Love At the Center
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, November 3, 2024, the 24th Sunday after Pentecost and observation of All Saints Sunday.
Text: Mark 12:28-34
From the very beginning of Mark’s Gospel, the scribes along with the chief priests have tried to find ways to trap, arrest, and kill Jesus. They’ve charged him with “blasphemy” (2:7); judged his eating company (2:16); claimed he had “Beelzebul” (3:22); and questioned his disciples’ hand-washing practices (7:1, 5). Once Jesus arrives in Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the flurry of confrontations sound strangely contemporary, focused on things like religious freedom (11:15-18), who holds authority and how that authority was attained (11:28), taxes (12:14), and a question connecting theology and marriage (12:23). Wave after wave of attack and test break upon Jesus.
So when yet another scribe steps up to engage Jesus, it would make sense to think “Here we go again…”
But something is different in the encounter found in our Gospel for today. The scribe saw that Jesus answered his interrogators well. I would love to be able to ask the writer of Mark what exactly it was about Jesus and his answers that moved the scribe to engage. // My mind goes to persons I’ve observed in times of conflict or in the presence of anger or confusion who don’t get emotionally drawn in, who remain steady and thoughtful and present regardless of what they might be thinking or feeling. That kind of self-aware presence shifts the energy in the space. I imagine Jesus like that as he speaks words dripping with wisdom and truth.
Perhaps Jesus’ way of being and speaking allows the scribe to listen beneath the fray to the deep truth of Jesus and to perceive a resonance in his own heart.
In any case, something had been stirred in the scribe because there is no implication of a test in the question about which commandment is first of all. And after Jesus responds invoking first the Shema from Deuteronomy 6 with its call to love God with our whole being and then citing Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” the scribe responds “You are right, teacher…” That’s it. There is no “you are right, but what about…?” Just “You are right” and an affirmation that love of God and neighbor is “much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
Nothing in the story up to this point prepares us for this moment when Jesus and a scribe agree. Rather than getting caught up in the mob mentality, hooked by emotions, or looking for a wedge issue in which to trap Jesus, this scribe whose name is known to God alone, asked the most important question, the question whose answer draws people together in relationships of mutuality, dignity, and peace. And Jesus, in answering, draws upon what he has in common with the scribe as a fellow Jew, namely the central call in scripture to love God and neighbor.
It seems like a simple thing when you think about it. The scribe approaches Jesus as a teacher rather than as an adversary, or a threat, or a demon-possessed person, or as impure, immoral, or heretical. And Jesus doesn’t discount the scribe as just another one of “those people” who are out to get him. From the text, it doesn’t appear that Jesus is defensive or assumes the worst. Rather, I imagine that the quality of Jesus’s presence was what made the encounter possible.
We don’t know, of course, whether the scribe and Jesus agreed on every interpretation or application of Jewish law. But what we are given in this story is a moment when affiliation, stereotypes, and distrust don’t keep two human beings from having a real conversation. It’s a moment when the commitment Jesus and the scribe share—to love God and love neighbor—is modeled in the way they engage. They meet as neighbors, focusing on things that matter most and drawing upon what they share in common.
This may indeed seem simple and like “of course that’s what we’re supposed to do.” Except in the story and in our lives that’s not the way things always go. I keep thinking of the teaching in the epistle of 1 John that says, “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 Jn 4:20) How many people say they love God but persist in viewing other people through stereotypes, or with hatred, or with fear? How many people of faith—how many people who claim the name “Christian”—sling ugly words and hate speech at others on social media and sometimes even in person? How many say they love God, but do nothing to ease the burdens of neighbors who suffer or heed the cries of the needy and oppressed? The polarization at this time in human history is so extreme, the distrust and anger so pervasive, that having a real conversation with someone from the “other side” is nearly impossible. Any hint that a person might be labeled a certain way determines our response to them—often evoking a less than charitable response.
In one way or another, all of us are simply trying to find our way; and we often break things as we stumble around in that quest. The whole of the Gospel affirms that God’s way of dealing with a broken world and with broken lives is not to abandon, attack, or destroy, but to draw ever nearer in love, mercy, and grace—even stepping directly into the mess of the world with us. Jesus shows us what it looks like to be truly human, perfectly reflecting the image of God’s love. Jesus, like any prophet worth their salt, calls out injustice and oppression in no uncertain terms and takes every blow he receives for doing so, even going all the way to the cross for the sake of love and justice; but even when things are at their worst, Jesus never dehumanizes or allows a label or a mistake or a flaw to define a person.
That’s good news for the scribe and for any who might be written off with a stereotype. And it’s good news for all of us. Because it affirms that when we, like people from the beginning, misunderstand and get the scriptures twisted, when we are hard of heart and fail to understand the amazing grace of God, when we check out because things are complicated and difficult, when we become threatened and fearful of others and lump them into the category of “enemy,” when we get sucked into habits of stereotyping others and surrender to polarizing energies—even then, God loves us and will call us back to our more human self, our more compassionate, discerning, brave, and loving self.
Today we remember the saints of our lives and of our tradition. In ways large and small those whom we call “saints” embody the love of God and neighbor in ways that inspire and encourage us. The saints give us examples of how to live lives with love of God and neighbor as the true center. We need those examples during this time in history when there is so much brokenness, fear, violence, and uncertainty all around. We need to remember the saints who have persevered and kept the faith in times of upheaval and violence, the saints who have taught us wisdom and discernment, the saints who have paved the way for justice and civil rights and suffrage, the saints who have given their lives in service to the poor and the sick, the saints who have modeled grace and forgiveness even when they were targets of hate, and the personal saints who have simply taught us to love and be loved in simple and profound ways. The saints remind us of our capacity to be loving, generous, and wise. They remind us of our call to be more human as Jesus was human.
Jesus who revealed the fullness of God’s way of love knew that even though his encounter with the wise scribe silenced further debates, it didn’t stop the fearful energies that would ultimately betray, deny, and kill him. Yet Jesus placed his trust in the God of love—not in any human power—not in any emperor, platform, army, or president. Jesus placed his trust in the God of love as he continued to love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength and his neighbor as himself. As those who follow Jesus, our call is to do the same. Trust God and put love at the center. Let love be your fuel and your guide not just at home or in the sanctuary, but in the grocery store and in the ballot box and online and where you work and play.
Remember that even when the world did its worst—scapegoating, gaslighting, betraying, slandering, and beating—the brave, tender heart and body of Jesus, resurrection was on the other side. Trust the God whose love is stronger than death to bring you—and our communities and nation and world—through whatever trials may come and to a place of new life. And give thanks with the saints throughout the ages that even when our love fails, God’s love remains steadfast.
Thanks be to the God of love;
thanks be to the God of peace;
thanks be to the God of justice;
thanks be to the God of wisdom, courage, and hope;
thanks be to God who is alpha and omega, the first and the last,
the beginning and the end, ever present and true. Amen.
