“THE HANGING GOD IS LOVE”
Saint Matthew 22. 34-46
18th Sunday after Trinity: 15 October Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
Martha was busy and no doubt making noise as she scuttled about her home in Bethany “doing stuff.” Mary sat silent at the feet of The Christ—ears open to hear and hold onto The Word of The Lord.
Hell will be noisy beyond description. The constant barrage of words is the cacophony of chaos, the devil’s drone of eternal doom. “Be still and know that I am The Lord.” [Ps. 46.10a]
Sinners talk too much. You talk too much. When God speaks you should listen—mark, learn, and inwardly digest—not dialogue, debate, or “asking Him a question tempting Him.”
There were (and are) hypocrites that Jesus silenced with His clear words about mercy and forgiveness. There were (and are) ceremonial charlatans—who didn’t believe in much beyond their own wealth and status—that Jesus silenced with God’s revelation of blood sacrifice made perfect by contrition and repentance. And then there’s the lover of The Law, the “Poindexter of the Pentateuch,” the Torah “know-it-all” who loves to quote Moses; who loves to show everyone how much he/she is obeying the Decalogue so that the applause may begin and the medal of honor distributed.
“Master, which is the great commandment in The Law” is not a bad or wrong question asked sincerely from the heart of a bruised and bleeding Saint who craves Christ’s love and release. It’s a smarmy, self-justifying, arrogant ejaculation of ego when asked by any “lawyer” (then or now) when thrown out to trap Jesus.
“How long does the term-paper have to be” says the lazy student to the teacher. “How many dishes do I have to wash; how much of the yard do I have to mow; how many more calls do I have to make” and the list of minimal, split-the-difference, lowest common denominator work requirements echoes out from your sinful nature.
Christ properly summarizes the Ten Commandments for you by reducing the two tables to two short-hand requirements. Commandments 1-3 are simply perfect love toward God—emphasis on perfect. Commandments 4-10 are simply perfect love toward your neighbor—emphasis on both perfect and everyone is your neighbor.
The Lawyer, just like most Americans who think that they are “Christians,” (well, most humans as well) just like all “old Adams,” think they’re doing a pretty decent job obeying God’s rules and regulations. You all haven’t murdered anybody recently, stolen from Wal-Mart, had sexual intercourse with your co-worker’s spouse, or missed coming to Church…so you’re pretty good, right? No. The Commandments are not about “doing things” or refraining from “doing things” to make God happy. There’s no curve or 51% victory. God speaks you listen. God says “fear, love, and trust” in Me above all “things.” You don’t. You can’t. The two “great Laws” shine forth and resonate in both great testaments of God’s love: The “old” Hebrew Scriptures and the “new” Greek Scriptures. God’s will for you a written in the blood of the Prophets and the blood of the Apostles.
The perfect man is no longer Adam. The perfect man is not you. The damned man apart from God is both Adam and his heirs. The perfect and ever-living man is Christ Jesus the God/Man. The essence of His perfection is the essence of God: sacrificial love which never looks to itself or within, but always moves without to serve and give. Jesus does the Law. Jesus keeps, obeys, DOES both Tables—all 10 dictates…perfectly. Jesus obeys through His own sweat, tears, muscle movement, activity, time, effort, “reins moving,” “heart aching,” Grace in Giving “for you.” Given and shed for you!
And lest this truth of God become too “familiar” to your jaded and easily bored “changing appetites,” Jesus’ own daily application of the wages of breaking the Law, not keeping God’s love in your souls that it might always flow out to Him and your neighbor, smacks you in the “kisser” with “decay and death in all around you see” Not in the words of Dr. Phil “so how’s that working for you…keeping the Law perfectly so that you can live by it?” But in the words of Church Dr. St. Paul “O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” [Rom. 7. 24-25a]
The two great laws, those two stone tablets are in fact two great, infinitely heavy, destructive, and razor-sharp spikes of granite which pierced your Savior’s hands…affixing Him to two great pieces of wood set in cross-ways, that He might love you. That He might bleed and die for you, that He might hang in sacrifice to you, that His obedience in action would wash over you in Water and Blood. You love God and your neighbor perfectly when Jesus loves you perfectly. Come to the Feast of His love and receive Love in action!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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