Loving God With All Our Heart: A Question of Desire
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
November 30, 1997
Memory Verse: "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." (Mark 12:30)
Today's Texts: Deuteronomy 13:1-4, Psalm 25:1-10, and Luke 21:25-36
Prayer: O God, we love you some and want to love you more. Speak to us your wonderful words of life. Fill our hearts with your Spirit and our lives with love. Amen.
Some of you may remember that last Advent I did a sermon series entitled Four Kinds of Love. It was an attempt to get us in the Christmas Spirit not with decorations and shopping but with meditations and giving. The emphasis was on our love for others and God's love for us. I used four Greek words for love, Eros, Philia, Storge, and Agape, to illustrate different dimensions of love as reflected in scripture.
Upon reviewing that series in preparation for this one, I note that I did not say much about our love for God. There is, I suppose, a certain appropriateness to such neglect. For one thing, our love for God always takes a back seat to God's love for us. John's pastoral epistle could not have put it more succinctly: "We love, because God first loved us." (1 John 4:19). Our love for God is a response to the One who Creates, Redeems, and Sustains life in general, and our lives in particular.
For another thing, our love for others is the source of untold confusion and pain -- never more so than at Christmas time. Our relationships with other people -- partners and spouses, parents and children, sisters and brothers, family and friends, acquaintances and neighbors, colleagues and associates, supervisors and subordinates, representatives and constituents, champions and detractors -- require all the help they can get. What better time than Christmas to try to make those relationships more loving, honest, and complete. Once again, John's pastoral epistle puts the matter quite plainly: "Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:11).
This is certainly the normal use of the word love: it is something we feel and do for other people. To the writing of books on love, both fiction and nonfiction, there is no end. We can never seem to get enough insight, inspiration, and instruction. Human relationships are, after all, the stuff of life itself. In them we spend the bulk of our days, from birth to death, working out the dynamics of mutuality and respect. There is no escaping our responsibility to love other people, a responsibility Jesus called the second greatest of them all.
Having covered this ground last year during the season of Advent, we turn our attention this year to what Jesus called the greatest responsibility of them all: loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It came fairly late in Jesus' ministry. He had already distinguished himself as a teacher and healer. He had already upset the religious establishment of his day. He had already commissioned his disciples and made his final approach to Jerusalem. Then Jesus took a question from the crowd: "What is the most important commandment of all?" "What has been your guiding light and overarching vision?" "What do you stand for, in 10 words or less?"
Jesus never missed a beat. He came up with a show-stopping, debate-winning 6-second sound bite: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." "Love God with all your passion, prayer, intelligence, and energy." (Eugene Peterson, The Message). "Understand this, put it into practice, and you won't be far from the reign of God itself." (Mark 12:30, 34).
No one dared to ask Jesus another question. He had answered well. Everything flows from this one central tenet. That was, indeed, why he came into the world: to show people how to love. When asked to break it down, after years of demonstration, he placed the spiritual first and the social second. He placed our love for God at the hub of the wheel.
But how do we love God, whom we have not seen, when we so often fail to love others, who we do see? That is the question of the hour, and of the next several hours in worship. Advent is not about getting ready for Christmas. Our culture has plenty of ideas about that, replete with a $165 billion shopping extravaganza. Advent is about getting ready for Christ. Our faith has long promised the return of this crucified Messiah, replete with signs and wonders, in the transformation of history as we know it.
If and when that happens, Jesus will be looking for love. Those who've been distracted with other pursuits may find themselves ill-prepared. But those who've attended to God's wisdom and word, those who've cultivated the things of the Spirit, those who've awakened themselves to love, will come through that terrible day standing on their feet.
This is my hope for us over the next four weeks: that we might grow in our love for God. In his Confessions, a Christian classic from the fifth century, St. Augustine begins with those familiar words, "O Lord, our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." Augustine documents at considerable length his pursuit of learning, fame, sensuality, and friendships -- but none of them provided authentic satisfaction. It wasn't until he loved God, above everyone and everything else, that he found rest for his soul.
So we begin our Advent journey as spiritual pilgrims desiring to strengthen our relationship with God. What Jesus called "the greatest commandment of them all" is what the Jewish tradition calls the Shema. Repeated morning and night, as well as in moments of gravest crisis and at death's door, the Shema has been called "Judaism's greatest contribution" to the religious thought of the world. It appears throughout the book of Deuteronomy, and was no doubt part of the scroll which launched the reformation under King Josiah.
"The Lord is our God, the Lord alone, whom you shall love with all your heart." It is no accident that every variation of this commandment in scripture, which occurs a total of ten times between the Old and New Testaments, puts "heart" at the beginning of the list. The rest of the words change from passage to passage as to their order and number. But loving God with all our heart is where it always begins. If we don't desire to love God, more than anyone and anything else, then we're never going to do it all. Loving God with all our heart is a question of desire.
