Is God Loveable?

²⁸One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” ²⁹Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” ³²Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; ³³and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Once upon a time, a radio station ran a contest. Disc jockeys invited their listeners to tune in their clock radios. "Just for fun," they said, "when you wake up to the sound of FM-106, call and tell us the first words you spoke when you rolled out of bed. If you're the third caller, you'll win $106."

It didn't take long for the contest to grow in momentum. The first morning, a buoyant disc jockey said, "Caller number three, what did you say when you rolled out of bed this morning?" A groggy voice said, "Do I smell coffee burning?" Another day, a sleepy clerical worker said, "Oh no, I'm late for work." Somebody else said her first words were, "Honey, did I put out the dog last night?" A muffled curse was immediately heard in the background, and then a man was heard to say, "No, you didn't." It was a funny contest and drew a considerable audience.

One morning, however, the third caller said something unusual. The station phone rang. "Good morning, this is FM-106. You're on the air. What were your first words when you rolled out of bed this morning?"

A voice with a Bronx accent replied, "You want to know my first words in the morning?"

The Bronx voice responded, "Shema, Israel ... Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." There was a moment of embarrassed silence. Then the radio announcer said, "Sorry, wrong number," and cut to a commercial.

For the pious Jew, who takes the words of the Shema, from Deuteronomy chapter six seriously, the first words of each morning are always the same, and they were the words spoken that morning on FM-106. They were first spoken by Moses, who said, "Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Teach them to your children and talk about them when you lie down and when you rise" (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

In the passage we heard a few minutes ago, some scribe asked Jesus, "Which commandment comes first?" It was probably intended as a trick question. If Jesus picked only one of the 613 commandments, he left himself open for a barrage of criticism from those who favored another commandment. In the Gospel of Mark, there are over a dozen occasions when the scribes oppose Jesus. They mock him, dispute him, and conspire against him. Certainly this scribe would have pounced on whatever answer Jesus offers. Yet the scribe immediately backs off when Jesus answers, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart."

It is no wonder. The primary obligation for every good Jew has always been to love God with the heart, with the center of all passion and trust. That is the primary purpose of human life. For Christians as well, Jesus affirms these words as our greatest commandment and binds us to our greatest responsibility.[1]

But, what does it mean for us to love God? How do you love God? I know how to love my sons, and at this point in time Alex is loveable in one way while Gregory in quite another. I know how to love Kim, my parents my family, my friends.

But is God loveable? Certainly God is not fuzzy, warm and huggable like some cosmic Elmo doll. So what do we do?

We’re told by Jesus in this passage to love our God and our neighbor. I believe we’ve come to know something about loving our neighbors, we speak so often about that concept when we read these verses from Mark regarding the great commandment. And certainly we still have much to learn because we know that to love our neighbor is God-speak and bible-code for loving our enemies, a command that I know I’ll never be able to fully fulfill. Yet we do have an inkling as to what is required to at least begin this attempt.

And there’s probably no doubt that we, especially in the Western World, have developed the notion of loving ourselves into a fine art.

But according to these verses, loving God comes first, as our greatest obligation and our primary goal. But what does it mean to 1. Love God with all your heart, 2. Love God with all your soul, 3. Love God with all your mind and 4. Love God with all your strength?

Legend has it that a wealthy merchant traveling through the Mediterranean world looking for the distinguished Pharisee, Paul, encountered Timothy, who arranged a visit. Paul was, at the time, a prisoner in Rome. Stepping inside the cell, the merchant was surprised to find a rather old man, physically frail, but whose serenity and magnetism challenged the visitor. They talked for hours. Finally the merchant left with Paul's blessing. Outside the prison, the concerned man inquired, "What is the secret of this man's power? I have never seen anything like it before."

Have you ever been in love with someone? To be enraptured, captivated, enchanted and mesmerized by their entire being so much that this person is all you can think about, dream about, hope to spend time with and make plans for your future with.

