the right, stay to the right unless passing, etc. When you are filling out your income tax: don't cheat or lie! What about your daily life? Well, maybe the so-called golden rule: treat others the way you would want to be treated by them. L. Gregory Bloomquist, Remembering to Do the Right Thing If we wanted to sum up the bible and keep a cheat sheet of what the bible teaches us to do in every situation – let us remember the words of a song that all of us learned a long time ago – Jesus Loves me this I know – for the bible tells me so. Amen. Song Pass it On UMH 572 Pastoral Prayer Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment Gary Chapman wrote a book for couples, and another for children, identifying “5 love languages”. In these books, Chapman demonstrates how learning the language of your loved one/s and acting out your love in that particular way demonstrates your deep connection. The five languages are physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time and gifts. When Jesus was asked about which commandment was the greatest, his answer came in 2 parts: “love God” and “love your neighbor”. I want to use Chapman’s languages as a way to help us consider an answer to “HOW do I act out my love of God and neighbor?” We can demonstrate our love with physical touch: Shaking hands, providing a hug, squatting down to be on eye level with a child and responding positively if that child wants to come sit with you in worship! Words of affirmation: in our worship, our prayers, our meditations, and in our encounters with others on the street, at school, at work, or in our home, words of affirmation speak our love: “well done!” “you’re the best!” “you make me happy” “you fill me up” Acts of service: coming early to host at church, stepping up to serve a meal, helping an elderly person get their leaves raked, bringing cold water to the charity walk participants Quality time: focused time in worship, Bible study, Sunday School, one-on-one time at home, at work, or on “date night” Gifts: a simple flower, a thank you note, and yes, your weekly offering of a portion of what God has first given you. How will you show your love for God and neighbor as we receive our morning offering? Prayer of Thanksgiving All things come from you, O God. Receive and accept the gifts we now offer you. Help us use them wisely, that our love for you and for our neighbor might be made known as we utilize these gifts in the ministries of this congregation. AMEN (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook We do not leave this sanctuary and leave God behind. God’s law is clear. We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. May this commandment be ever before us; guiding us, inspiring us, enabling us to be Christ’s body – his hands, his feet, his heart – in this, God’s world. May the grace, hope, peace, and love of God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer be with us all, now and forever. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Terri Ott McDowell) Community Time - Joys and Concerns Benediction Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Go forth into this aching, hurting world with God’s love, offering healing, hope, and peace to all. Go in peace and may God’s peace surround you always. AMEN. (United Methodist Ministry Matters, Nancy Townley) Additional Illustrations Sermon Opener – The Two Most Important Questions a Christian Can Answer – Matthew 22:34-46 Isidor Isaac Rabi, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, and one of the developers of the atomic bomb, was once asked how he became a scientist. Rabi replied that every day after school his mother would talk to him about his school day. She wasn't so much interested in what he had learned that day, but how he conducted himself in his studies. She always inquired, "Did you ask a good question today?" "Asking good questions," Rabi said, "made me become a scientist." In order to ask a good question I think you need to have noble motives behind the question. You have to want to know the truth. The Pharisees, by contrast, already had the answers to their questions. They felt they already knew the truth. How many times have we had it in for someone, asking a question designed to trap them? We do it to our loved ones all the time. In a moment like this we are not trying to learn; we are trying to injure. The Pharisees come to Jesus once again with a question designed to do damage to the reputation of Jesus. And once again Jesus proves he is equal to the task. Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? Now, even though this question was used to test Jesus, it is nonetheless an important question. Perhaps in the life of Israel at that time it was THE most important question. But Jesus had a question of his own. A question, which signified that the times were changing; a new theological season had come. He put this question to the same Pharisees who had tested him: “What do you think of the Messiah. Whose son is he?” These were the two most important questions of that era and my friends they are the two most important questions of our time. Let us consider… 1. Which Commandment Is the Greatest? 