First of All
Deuteronomy 6:1-8; Mark 12: 28-34

November 2, 2003

Saints are a pesky lot. An authentic saint almost always acts differently than we expect him or her to act. No amount of proper canonization can prevent that, because despite the official criteria saints never fit a mold. Every saint is unique and indescribable. That is the problem with saints - at least contemporary candidates for the position - we just can’t figure why a particular human being is a saint.

It isn’t occupation that qualifies one for sainthood, nor is it one’s religious denomination. I suppose there are lifestyles that disqualify one for sainthood, but God has certainly chosen some awfully weird ones on more than one occasion. One can do anything and be a saint of God.

A saint, however, knows where to begin.

All of us are going through an election and by now you must know that there is no such thing as a simple question or answer when put forth in a public forum. Every question is loaded, that is, the questioner is not really interested in the literal factual answer to the question he or she is asking. Instead, the questioner is seeking some kind of advantage or one upmanship over her victim. And the person questioned must respond carefully with the right kind of answer in the right kind of language and tone of voice. The facts are optional, especially if they are boring.

Jesus has arrived at the Temple in Jerusalem and immediately finds himself surrounded by a swarm of killer bees trying to get him to mispeak, to use current jargon. Today we would call that swarm of killer bees reporters.

It’s a nasty business, and there is very little holiness being bantied back and forth. Sticky questions had been shoved into Jesus’ face: by what authority are you doing all these things? Should you pay taxes to Caesar or not? If a woman is widowed seven times, to which husband does she belong in the resurrection? Jesus dances with words and turns the question back on his attackers. There must have been laughter directed back at his cunning accusers: to come up with such answers is the envy of every politician.

Nevertheless, this is not just a game of words. The most God-possessed rabbis are those who can use their knowledge of the Scriptures and traditions along with their rhetorical and intellectual skills to win these gymnastic debates. Jesus is portrayed in this light as the debater par excellence, the person who can wield the Torah like a sword to defeat his and God’s enemies.

One more questioner comes forward, a scribe who wants to appear to be the kind of guy who cuts through all the nonsense and brings us back to common sense - if there is such a thing as common sense. “Which commandment is the first of all?” Nothing more plain talk than that, right? The scribe wanted to see from where Jesus begins.

If Jesus begins from an idiosyncratic position, then it would be easy to discredit everything else he has said and done as warped and misguided, perhaps even immoral and destructive. Every good politician knows when he or she is being asked that question. What is the meaning of life? Why does God exist? What is the first thing God wants you to do? A simple question, merely requiring a simple answer, just the facts.

Jesus knows the Fact, a fact that had become a prayer. In Hebrew it begins with the command “Hear,” or “Shema.” “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” God is undivided and cannot be parceled out in one aspect or another. Everything is united in God. The Shema can also be rendered slightly differently “the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” There are no other real gods, as much as we secretly or openly wish that to be the case.

The Shema is a loaded statement. Short and sweet, yet saying so much. Both Deuteronomy and Jesus fill out the meaning between the lines. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

This all seems so obvious, so natural, so simple. Of course, God is the One and the Only. Of course, the first task is to love God. And of course, if it were that simple, we would not be here worshiping and searching.

Lots of people, lots of churches, have no trouble loving God with their all their heart and soul, all their emotions, assuming that the powerful waves of feeling and experience of the presence of God is the sum of all faith. Their minds are ruled out of order, however, so that religious faith becomes a separate existence apart from how one must conduct oneself in the day-to-day world. A neighbor who feels exactly like you do, and if she doesn’t, she cannot possibly be part of God’s world.

Lots of people love God with all their mind, have all the logic figured out, know all the history and all the theology of the church, but deny that feeling and emotion are part of the formula. They haven’t figured out that authentic love is always a powerful emotion that does not always listen to the mind - or maybe they have figured it out and are afraid of that emotion.

And there are lots of people in churches everywhere who love the Lord our God with all their heart and soul and mind, who know exactly what they are supposed to do, but never get around to it. They lack the strength, or perhaps the courage to live this all encompassing love of the One God in the midst of a world that really wants to break you down into little allegiances to little gods. Religious faith is once again something we do in church, but are ashamed to whisper on Monday to Saturday.

Jesus is probably not the first person to have added a second first commandment to the Shema, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” but for Jesus this is the only way to avoid getting cornered by all those little gods.

A saint-in-training was working hard at what we expect saints to do: he spent all week by himself, fasting and praying and keeping his heart and mind clear of temptations. Once a week he was expected to join all the other apprentice saints for worship and communion and then a wonderful meal, an agapŹ meal, a love feast, as John Wesley called it.

But he had a problem and went to his spiritual father to beg for advice. “The trouble is,” the younger man said, “when I come to the meal everybody wants to talk to me and detain me from returning to my room and prayer. And when I finally go back, all of their comments and ideas keep floating around in my head and I can’t pray for days. Should I keep coming to these meals or avoid them and keep my prayer pure?”

“Ah, it is a difficult business,” the old man started to answer carefully. Just then another person came up and asked him another question, and before he could answer either person, a third questioner barged in. The old man never did get back to answer the saint-in-training, so busy he was with the commotions of the love feast.

If you ever want to pray with all your heart and soul, if you want to be a saint, you best know you have to do it not on some idyllic mountain top, but in a traffic jam, in the midst of a madding crowd, among people who want something from you. The still small voice is loudest in a crowd. The voice says clearly the Lord is your God, the Lord is One, the Lord alone.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan