Sunday, November 3rd, 2024: "The Answer is Love"

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First United Presbyterian Church

“The Answer is Love”

Rev. Amy Morgan

November 3, 2024

Mark 12:28-34

28 One 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?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you 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.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘God is one, and besides God there is no other’; 33 and ‘to love God 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.” 34 When 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.

There is a stage many young children go through when their favorite word becomes “why.” Every instruction, from “keep your hands to yourself” to “don’t put that up your nose” is met with, “why?” Every bit of practical wisdom, from “look both ways before you cross the street,” to “brush your teeth,” gets the same response: why? 

When I was in youth ministry, and my son was a toddler, I quickly realized how similar these age groups can be. In those teenage years, the “whys” start up again. Whether they are instructed to be home by ten or put their cell phone away at the table, teens resurrect that persistent question: why?

The reason this question comes up for toddlers and teenagers is that both stages of development involve questions of authority. Toddlers suddenly have enough bodily autonomy to wonder what limitations there are to their personal authority. And teenagers have discovered that their parents are not the only authority on earth and start to wonder if there’s a different authority, including their own, that they might prefer. 

“Why” questions, authority questions, might be most noticeable in certain life stages, but they are questions that never entirely go away. Another thing I noticed when I was ministering with adolescents is how many adults in my church acted more like teenagers than the teenagers. We don’t necessarily leave our “why” questions behind as we get older. We don’t stop asking questions about authority. We push back on anything that infringes on our personal autonomy. Especially in this country, where independence, self-reliance, and personal freedoms are of paramount importance. Ideals and institutions that once held positions of authority have eroded through abuse, distrust, and hypocrisy, not to mention the proliferation of alternative authorities available to us through the internet. 

A recent poll shows that the institution Americans trust the most, the institution with the most authority in our country, is small business. Churches and organized religion are trusted half as much as local shop owners. TV news and big business are trusted half as much as churches. And congress is trusted half as much as Amazon and CNN. 

Polling data also shows that Americans don’t have much trust in each other. Almost half of our citizenry feels like people are not as reliable as they used to be and that most people can’t be trusted. 58% feel like most people would take advantage of them if given the opportunity. And 62% believe that most people just look out for themselves instead of trying to help others. 

The result of all this lack of trust, lack of consensus around what holds authority, is that we spend all our time arguing about who’s in charge and very little time doing anything constructive.  

Lest we think ourselves unique in this social pattern, the Gospel of Mark reminds us that questions of authority were at the forefront in Jesus’s time as well. 

Before the story we read from the Gospel of Mark this morning, the Jesus narrative has been consumed with questions of authority. Every authority figure in the first-century Jewish world is trotted out to dispute with Jesus. They want to know where he gets his authority from. They want to know who has authority over their finances when it comes to taxation. They want to know who has authority in the resurrection concerning marital relations. They want to know why they should listen to Jesus, why they should pay taxes, why they should marry their brother’s widow. Why, why. why!

These questions are meant to trap Jesus and make a fool of him, to undermine his authority because the crowds were spellbound by his teaching. But the religious authorities are the ones who end up looking foolish as Jesus reveals their hidden agendas and gives them enigmatic answers. 

But then this one scribe overhears the conversation between Jesus and some religious leaders. Scribes in first-century Judaism served a range of functions. They were responsible for teaching and interpreting the Law of God to the people, especially to youth and children. They also served as the community’s secretary and notary, drawing up contracts for marriage and divorce, loans and legal arbitration. 

But from Mark’s gospel, we can see that trust in the authority of scribes has clearly eroded. In chapter 12, verse 38, just four verses after the end of our reading today, Jesus says, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” These teachers of the law and community notaries have clearly taken advantage of their position and abused their authority. Jesus is not a fan of scribes. 

Which is why this exchange is so important. This one scribe listens in to Jesus’s debates with Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees – groups of religious leaders who were opposed to one another and only united in their disdain for Jesus. He likes what he hears from Jesus. He answers well. And so he puts to Jesus perhaps the most difficult question of them all: of the 613 laws in the Torah, which is the first of all, the most important?

Jesus doesn’t hesitate, but authoritatively answers him with not just the first, but also the second, most important commandments. And for the first time since Jesus set foot in Jerusalem, the scribe doesn’t try to argue with him or contradict him or trap him. In fact, he commends Jesus and repeats his answer. One teacher to another, the scribe gives Jesus an A +. Jesus responds with a grade of his own – the scribe is not far from the kingdom of God. 

And after this, there are no more questions. This theological exchange silences the “whys.” 

And I wonder: why? What is so authoritative about two teachers agreeing that the most important thing God wants us to do is love God and love our neighbor? We’ve heard this Greatest Commandment so many times that it no longer sounds profound. 

But maybe what is profound about this exchange is not just the answer to the question. Maybe the profound part is the response to the answer. Instead of asking, “why,” asking Jesus by what authority he derived this clever answer, the scribe listens and learns. He doesn’t push back on Jesus’s authority. He acknowledges and affirms his wisdom.

