Matthew 22:34-46, David Orendorff

What is Christian? In a few words give me a definition of Christian.

I counted, as best I could, the number of congregations in the Woodinville area that call themselves Christian and came up with about 25. There are conservative, liberal, orthodox, protestant, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, and Charismatic congregations. They are United Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Church of Christ, Church of God of Prophecy, Church of God, Assembly of God, a variety of Baptist and Lutherans, Catholic and some non-denominational folks with interesting names like “Prisoners for Christ” and Laestadian Congregation. Eight of them are in the Cottage Lake area alone.

If you were to go to each of these 25 congregations and ask what it meant to be Christian you will probably not get the same answer twice. They’re likely to think of good Christian leaders being as diverse as Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jim Wallis, James Dobson, Rick Warren, William Sloan Coffin, Jesse Helms, Jesse Jackson, Mother Teresa or Monty Python (why is it the religious men get most of the press?). Christianity is enormously diverse.

I have met several reluctant Christians. People who like the message of Jesus but are not sure they want to call themselves Christian. E. Stanley Jones once noted that in India to be called Christian might be an insult but to be called Christ-like was a compliment. I once sat in my office with a woman who I believed to be very Christian and she told me she was not Christian. It was painful to me because she so embodied my understanding of being Christ-like in her life that for her to reject being Christian was for me to experience being rejected. What does it mean “being Christian?”

I have come to a personal conclusion. It is based in scripture (which I will quote often today) and is supported, I believe, by tradition, reason and experience.

When the Pharisee lawyer asks Jesus, “Which commandment in the law is greatest?” he is asking my question, “What does it most fundamentally mean to be faithful to God?” Remember, this Pharisee is a lawyer not of a secular court system, but of the temple. This lawyer is concerned with what is the right way to be faithful to God. There are ultimate and eternal consequences tied to the answer. To ask Jesus this question is to ask, “What does it mean to be your follower, a Christian?”

Jesus answers the lawyer’s legal question of obedience with a description of a relationship, “You shall love, αγαπε (agape), the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Jesus is, as the lawyer is well aware, quoting Moses’ law in Deuteronomy.1Deuteronomy 6:5 For Jesus what God wants most from us is not rule focused obedience but love. For Jesus faith is relational and the right relationship with God is love. And the word that Matthew, Paul and every other gospel writer chooses to describe this relationship, the word we translate as love is αγαπε.

Αγαπε is a Greek word describing a very particular kind of relationship. Other Greek words commonly translated as love describe different kinds of relationships. Εροσ (eros) describes erotic love, love of beauty with a desire to possess it. This is a love based upon what we believe the object can give to us.

Φιλωσ (philos) describes friendship in which we get and give love, it is mutually beneficial. From φιλωσ we get the word philosophy, a friendship with wisdom, and Philadelphia, a city of friendship.

Αγαπε, however, describes a love which gives itself away for the benefit of the other without expecting anything in return. To αγαπε God is more than a desire to possess God, though it is a deep desire to have God continually in one’s life. To αγαπε God is to be a friend, but more than a friend, to God. To αγαπε God is to experience God in such a way that we are impelled to give ourselves to God, without condition or expectation, where God most needs us. We love God because God first loved (agaped) us.

To love God with the whole of our heart (our desires, our emotional will), the whole of our soul (the breath of life by which we live), the whole of our strength (what we do with our abilities), and the whole of our mind (our intellect and conscious will) is to willingly serve God’s desires, to have a passion to give ourselves to God in service. This is the first law (or relationship).

Then Jesus gives a second law. Again he quotes the Law of Moses, but this time in Leviticus.2Leviticus 19:18 And again he answers a question of law with a relationship, “Αγαπε your neighbor as yourself.”3Matt 22:39

I want to point out that loving your neighbor as yourself is a relationship within a relationship. We must both αγαπε/love our neighbor as we at the same time love our self. With this relationship within a relationship Jesus points out that we can only love our neighbor well when we are lovingkindness to ourselves, and at the same time, we can only love ourselves well when we love our neighbor. It is another one of those both/and situations.

I think this one can be difficult for many of us. It is hard to find the balance between loving our neighbor and neglecting ourselves, or loving ourselves and neglecting our neighbor. Sometimes we are the last ones to whom we give good care. And sometimes we indulge ourselves to the detriment of our neighbor. Sometimes we don’t like ourselves very well and sometimes it is our neighbor we despise, and then sometimes we just love everyone. Sometimes it is just plain hard to know what the right love for our neighbor as ourselves means. Finding this balance is the process of a lifetime of being perfected by the love of God in our love for God.