2. What Do You Think of the Messiah? The Right Kind of Devotion In order that we may know how to love ourselves, an end has been established for us to which we are to refer all our action, so that we may attain to bliss. For if we love ourselves, our one wish is to achieve blessedness. Now this end is to cling to God. Thus, if we know how to love ourselves, the commandant to love our neighbor bids us to do all we can to bring our neighbor to love God. This is the worship of God; this is true religion; this is the right kind of devotion; this is the service which is owed to God alone. Augustine, City of God ____________________________ In Love with Christ Legend has it that a wealthy merchant traveling through the Mediterranean world looking for the distinguished Pharisee, Paul, encountered Timothy, who arranged a visit. Paul was, at the time, a prisoner in Rome. Stepping inside the cell, the merchant was surprised to find a rather old man, physically frail, but whose serenity and magnetism challenged the visitor. They talked for hours. Finally the merchant left with Paul's blessing. Outside the prison, the concerned man inquired, "What is the secret of this man's power? I have never seen anything like it before." Did you not guess?" replied Timothy. "Paul is in love." The merchant looked bewildered. "In Love?" "Yes," the missionary answered, "Paul is in love with Jesus Christ." The merchant looked even more bewildered. "Is that all?" Smiling, Timothy replied, "Sir, that is everything." G. Curtis Jones, Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching, Nashville: Broadman, 1986, p. 225. ____________________________ Practice, Preparation, and Perspiration In a wonderful little book, "Dudley's Dog Days: Joining Faith to Life," by Harley G. Rusch, the family has just bought a cocker spaniel puppy named Dudley. On their way to grandma's house to show off the newest member of the family, they stop at an ice cream store. It was a hot summer day -- and, of course, Dudley was given an ice cream cone, too. Next they stopped at a hamburger stand for some food, which, of course, Dudley had to eat, too. Dudley had hardly gotten the hamburger down, when it came right back up -- along with the remains of the ice cream and cone. They get to grandma's house, who quickly gave her grown son a tongue-lashing: "How could you give a puppy an ice-cream? Don't you know anything about taking care of a puppy?" The author writes about his experience: We were inexperienced at showing love to a dog. Although we loved him at first sight, the technique by which we showed that love needed a lot of improvement. It would not be the last time either. The first walk, the first trip to the vet, the first night, all proved that some expertise was needed in the art of loving a puppy. Society has told us by means of movies and television that love is something that just happens. Caring for another is something you just do. How wrong can they be? To love takes the desire but also a lot of practice, preparation, and perspiration. We discovered with Dudley that there are proper and correct ways to show love. There are also acts that can be motivated by love, but can in effect be unloving -- like ice-cream cones for puppies. The love Jesus calls for is more than just warm feelings. It can often involve "practice, preparation, and perspiration." In some cases loving others means giving a dose of "tough love.” Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes The Complexity of the Situation The Constitution of the United States started off with only 7 articles and 21 sections that took up only four handwritten pages including signatures! 4 pages! But to that we added 27 amendments. Today, the United States Code, which is all of the laws in this country, fills up around 80 volumes of books, nearly 800,000 pages, and this doesn’t even include the Federal Regulations. In 1942, the Virginia Code was a single book that had 2800 pages. Today, the Virginia Code is a 25-volume set of books with 15,000 pages, nearly 20,000 separate laws! And that is just Virginia! But, let’s not think for a moment that we are the only ones to take something simple and make it complex. God gave the Israelites something simple to follow, the Ten Commandments. Just ten simple rules to follow. Nothing complex about it. But were the Israelites content with just ten commandments? Oh, no. They ended up making 613 separate commandments, 365 negative and 248 positive. