Sermons

“A Commandment and A Blessing”

Mark 12:28-31; Ephesians 3:14-21 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – June 25, 2017

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might feel the weight of both your commandments and your blessings and respond faithfully. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

Today is an important day. There are so many people who step up to do the things that are required to make a church a church. Today is the day that we remind ourselves that none of that work is done alone. Today is the day we remember that the work is God’s, commissioned by God, inspired by God, led by God. Today is the day we invite forward our lay leaders and ask God’s blessing upon them, so that they will always remember to turn to God as they assist in the ministry of this congregation. So today, I want to say some words to our lay leaders about what it means to be a leader in the church of Jesus Christ. Fortunately for the rest of you, what it takes to be a leader in the church is not different than what it takes to be a Christian, so these lessons should apply to all of us.

Our scripture lessons today offer us a commandment (well, actually two!), and a blessing. I thought that seemed like a good place to start for those embarking on leadership roles. “Here’s what you need to do, and here’s how you’re going to be able to do it.” In Mark, Jesus confirms what was already widely known, that the most important thing about our faith is to love God, with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength. We are called to be “all in.”

The writer of Ephesians offers a blessing that parallels the four-fold commandment to love, praying that we will have the power to comprehend the “breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ. It turns out we’re better at being “all in” if we’re getting a little help from Jesus. We are not in this alone. So let’s take a look at what we can learn when we match up the four-fold commandment with the four-fold blessing.

So let’s start with loving God with all our heart. I want to match this one up with breadth. When we make a decision to follow Jesus, we are committing ourselves to having our hearts stretched wider and wider, every day for the rest of our lives. As Marcus Borg reminds us, when we love God, we care about what God cares about. That means yes, loving ourselves appropriately, as Jesus implies in his addendum commandment, but it also means loving our neighbors and using Jesus definition of the word “neighbor.” It means learning to love people who are totally different from ourselves, people who eat differently, talk differently, understand the world differently, and even understand God differently. To love God with all our hearts is to open ourselves to the full breadth of the love of Christ, which means our hearts are going to go places we didn’t even know existed. It will be scary and exciting and challenging and wonderful. It will require both expansive gestures and attention to details, as we discover together how to express such a broad and far-reaching love. The process of having our hearts stretch is sometimes uncomfortable, but once your heart expands, it never wants to go back to being smaller.

The second match on our list is to connect soul to depth. This one is probably the most important. Loving God with all our soul means cultivating a deep spirituality. That may sound intimidating, because the word “spirituality” in our culture has a lot of baggage. We have certain ideas about what is “spiritual” and what isn’t. And many of us may feel like we don’t qualify. But here’s the thing. Each of us has a soul, even you. And we are all different and our souls respond to different things. God wants to connect with each of us in the ways that work for us. Being spiritual doesn’t have to require sitting quietly with a candle experiencing deep feelings of oneness. Cultivating a deep spirituality means that first of all, we get to know ourselves as God knows us, valuing the ways in which we are unique and gifted. And after that, it’s mostly a matter of paying attention. It requires making our search for connection with God a priority in our lives, so that when those moments arise, in whatever context, however unlikely, we will recognize them and celebrate them and build upon them. Developing depth of soul is absolutely vital if we’re going to follow Jesus and provide leadership in Christ’s church, because our world is constantly trying to drag us back to the surface, where life is shallow and fleeting. It’s also one of the most neglected aspects of faith for busy, task-focused church members, because it requires slowing down. In general, our souls don’t move as fast as our bodies or our minds, so we have to pause sometimes to let them catch up.

Our third match invites us to connect loving God with all our mind to comprehending the height of Christ’s love. It’s pretty easy to admit that’s not something we’re ever going to accomplish. But finishing the task is not the point. Instead, what we’re being invited into here is a life-long journey of learning. To love God with all our minds is to remember always that we have more to learn. If Christ’s love goes up, as implied by the word “height,” it’s just one more reminder that Christ’s love never ends. “Up” goes on and on forever, far beyond our comprehending. To pursue the love of Christ means admitting that following Jesus isn’t a skill we master or a status we achieve; rather it’s a way of life that is continually inviting us onward. This is why we study scripture continually. The study of Romans you may do next week will be different than the one you may have done in your twenties or even just two months ago. There is no end to what we can learn about God, because God is beyond our full comprehension. But each new piece of wisdom we do receive helps us love God more fully and serve our neighbors more faithfully.

Finally, and perhaps most saliently for our leaders today, we match up strength with length. And not just because they rhyme! Loving God with all our strength is about having a faith that endures the test of time. Have you heard that question about how heavy the glass of water is? The answer, of course, is that it depends on how long I ask you hold it. The love of Christ goes on and on. We are invited to commit for the long-haul. One of the greatest dangers for lay leaders in churches like ours is burn-out. There are a lot of jobs and not that many people doing them. If we’re not focused on the full length of Christ’s love, we can easily be knocked down by the bumps in the road right in front of us. What are we giving our energy to – the petty squabbles that occasionally arise at committee meetings, or sustaining God’s vision for our congregation as a place where all are welcome, and fed, and loved, and made whole? What are we going to lean into with all our strength? Some of the stuff we worry about will just wear us out without renewing our resources. But when we give our strength over to God’s work and will for our world, it is multiplied.

These lessons are important ones: allowing our hearts to be stretched toward the breadth of Christ’s love, giving time for our souls to grow toward the depth of Christ’s love, opening our minds to the height of Christ’s love, and offering our strength to aim for the length of Christ’s love. But the most important lesson for today is that these emphases come not just in the form of a commandment, but also in the form of a blessing. We are not expected to achieve the breadth and length and height and depth on our own. Rather, the apostle is praying that we will be given that power, and we can pray together, for one another, that we might receive that power. It is not we who carry out this ministry, but rather Christ who dwells within us. This is the central thing we must remember, whether we’re offering leadership within a congregation or simply being part of the Body of Christ. Christ Jesus, ever and only, is the center of our faith. “Christ’s example, Christ’s inspiring, Christ’s clear call to work and worth,” as the hymn says. May it be so. Alleluia and Amen!