The Greatest Commandment

Our Hebrew Scripture is from the Book of Leviticus, which is the third of the five books in the Torah, or the Jewish Law.  It was written by, for and about the Jewish Levite Priests, and the name Leviticus literally means, “of the Levites.”  The first sixteen chapters of the book are the Levitical Priestly Code, and the last half of the book, where our passage today resides, is the Holiness Code.  Tradition has it that Moses wrote the entire Torah, but virtually all scholars today agree the book was written over centuries, with the Holiness Code most likely added after the Hebrews returned from their forced exile in Babylon in the mid-500s BCE.  After the Exile, the Jews were very focused on attempting to re-establish their identity as God’s chosen people, and ritual purity was one of the ways they tried to re-establish their lives in Jerusalem.  Several weeks ago, we read the Ten Commandments from the Book of Exodus, told from the context of Israel’s story after being delivered from slavery in Egypt.  Here, we have a different version, told from the context of returning home from the exile in Babylon.  These two contexts lead to two different versions of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. 

Here in Leviticus we see how the writers wove the identity of God into reestablishing the identity of the Jewish people.  This version is very concerned with food and poverty, concepts you would expect from a people returning from exile with nothing. Verses 5-8, which we did not read this morning, are about sacrificial worship and re-establishing the importance of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  This version of the Ten Commandments  emphasizes right-relationship.  The commandment to not steal in Exodus is expanded to three commandments; not stealing, not defrauding and not cheating a laborer of their wages.  I also love verse 14, not found in the Exodus version at all, “You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear (or respect) your God: I am the Lord.”  What does it mean to not put down or place a barrier before those who are differently-abled?  I think this points to caring for the least among us, and thus, we have a set of Biblical commandments to feed the poor and house the homeless and care for the differently-abled.  It is interesting to me that those who wish to place the Ten Commandments on the Courthouse wall never quote this version of the Decalogue which includes these specific commandments to care for the least among us. 
Finally, verses 17 and 18 prohibit us from hating our kin, while admonishing us to reprove our neighbor, that is, correct our neighbors with kindly intent.  And then, this version of the Ten Commandments ends with the passage that Jesus taught in our Gospel today, that we should love God and our neighbors as ourselves.  If you counted, there are several extra commandments in the Levitical version of the Decalogue.  The Levitical version of the Big Ten is actually more like the Big Twenty-Six.  And, as Jesus observes in our Gospel passage, the Leviticus version adds two final Big Commandments, the Greatest commandments of all, that we love God, and also love our neighbors as ourselves.

Think about this commandment in the context of the Jews returning from their exile in Babylon.  The Jews believed they were being punished for falling away from God’s commandments when they were taken into captivity in Babylon.  They did not love themselves at all.  But here, they are commanded to love their neighbors as themselves, which means they need to love themselves first.  When the Jews were finally released to return back home to Jerusalem, they found their Temple destroyed, their land occupied by aliens, and the Jews who had stayed behind had fallen away from their traditions.  The Jews felt terribly about themselves on their return.  They had to start all over again, rebuilding their self-esteem, rebuilding their identity as God’s chosen people, and rebuilding their relationship with God.  Change had overwhelmed them.  In this context, this great commandment is really an encouragement to the Jews—look, love God, then love yourselves and then love each other!  In the middle of all of these rules to re-establish the Temple and reoccupy the Jewish homeland, this new commandment rekindles Jewish identity:  Don’t love who you were, but love who you are now, and then love your neighbor as your newly loved self!

Now, I would like you to think a minute about how this great commandment might apply to our context here at Spring Glen Church in late 2011.  We are also coming out of several years of tumult and change, transition and staff changes.  So what might this commandment to love ourselves and each other mean to us, today, here?

As I have witnessed and participated in our Cottage Meetings, I have discovered some common themes and threads that weave us together.  While we have an ongoing core of vibrant Benevolence and very active Christian Action, and a rich tradition of caring and diversity, we also hold a nostalgia for the way things “used to be.”  A full sanctuary, a huge Sunday School, a large youth group.  At our Clergy Gathering before Annual Meeting for the Conference yesterday, we discussed these same nostalgic remembrances.  If you measure who we are as the United Church of Christ by numbers only, we are not what we used to be—the UCC has dropped from 2.3 million in 1975 to 1.2 million today.  The world is changing much more quickly than ever before.  Social and cultural change overwhelms us, and all of us yearn for a place that is “like it used to be.”  But the world has changed dramatically in the last 30 years.  The slow, always improving incremental changes of the 20th century have given way to the erratic and unpredictable changes of the 21st century, just as the Jew’s incremental changes before the exile were shattered by the unpredictable change of the exile.  Our parents and grandparents knew the world would be better for the next generation.  We are now not convinced of that.  The world is in chaotic, not incremental change.  As the church, we could count on being the center of cultural awareness in the 20th century, but the church is NOT in the center of cultural awareness now in the 21st century- and it will not be in the future.  We were the center just 40 years ago, now Christianity is on the margins.  I can say with strong conviction that things will never be the same as they were in the time after the world wars.  Global awareness and environmental destruction have changed everything.  There are now seven billion people struggling on this globe—far more than the globe can sustainably maintain.  The gap between the richest and poorest has never been this wide.  And global corporations now control the political and social processes.  Greed is the new global god at the center of everything.

In reaction to this increasing social chaos, many in our culture have retreated to wanting to return to the “good old traditions of yesteryear.”  And while I appreciate the nostalgia, honest observations of the real world indicate we need to re-learn to love ourselves for who and what we ARE, right now, and release who we were.

Here at Spring Glen Church, we are an astonishing community of Christ-followers for today.  Our Sunday School is larger than almost every UCC church within a 100 miles.  We have dedicated the top 15% of our revenue to benevolence—not 10%, but 15%!  This is unheard-of generosity in this day and age of church cutbacks and reduced church staffs.  Our yesterdays were great, but who and what we are today, in today’s context, is also simply amazing.  Our diversity makes our life together richer and more fulfilling.  Our inclusive and ecumenical spirit makes us prophets of the new world of interfaith spirituality.  We hold our Christian traditions lightly and honestly, carefully discerning what needs to be retained and embodied, and what needs to be cherished, held less tightly, or let go.  We are the living future of the Christian church.  We are vibrant when other churches are struggling.  We are economically viable because you have extravagantly generous spirits.  When something does not work, you are willing to let go and try something new.   We are the new stewards of the new 21st century church.

In short, you have learned to love yourselves as you are, so that you can love your neighbor as yourselves.  As I talk to my colleagues in ministry, I see how forward-looking you are as a congregation.  Believe me, that is why I am here at Spring Glen.  Can we be more generous?  Can we be more inclusive?  Yes.  Can we be more loving and caring and positive?  Can we love ourselves a little more, dig a little deeper into the work of the Kingdom of God?  Of course.  Can we live into God’s dream for this beautiful church?  Yes.  Jesus said, Love God, love yourself, and then love your neighbor as you love yourself, and as we follow Jesus, and do a little fishing for humanity together, we will usher in God’s Kingdom, right here, right now. 

And Jesus said to them, “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.  On these two great commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.”  Amen.