Imagine with me a fantasy world where you tell a toddler to stop biting her baby sister, and she says, “Stop biting my baby sister – that’s a great idea!” Or imagine telling a teenager to wear his seatbelt and he says, “Wear my seatbelt – of course!” Or Congress passes a bill with unanimous bi-partisan support. Or you ask your neighbor to reposition their new porch light so it doesn’t shine directly into your bedroom and they say, “Absolutely – I’ll go do it right now!”

This is what is happening in this story. Instead of questioning Jesus’s authority, like all his fellow religious authorities have been, this one scribe listens, learns, and discovers that he agrees. 

This doesn’t mean that the scribe is blindly following Jesus’s authority. Remember, the exchange starts with a question. But it’s an honest question, a question asked out of respect. And that respect is based on what he’s already heard from Jesus. Jesus welcomes questions. But those who ask respectful questions and listen and learn are those who draw near to God’s reign on earth. 

The questions Jesus was asked by the religious authorities, and even his own disciples, were questions about authority. But the question posed by the one scribe was not “why?” but “how?” How can I best follow the Law by making sure I’m paying attention to what is most important? 

For thousands of years, the saints of God have continued asking questions. Saint Augustine asked, “how can we draw closer to God?” and Hildegard of Bingen asked, “how is humanity related to the rest of creation?” Saint Francis asked, “how can we be instruments of peace?” and Julian of Norwich asked, “how can we endure suffering?” Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked, “how can Christians be faithful in the face of evil?” and Martin Luther King, Jr. asked, “how can we overcome injustice and oppression?”

It is those saints, and all the saints who have lived and died in the faith, who have lifted up their questions, who have looked to Jesus for answers, and who have listened and learned from him, that we honor today as we celebrate All Saints’ Day. Through prayer and study of the scriptures and exploration of the natural world and through lived experience, the saints have turned to God with their questions, filled with respect, trusting what they have already learned about Jesus. 

And the answer, again and again, is the same: Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. How do we draw closer to God? The answer is love. How is humanity related to the rest of creation? The answer is love. How can we be instruments of peace? The answer is love. How can we endure suffering? The answer is love. How can we be faithful in the face of evil? The answer is love. How can we overcome injustice and oppression? The answer is love. 

No matter how tolerant parents try to be of the why questions they are peppered with, most of us reach the point where the only reasonable answer is, “because I said so.” This doesn’t mean there isn’t a better answer. It just means the child won’t understand it. Children may not understand that their parents have knowledge and experiences and hopes and fears that undergird their authority. They may not understand that everything we tell them to do is out of our love for them. 

There’s a scene in the miniseries, “Anne With an E,” based on the Lucy Maud Montgomery’s book “Anne of Green Gables.” In this scene, Anne is arguing with her adoptive parent, Marilla, asking her why she can’t be friends with a native girl. They go back and forth, raising their voices. Finally, Anne shouts, “Why?” And Marilla shouts back, “Because I love you!”

Friends, we have a lot of “why” questions. Questions like, “Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do natural disasters cause so much destruction and suffering? Why don’t miracles happen for us and our loved ones? Why can’t we prove God exists?” 

These are questions about God’s authority, God’s power to bless and curse, to rule the wind and the waves, to intervene in life’s tragedies, to be present in the world. They are fair and honest questions. But they are questions that will always reveal our hidden agendas, our desire for power and control.  They are questions that will always get an enigmatic answer. 

Sometimes the answer is just, “because that’s the way it is.” It’s not a satisfying answer.

But we can’t understand all that undergirds God’s authority. God asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” and the Psalmist admits that “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high I cannot attain it.” 

But we can know, we can trust, that everything God tells us to do is out of love for us. And that includes the two most important commandments: Love God with your entire being and love your neighbor as yourself.  

That may not put an end to our questions. We may keep shouting at God, “why?” But God is shouting back, “because I love you.” 

The answer is love, no matter what the question is. We should keep asking questions. Jesus welcomes our questions, all of them. Who, what, when, where, why, and how. But those “how” questions will get us more satisfying answers. The how questions will get us closer to the reign of God.

How can we comfort those who are suffering? How can we help those impacted by disaster? How can we cherish the miracle that is life? How can we experience God’s presence? The answer is still love. Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. 

Friends, we don’t know what is going to happen this week, how people are going to react to the results of this election. We do know that half of our population will be disappointed, anxious, even angry. We do know that more than 90% of us won’t trust the people elected to Congress. We do know that only a third of us will trust the church to be of any help. We do know that a lot of us will probably engage in some retail therapy. 

But we don’t have to be like everyone else. Like the one scribe, we don’t have to follow the patterns of our peers. We can listen, learn, and find out where we agree. Instead of questioning the authority of government, institutions, our fellow humans, and even Jesus, we can ask how we can draw closer to the reign of God on earth. And we know the answer. Love God with our whole being, and love our neighbor as ourselves. 

May we think long and hard, may we pray intently, about what that will look like for us this week. In how we vote, and how we react to the results of this election, how are we loving God and neighbor? May we trust God, listen and learn from Jesus, and answer every question with love. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.