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? Try following all those laws in order to be considered faithful and righteous, and you probably thought the original ten was hard enough. For the lawyer and the Pharisees there was certainly a complex issue at stake. The Israelites were under assault from a man who claimed to be God, and who did God-like things. But this man was a Jew; he should have known better, no one is God, but God. Yet, he was a man who knew and quoted the Hebrew scripture, who knew the laws and commandments better than any religious leader. The Pharisees had to put a stop to it, the situation was getting out of control, it was becoming too complex to let it go on much longer. This man must be stopped and the only why to stop him was to discredit him. And what better way to discredit Jesus, the Jew, than to ask him such a question, on a complex issue about the greatest commandment, that any answer he gave would spell defeat. Author Unknown Love: Committing Oneself Fully One of my professors spoke of a young couple who wanted to write their own wedding vows. Instead of vowing to stay together "until death," they wanted to say, "For as long as our love shall last." As my professor noted, "Mistaking affection for love could mean they would divorce following their first real argument.” If we allow our culture’s definitions of "love" to define what Jesus meant, then surely we will miss his point. Neither lust nor affection is at the heart of the faith. So what then did Jesus mean when he said that we are to love God and neighbor? Scholar Douglas Hare points out that "love" in the biblical tradition is marked by concretely expressed commitment. To love is to have an unwavering commitment to another, a commitment that expresses itself tangibly. "Love," as Jesus uses it here, is a call to commit one’s self fully and concretely to both God and neighbor Donald M. Tuttle There Is More Than You Know In her book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris recounts [her own spiritual] journey: Even as I exemplified the pain and anger of a feminist looking warily at a religion that has so often used a male savior to keep women in their place, I was drawn to the strong old women in the congregation. Their well-worn Bibles said to me, 'There is more here than you know,' and made me take more seriously the religion that had caused my grandmother Totten's Bible to be so well used that its spine broke. I also began, slowly, to make sense of our gatherings on Sunday morning, recognizing, however dimly, that church is to be participated in . . . The point is not what one gets out of it, but the worship of God; the service takes place both because of and despite the needs, strengths and frailties of the people present. How else could it be? "There is more here than you know." Could this be the real message of Jesus' perplexing question to the Pharisees? His riddle illustrates that unlearning things is sometimes necessary before new and true learning can occur. More specifically, it points to the way that Christ both fulfills and transform our expectations and definitions. Anthony B. Robinson, article in The Christian Century, October 6, 1993, “Encountering a Riddle” Give Me Jesus Dr. Paul Wee, a staff member of the Lutheran World Federation, recalls standing at the bedside of dying archbishop, Janis Matulis, of Latvia. A visitor had just sung, at Matulis’ request, an old spiritual with the words, “Oh, when I am alone, when I am alone, give me Jesus.” Matulis then asked those around his bed: “Do you know why this song means so much to me? Three times war passed over Latvia, killing two-fifths of our people. They burned down my church and destroyed Bibles and hymnals. They took away my wife, and I never saw her again. When it was all gone, I realized that I had nothing else in this world but Jesus Christ. [That realization] was like a breath of freedom. From that moment on, I learned how to use whatever came my way--little bits of medicine left over, a piece of coal, apples, spices--so that somehow the sacrament of God’s love would be shared with the larger community because of Jesus Christ.” That’s what happens when we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves. We come to a new understanding of who Christ is. King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com ________________________________________________________ Remembering to Do the Right Thing How's your memory? Do you have difficulty remembering to do certain things? How about names? What about when it comes to laws? Do you always remember all the laws that apply when you are driving? How about when you are filling out your income tax? What about your daily life: do you always remember what is involved in doing the right thing? Do you always remember to do the right thing? That presupposes that you even know all the laws that are out there. But I find that I have difficulty not only REMEMBERING everything that I'm supposed to remember, but even KNOWING everything that I'm supposed to KNOW! For example, I didn't know for a long time that in Ottawa you could turn left from a one-way street on to a one-way street. I saw people doing it and I thought they were just taking a short-cut. Someone going to North Carolina might not know that of the 100 counties in North Carolina you cannot swear in public in 98 of them, but that you can in 2 of them, nor might they know which 2 they are! Or what about situations that arise that are not covered by any law? What about when you go out for a meal? What about at work? What about when you are getting on an