Love Your Neighbor as Yourself-Matthew 22:34-40-UPDATE
Is the lectionary text this week, in congreations that use a lectionary. This verse though can sometimes be represented, and what the nature of this love is should be explored. This is not a sermon, but a Commentary.
Sometimes people like to use this verse to promote thier own humanist agendas. So any sort of condemnation of anyone's behavior or beliefs. Some Pastors will preach this text as generic, and ignore some of the radical nature of this love here, so someone may not be offended.
A few points in response
Since Jesus is God, we must look at some other examples of when Jesus was loving.
When Jesus comes to the defense of the women caught in adultery in John 8. Jesus is loving when he tells her to go and sin no more in verse 11. The reason, sin has serious consquences. We often don't understand how God's law was established not only to bring people to Christ, but to reign the pain caused by sin. Every law, God comes up with it is as a loving father for our benefit, not as a strict discipinarian. In Matthew 9-Jesus speaks of how he came to call sinners, and make them well for they are ill. In John 9:31-Jesus speaks of how those who engage in blatant unrepentant sin, God does not hear. Jesus was very loving of other people when he took their sin seriously.
It should also be noted that Jesus makes all sorts of absolute truth claims regarding himself with judgement to those who don't accept them (John 3:36, John 3:18, John 8:24, John 8:16-19, John 5:24, Luke 24:27, Matthew 25:31-46). So this passage doesn't mean, not to make absolute truth claims to your neighbor, or the idea that you should just accept your neighbor's beliefs, and maybe they can except yours. The loving thing to do to your neighbor according to these verses is to witness to the truth of Jesus Christ.
But what does this love mean. Someone asked me does this love, we are called to extend to Rapists, Child Molestors, and Murderers?
Well Scripture speaks of how we are by object natures of wrath (Eph 2:3, and I Thessolonians 1:10). We have all sinned, and fallen short of God's standards. These verses state we all deserve God's punishment. We're not going to be able to stand up there on the judgement day, and point out how we aren't as bad as someone else, for we all still fail to meet God's standards by our own actions. For the difference between Murderer and us is like an pothole, but the difference between God and us is like the Grand Canyon.
So point 1: We are called to love God as well as our neighbor, because we are as in need of God's forgiveness as our neighbor. We can't deny love to our neighbor because of our own self-righteousness.
Self-Righteous love is not hard to find. We love people that can give us money, makes us feel good about ourselves, or make us look better. Rigtheous love as displayed by Jesus coming down to eat with Tax Collectors, and Sinners, and dying and rising so that we may live. This is what seperates our self-righteous love from God's righteous love.
Love though also has a degree of justice. For God is loving, yet God still has us die to experience death as the justice for our sin (Romans 6:23). So God is just in his love, as wrong-doings have consquences. So this is why you can still love a Child Molestor in your neighborhood, and not hire them as your baby-sitter. This is why a parent can discipline a child and still be loving. In fact, it is more often loving to punish than to ignore. The reason is actions have consquences.
Point 2: So basically, what I am saying is that love has a degree of justice, when it is dealing with sinful people.
But love also has a degree of action involved. We can't just walk around saying, we love people, only to ignore people, we come across.
But when we ulitmately think of what it means to love God and our neighbor. We must realize that the ulitmate form of love was displayed in the Cross, where Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6-8). Christ died not because he had anything we could give him, but because he loved us so much he didn't want to see us perish. God loved us so much, he wanted to make us his own. This is the love that should define how we love God, and how we love our neighbor. So love is a more complex picture than sometimes portrayed: Love is defined by truth,justice, acceptance, and action. But love is most ulitmately defined by our Sin and Christ's cross. We love God because he died for our sins, and love our neighbor because God died for his sins too.
Sometimes people like to use this verse to promote thier own humanist agendas. So any sort of condemnation of anyone's behavior or beliefs. Some Pastors will preach this text as generic, and ignore some of the radical nature of this love here, so someone may not be offended.
A few points in response
Since Jesus is God, we must look at some other examples of when Jesus was loving.
When Jesus comes to the defense of the women caught in adultery in John 8. Jesus is loving when he tells her to go and sin no more in verse 11. The reason, sin has serious consquences. We often don't understand how God's law was established not only to bring people to Christ, but to reign the pain caused by sin. Every law, God comes up with it is as a loving father for our benefit, not as a strict discipinarian. In Matthew 9-Jesus speaks of how he came to call sinners, and make them well for they are ill. In John 9:31-Jesus speaks of how those who engage in blatant unrepentant sin, God does not hear. Jesus was very loving of other people when he took their sin seriously.
It should also be noted that Jesus makes all sorts of absolute truth claims regarding himself with judgement to those who don't accept them (John 3:36, John 3:18, John 8:24, John 8:16-19, John 5:24, Luke 24:27, Matthew 25:31-46). So this passage doesn't mean, not to make absolute truth claims to your neighbor, or the idea that you should just accept your neighbor's beliefs, and maybe they can except yours. The loving thing to do to your neighbor according to these verses is to witness to the truth of Jesus Christ.
But what does this love mean. Someone asked me does this love, we are called to extend to Rapists, Child Molestors, and Murderers?
Well Scripture speaks of how we are by object natures of wrath (Eph 2:3, and I Thessolonians 1:10). We have all sinned, and fallen short of God's standards. These verses state we all deserve God's punishment. We're not going to be able to stand up there on the judgement day, and point out how we aren't as bad as someone else, for we all still fail to meet God's standards by our own actions. For the difference between Murderer and us is like an pothole, but the difference between God and us is like the Grand Canyon.
So point 1: We are called to love God as well as our neighbor, because we are as in need of God's forgiveness as our neighbor. We can't deny love to our neighbor because of our own self-righteousness.
Self-Righteous love is not hard to find. We love people that can give us money, makes us feel good about ourselves, or make us look better. Rigtheous love as displayed by Jesus coming down to eat with Tax Collectors, and Sinners, and dying and rising so that we may live. This is what seperates our self-righteous love from God's righteous love.
Love though also has a degree of justice. For God is loving, yet God still has us die to experience death as the justice for our sin (Romans 6:23). So God is just in his love, as wrong-doings have consquences. So this is why you can still love a Child Molestor in your neighborhood, and not hire them as your baby-sitter. This is why a parent can discipline a child and still be loving. In fact, it is more often loving to punish than to ignore. The reason is actions have consquences.
Point 2: So basically, what I am saying is that love has a degree of justice, when it is dealing with sinful people.
But love also has a degree of action involved. We can't just walk around saying, we love people, only to ignore people, we come across.
But when we ulitmately think of what it means to love God and our neighbor. We must realize that the ulitmate form of love was displayed in the Cross, where Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6-8). Christ died not because he had anything we could give him, but because he loved us so much he didn't want to see us perish. God loved us so much, he wanted to make us his own. This is the love that should define how we love God, and how we love our neighbor. So love is a more complex picture than sometimes portrayed: Love is defined by truth,justice, acceptance, and action. But love is most ulitmately defined by our Sin and Christ's cross. We love God because he died for our sins, and love our neighbor because God died for his sins too.
posted by Stew at 3:48 PM
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