Is this what Timothy meant that the Apostle Paul was experiencing for God? I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s hard to envision, but perhaps it was true. And I know that if it were true, Paul wouldn’t be the only one. I know that for many who entered the religious orders of the medieval ancient Roman Catholic church, the concept of being married to the church and to God was normal and accepted.

But these are foreign concepts for me, I’m married to my wife. Yet, I do love God. For me, to love God with all my heart is to simply experience a grateful, thankful heart because of Christ’s sacrifice in the world and on the Cross for me, and to feel as though that experience is not just a feeling, but a force, a power that draws me up out of my seat for discipleship to God and for good. To love God with my heart is to feel and experience a natural emotion and motivation that swells me with gratitude and love because of who God is and what God has done.

That’s loving God with all your heart. Its connected to the real person of God and to the feelings of love and thanksgiving for God’s grace.

The law teaches us, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul." In Hebrew thought, the soul is the breath of life, the part of us that is the breathing part. One day, goes the story in Genesis, God scooped up some mud by the river bank, formed it into a human figure, and breathed into its nostrils. The statue became a being. The elements became a person. The breath of God blew alive a human soul.

Back in the fourth century, some Christian monks visualized this insight in a memorable way. They talked about prayer as a breathing exercise. "As you inhale," they taught, "thank God for the gifts which are given you for today. As you exhale, tell God how you are going to use those gifts."

For example, breathe in and say, "I thank you, God, for daily bread." Breathe out and say, "God, let me find strength in daily bread to do the work you have given me." Breathe in and pray, "I thank you, Lord, for the forgiveness of my sins." Breathe out and pray, "I ask you, Lord, to make me a forgiving person." Breathe in, breathe out. The early monks said, "Let every breath be a prayer."

There was once a guy who could sometimes be a difficult houseguest. He had an annoying habit. From the moment he opened his eyes in the morning, this man would sing church hymns at the top of his lungs.

It has been said of some singers that what they may lack in tone quality, they compensate in volume, and for this man, this saying was certainly true.

One time this guy stayed in the home of a friend. He woke the entire household at 6:45 one Saturday morning by blasting out, "All Glory Laud and Honor to thee Redeemer King...." Over a bleary-eyed cup of coffee, his host put their friendship on the line by asking, "Why do you belt out a hymn when you wake up?" And he replied, "Haven't you heard it said, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul?'"

Not only did this man feel connected to the real person of God and love God in his heart, he poured his breath, his life’s energy, his guts, his soul, his entire being into the expression of that love. It wasn’t just a warm feeling in his heart that made him feel distracted and motivated him to act nice, but it lent power and boldness, brashness and energy to the expression and experience of loving God.

In the days of the circuit riders a minister was out riding one afternoon and came upon a man out working in his field.

"Its fine for you", the man replied, "All you have to do is ride around on that horse thinking about God all day long, while I have to sweat here in this field and then walk home afterward. I don't think its right you should have things so easy while I have to work so hard."

"On the contrary", the minister answered, "thinking about God is one of the most difficult things you can do. And to prove it, I'll give you this horse if you can think about God and nothing else for one minute."

"You're on,” said the man and immediately he sat down in silence. Thirty seconds later he looked up at the minister, and said, "Does that include the saddle?"[3]

Loving God with all your mind is a matter of focus, a matter of priorities, purpose and plans. How often do you think about what God wants for your life? How often do you think about what Jesus taught? How much has your thinking about God changed, expanded, and grown since you first heard of God, since your earliest days in Sunday School? Is God still that old grey bearded nude guy from the picture on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Or is there more grace, more doubt, more depth, more dimension, more expanse to your sense of who God is? If there is, then you’ve probably devoted some of your mind’s energy to God lately. You’ve loved God with your grey matter and this in turn has given you the opportunity to know God more deeply and also to love God more with heart and with your soul.

A rabbi was asked, "Which act of charity is higher--giving out of obligation or giving from the heart?"