And then to make it even more complicated, who is our neighbor? In the Leviticus passage Jesus quotes “neighbor” means the extended family, people of your own tribe and religion. As you know with the parable of the Good Samaritan4Luke 10:29ff and other parables and acts of mercy, Jesus expands neighbor to be anyone we encounter who has a need. Jesus even expands love of neighbor to our enemies, those who would abuse us and kill us.5Matt. 5:43ff Our neighbor is whoever needs our care.

So far Jesus is simply quoting the Law of Moses. He is not the first rabbi to make the connection between law and love. He only gets radical when he links law one with law two saying, “And the second is the same as the first…” Jesus equates love of God with love of neighbor as self. We don’t know of anyone that has made this equation before him. He says that to αγαπε neighbor as self, is the very same thing as to αγαπε God.” The right relationship with self and neighbor is the same (ομοια) as the right relationship with God. And the right relationship is αγαπε toward God and with neighbor as self.

Later in Matthew when Jesus tells the parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats this equation of loving God and neighbor as self is made explicit. Those separated as sheep ask, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”6Matt. 25:31-46

The early church understood exactly that to be a follower of Jesus, i.e. to be Christian, meant to love God and their neighbor as themselves. To the Galatians, a small church in today’s Turkey, Paul writes, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love (αγαπε) your neighbor as yourself.’”7Galatians 5:14 And to the church in Rome he writes, “…for he who loves his neighbor fulfills the law.”8Romans 13:8 One of my favorite expressions comes in the First Letter of John. Every time you hear any form of the word love, some form of αγαπε is being translated.

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God,
and whoever loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God; for God is love.9I John 4:7-8”

It is a remarkable joining of God and humanity, of love and faithfulness. Being Christian is not first about obedience to divine rules. Being Christian is first about relationships of αγαπε with God, and our neighbor as our self.

Recent research by some medical and social scientists actually indicate that living an agape life is the healthier way to be.

In his book How Giving Can Change Your Life Douglas Lawson writes:

Altruistic activity is good news. A handful of researchers with limited funds are now showing that helping others can lead millions of people to improved health and emotional well being…10Douglas M. Lawson, Ph.D., How Giving Can Change Your Life, (ALTI Publishing, La Jolla, CA, 1991), 35

In a pioneering investigation of 1,500 women volunteers by sociologist Allen Luks, many subjects mentioned the enjoyable physical sensations they experienced while helping others and for some time afterward…Researchers point to the endorphins, the body’s own opiate system, as the source of the high…In a nine year-year study of relationships between social behavior and mortality rates of 7,000 Alameda County, California, residents, Drs. Lisa Berkman and S. Leonard Sym found that church members lived longer than those who did not belong to churches.11ibid. 24

In The Broken Heart - The Medical Consequences of Loneliness, Dr. James Lynch of the University of Maryland School of Medicine says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself’ is not just amoral mandate. It’s a physiological mandate. Caring is biological. One thing you get from caring is that you are not lonely, and the more connected you are to life, the healthier you are.” Community and connectedness have long been acknowledged as important influences on mental health by the medical and psychiatric professions.12ibid. 27

Dr. Dean Ornish, in A Program for Reversing Heart Disease, cites self-centeredness, the habitual use of the pronoun “I,” and emotional isolation as destructive to emotional and physical health. People need good relationships with other people their whole life long. Newborn infants do not survive if they are not loved and nurtured, nor do the elderly. And even during our middle years, when we are most self-reliant, we are vulnerable. Giving and sharing not only help others, they also give us life.13Ibid., 27-28”

I know that Christian can have a bad taste because of what some so called Christians have done in the name of Jesus and it pains me. However, for me, being Christian means being Christ-like in lovingkindness toward God, and with my neighbor as with myself. I know that being Christian is the best thing for me, body, mind and soul. And I absolutely believe that being Christian, or being Christ-like is the best I have to offer you and all creation.

Shalom and Amen.

2 Leviticus 19:18

3 Matt 22:39

4 Luke 10:29ff

5 Matt. 5:43ff

6 Matt. 25:31-46

7 Galatians 5:14

8 Romans 13:8

9 I John 4:7-8

10 Douglas M. Lawson, Ph.D., How Giving Can Change Your Life, (ALTI Publishing, La Jolla, CA, 1991), 35

11 ibid. 24

12 ibid. 27

13 Ibid., 27-28