airplane? One way to cope with the abundance of laws is to just use your common sense and to work by rules of thumb. For example, for driving: go the speed limit, yield to the right, stay to the right unless passing, etc. When you are filling out your income tax: don't cheat or lie! What about your daily life? Well, maybe the so-called golden rule: treat others the way you would want to be treated by them. L. Gregory Bloomquist, Remembering to Do the Right Thing Short Quotes on Happiness Opera diva Beverly Sills asked why so bubbly–“Are you always as happy as you appear to be? "No, I'm not a happy person. I am a cheerful person. A happy woman has no cares. A cheerful woman has plenty of cares but handles them." “A man is occupied by that from which he expects to gain happiness, but his greatest happiness is the fact that he is occupied.” French philosopher Alain (1868-1951). “If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to die.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn Being Compassionate Is More than Kindness Loving Ourselves She was a beautiful Scandinavian girl. She had come to the hotel room of Dr. and Mrs. Walter Trobisch for counseling, just one day after they had given a lecture at one of the universities of northern Europe. As they talked about her problems, one basic issue kept coming up – one that seemed to be at the root at all her problems. She could not love herself! In fact, she hated herself so much that she was only a step away from ending her own life. She had been raised in a very religious home. Her parents were sincere, no doubt, but they had given her a terribly distorted understanding of the Christian life. Because of what her parents and pastors had taught her, she was afraid of affirming any good thing about herself. She was afraid that self- appreciation would lead to pride, and pride would lead to alienation from God. So, for her, the life of faith required self-depreciation – putting herself down! She believed that rejection of the self was the only way to God! That’s why her religious convictions led her to the brink of suicide. During the counseling session there in the hotel room, Dr. Trobisch led her to a mirror where he asked her to look carefully at her image. She turned away, unable to look at herself. He held her head gently but firmly and made her look into her own eyes. Obviously the experience was painful for her emotionally. Dr. Trobisch asked her to repeat after him: “I am a beautiful girl – I am a beautiful girl.” But she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it - because in her eyes that was sinful. Where did we ever get the idea that to affirm ourselves, to appreciate ourselves is wrong? Certainly we didn’t get that from Jesus. When we read the gospels carefully, we discover that Jesus went around day after day looking for the good in people, pointing it out to them, and asking them to celebrate it. And, in the scripture from the 22nd chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us to love our neighbors. How? As we love ourselves. Notice that Jesus does not say we are to love our neighbors instead of ourselves. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is inarguable: Jesus wants us to love ourselves! James McCormick, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Shema In Jewish circles the single most famous verse from the Torah is the so-called Shema from Deuteronomy 6. "Shema" is the Hebrew word for "hear" or "listen" and it comes from that verse, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." The Shema was traditionally recited by every Jewish child and adult at the start of each day and at the conclusion of each day. In other words, there was no single verse from the entire Torah that the average Jew knew better than this one. So when Jesus responded to the Pharisees' tricky question by quoting a portion of the Shema, he was throwing back in their faces something they took to be exceedingly basic, something that was second-nature to even the youngest Jewish child. It reminds you of the time Karl Barth is said to have been asked what he thought was the most profound of all theological truths. But instead of giving some jargon-laden, academic answer that used words like perichoresis, kenosis, or the insuperable transcendence of God's prevenient grace as it comes through the vicarious supererogation of the Son, Barth simply said, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." That answer was charming and disarming. Barth said, "The greatest truth is the one you already know, the one all Christians know, the one a three-year old can sing about." In Jesus' case, he was slyly insulting the Pharisees, demonstrating to everyone there that the Pharisees were not really interested in seeing if Jesus could answer their question since even the youngest person there knew that answer already. This was not a difficult question. It was like asking Albert Einstein, "Do you know what 2+2 is?" This was basic, elementary stuff. Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations _________________________________