All in the class were inclined to respond that giving from the heart had something more in it, but they knew the rabbi was going to say just the opposite, because in spiritual teaching nothing is logical. They were not disappointed.

"Giving from the heart is a wonderful thing," the rabbi said, "It is a very high act and should never be demeaned. But there is something much more important that happens when somebody gives charity out of obligation.

"Consider who is doing the giving. When somebody gives from the heart, there is a clear sense of oneself doing something; in other words, heartfelt charity always involves ego gratification.

"However, when we give out of obligation, when we give at a moment that every part of us is yelling NO! because of one reason or another--perhaps the beneficiary is disgusting, or it is too much money, or any of thousands of reasons we use to avoid giving charity--then we are confronting our own egos, and giving nonetheless. Why? Because we are supposed to. And what this means is that it is not us doing the giving, rather we are vehicles through which God gives...[4]

It takes a lot of energy and strength to love God with heart and sould and mind, but to love God with all your strength means to love past the easy natural, loveable points. It means to challenge yourself out past where you want to be and accept to love God, despite the doubts you have. To love God despite that you don’t quite understand everything about God. To be obedient to God and to love all of God, even the parts you thing are too hard to love because they may be threatening to you.

In the end, loving, whether its God or any other person, is a decision which takes commitment and strength. To love God with all your strength means to love God with heart, with soul, with mind but also to decide and to commit to go even farther and love God when God doesn’t seem so loveable.

So how do you love God? Do you do it with just your mind? Or just your heart? Have you ever had periods in your life where you’ve been able to sustain loving God fully with just two of these four types of loving?

No? Well, neither have I. Frankly I don’t think its possible. Like so much Jesus teaches, these teachings, to love God with heart soul, mind and strength are all but impossible for mortal humans to be able to fulfill completely. Yet that is what makes them so important to honor. Because in honoring such lofty goals, two things happen.

First, we reach out beyond what is easy, to devote ourselves to reaching out beyond just what comes naturally, effortlessly and to attempt to transcend ourselves, our world and our sinful, flawed existence. To commit to loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength is to commit to do something extra, something above and beyond the call of what uncaring, unimaginative, mundane human life deems normal and necessary. It means an honest attempt to reach out and to be Christlike and Godly in our lives and in our calling.

Second, to commit to loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength is to set us up for failure…

Failure? This is a good thing? This is a positive reason for being obedient to the Old Testament’s and Jesus teaching for love? Yes failure, for in personal failure in such lofty goals comes God’s grace. For whatever we are unable to complete, God will complete for us. By simply committing ourselves to such Godly yet arduous goals, we invite God into our lives, to help us complete what we are unable to do for ourselves. This is the definition of what God’s grace does for us.

So comit to Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength and when you fail in good faith, God will show you grace and then you will really begin to soar.

[1] Sermon outline and story from in “eSermons.com illustrations@ministersmail.com: Sermons for Nov 2, 2003” e-mail to Ara Heghinian, Oct. 31, 2003

[2] “Love of Christ.” G. Curtis Jones, Illustrations For Preaching And Teaching, Nashville: Broadman, 1986, p. 225. from in “eSermons.com illustrations@ministersmail.com: Illustrations for Nov 2, 2003” e-mail to Ara Heghinian, Oct. 31, 2003

[3] “Full Devotion To God.” Richard Fairchild, http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermon.html Sermon: Not Far From The Kingdom of God, 1997 from “eSermons.com illustrations@ministersmail.com: Illustrations for Nov 2, 2003” e-mail to Ara Heghinian, Oct. 31, 2003

[4] “Loving out of Obligation” David A. Cooper, Entering the Sacred Mountain: A Mystical Odyssey, Bell Tower, 1994. from “eSermons.com illustrations@ministersmail.com: Illustrations for Nov 2, 2003” e-mail to Ara Heghinian, Oct. 31, 2003

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