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Brothers and sisters, my sermon for this Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost is based on the Gospel reading for today: Mark 12:28-37. God’s blessings, Pastor Tom Steers Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto This morning in our Gospel reading we see contrasted the patience and the love of Jesus versus the hatred of human beings who pride themselves on obeying the law of God. And we have our Lord summarize the law. In the 12th Chapter of Mark Christ is confronted, again and again, by the religious authorities of the time who were solely obsessed with the law. Mark recounts when some Pharisees tried to trick Christ into saying people shouldn’t pay taxes to Cesar. The Pharisees don’t succeed. Next the Sadducees, another religious group who felt threatened by Jesus, take their turn. They try to entrap Christ by asking a question about which of seven dead brothers will get to marry their former wife in heaven. The Sadducees don’t succeed either. And so, a religious official who’s heard all this take place asks a question –- ‘of all the laws, which is the most important?’ The question is meant to be the trickiest so far. If Christ points to one commandment and omits another, He is open to the criticism of diminishing the other Commandments of God. If He says they’re all equally important the scribe might well have said I’m glad you agree with us. For the Pharisees had literally made a career of making up many additional laws while interpreting the ones they found in the Bible. And how many commandments are in the Bible? Well, we know the Ten. But in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, there are 613 commandments which involve the ritual and ceremonial life of the ancient Israelites. Not content with this, the Pharisees went to work and over a considerable period of time came up with laws that today we shake our head at. Laws like not swatting a mosquito that was biting you on the Sabbath day because that was considered work. And we all remember the crippled man who was healed by Jesus on the Sabbath and who was then criticized by a Pharisee when he got up and carried the mat he’d been lying on. Carrying the mat was considered ‘work.’ So, when the Scribe puts this question about which law is the greatest to Jesus many ears probably perked up. Which of the “thou shalt nots” would Christ point to? But Jesus, God in human flesh, turns human logic and certainly human jealousy and hatefulness on its head. Because instead of a “you shalt not” Christ comes up with the two most important laws which say: you shall. And the word that follows “you shall” in both instances is, “love.” So here we go. “Number one: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind, and with all your strength. Number two: Love your neighbour as yourself.” There we have it. Done. When you take all the Law and boil it down, Christ says this is what we’re left with—love God, love your neighbour as yourself. How many more commandments do we need? Sinful, selfish human nature automatically puts the ‘self’ as the rightful object of love at the expense of our relationship with God and others. That’s the problem. As we often confess, “We’ve sinned against you by what we’ve done and by what we’ve left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.” All those things are true, for all of us. And they were true on the day Christ had this conversation with the questioning Scribe. Why? Our broken human nature. The truth is without God, without Christ in our life, without the Holy Spirit, we really can’t love at all. The Pharisees prided themselves on having all the right answers. But somewhere along the line, pride got in the way. The point of our Gospel lesson today, is that it’s not only about having the right answers, but also about being right with God and others. About being justified, before our Heavenly Father. About faith in our Saviour Jesus, who kept the law perfectly in our place. And this faith itself is gift. The Apostle Paul told us this by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God . . . .” Christ didn’t come to abolish the Law. He told us this. He came to fulfill it for us because we couldn’t. The law is not the final word. The Gospel is. That doesn’t mean the Ten Commandments don’t apply. Or that they’re suggestions. The Law is a curb on evil in society, most importantly it’s a mirror that shows us our sins, and it’s a guide that shows God’s perfect will for our lives. But it is not a means of self-salvation. Christ alone is our Saviour. And when we forget that we become like the Pharisees — so sure of being righteous that we miss the whole point. The Gospel, the Good News of Jesus, isn’t about making ourselves righteous, it’s about being made right with God through Christ. It’s about being loved by God even though we remain sinners in this life. And then in gratitude, loving Him and His other children, the other forgiven sinners around us. Christ is saying in this passage from Mark, that if our focus is on appearing to obey the law while not loving God and others, while lacking faith in Him as Redeemer, you’re not even trying to obey the law. You’re a Pharisee. The scribe Christ had been speaking with knew the First Commandment was to love the Lord God with all your heart, soul and mind. But he didn’t know that this couldn’t be done without the Holy Spirit. And he did not know Jesus Christ, who bestows the Spirit, even though Jesus, true God and true man, was standing right in front of him. He didn’t know Jesus as His Messiah. He didn’t know Jesus is the only one who kept God’s law perfectly in our place and therefore was the perfect sacrifice for all our sins. The answer Christ gave that day silenced His critics. Because the whole of the law is summed up in it. All the Commandments of the law would be kept if one loved God with their whole heart and loved others as themselves. We can see how true this is. Would people steal, or commit adultery, or murder if they loved others. Would the problems in our community, in some homes exist if people really loved one another and could forgive one another as God has forgiven us in Christ. If people loved one another, they wouldn’t hate. The type of love God has offered us is pure, unconditional, and sacrificial. He loved us so much He gave His only beloved Son so we could live eternally with Him. We are justified through faith God works within us through His Word and Sacraments of Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. This message is the only hope and remedy for a troubled soul and a broken, sinful humanity. As Christians, in our going out and coming in, this message of love from the Father rings loud and true. His love and the work of the Holy Spirit allows us to have faith, to love Him, to love others. In history, great empires come and go. Great leaders rise and fall. Wealth, power, and fame are proven to be temporary. There is no permanency in this world. The only power that is proven to be permanent is the power of God’s love through Christ that is yours, today and forever. May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Amen.