How badly do you want to do it? Anyone who's ever cared for children over an extended period time knows that desire can make all the difference in the world. Too sick to go to school does not necessarily mean too sick to go over to a friend's house to play. When the desire is there, everything else begins to pale in comparison. They manage to muster the strength, time, and resources that seemed to be lacking only moments before.
Adults are no different. The things we desire are the things which get our attention. Desire love and we will find meaning and joy. You will recognize this as the theme of the great Christmas classics. Take Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. After being visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, Scrooge suddenly realizes that he wanted to live in order to set things right. There were people he could care about and help. There were moments he could cherish and dreams he could fulfill. There was a reason for living.
"Good Spirit," Scrooge said as he fell to the ground before the stern but kindly ghost of the future, "...Assure me that I may yet change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life! I honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!" (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol).
And with that, it was so. He had awakened the desire to live passionately, completely, and with reckless abandon. He had found the heart to do what he had never done before. Laughing and crying his way through to the end of the book, Scrooge suddenly found "that everything could give him pleasure." He had "never dreamed that life could produce so much happiness."
So too with George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. Faced with the prospect of bankruptcy, scandal, and jail, George decides to commit suicide. At the last moment, in the twinkling of an eye, George comes to his senses. His guardian angel enables him to see the extraordinary dimensions of his very ordinary life. Family and friends, people and projects, problems and adversaries all take on a luminous quality of being. When George finally remembers his wife and children, who have been desperately looking and praying for him throughout the evening, he breaks down and cries out, "I want live. I want to live. I want to live!"
And live he does. Suddenly the prospect of bankruptcy, scandal, and jail become inconsequential before the gift of life itself. He goes home rejoicing over every obstacle which had earlier brought him to the brink of despair. He desires nothing more than to be reunited with his family and friends -- who resolve the problem that had once seemed so insurmountable.
What made the difference in these two men? Nothing had changed about the world around them. In fact, time stood still as they each had their spiritual experiences. What had changed was their attitude about the world around them. They suddenly found themselves filled with the desire and the passion to live.
"Passion," it has been said, "is the very fact of God in us." To love God, we must begin by wanting to love God above everyone and everything else in the world. We must be as animated as Ebenezer Scrooge and as thankful as George Bailey. If we don't want it that badly, it will never happen at all. There is too much to distract us. Too much to keep us busy. Too much to discourage us. These are all, as Deuteronomy says, tests of the Spirit. Loving God is neither an easy nor a natural thing to do.
Think about the difficulties involved with loving even one other person fully and completely. Here at least we have a commonality of experience, dimension, and proportion. It is even more difficult to love God fully and completely, since our experiences, dimensions, and proportions are so totally different. We are perishable; God is imperishable. We are limited, God is unlimited. We are changeable, God is unchangeable. The beauty, truth, and justice of God is, in one sense, beyond us.
But in another sense, the sense made manifest in Jesus Christ, the beauty, truth, and justice of God is available to all. Jesus said, "Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened. Ask, and it shall be given." He was not talking about the things of this world, but about the things of God.
This is the promise in scripture that reverberates to the very pews in which we now sit: "If you search after God with all your heart, you will find God. Your love will not go unrequited. God will make a habitation with you, God will pitch a tent with you, God will refresh you, God will fill you with every good thing."
I don't know what it will take to awaken this heartfelt desire within you, but I do know that little significant progress can be made in loving God apart from a strong desire. Maybe it will be the Christmas season. Maybe it will be a sunset or a mountaintop. Maybe it will be a sermon or an anthem. Maybe it will be a restlessness in your soul. Whatever it takes, I hope you will find an intense passion for God.
Towards the end of his life, Percy Whitlock composed an anthem for the translation of a 17th century Latin hymn. Whitlock was an English organist, composer, and broadcaster who had lived through World War II only to die prematurely at the age of 43. We may never know what drew him to the text, but the anthem is perhaps his finest work.
Jesus, grant me this I pray, Ever in thy heart to stay;
Let me evermore abide hidden in thy wounded side.
If the evil one prepare, or the world, a tempting snare,
I am safe when I abide in thy heart and wounded side.
Death will come one day to me; Jesus, cast me not from thee;
Dying, let me still abide in thy heart and wounded side.
Can you hear the longing for God? Can you hear the desire to push aside the distractions of the world? Can you feel the passion for drawing close to God, both in this world and the next? When our choir sings this as our offertory anthem, I hope you will be filled with desire. I hope you will be inspired to love God. I hope you will be blessed with life. Amen.
Loving God With All Our Soul: A Question of Commitment
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
December 7, 1997
Memory Verse: "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." (Mark 12:30)
Today's Texts: Deuteronomy 13:1-4, Psalm 25:1-10, and Luke 21:25-36
Prayer: O God, we thank you for your compassion and communion. You have sought us out and brought us close to love. Teach us how to love you with all our soul. Amen.
Last week we talked about the importance of desire -- heartfelt, passionate desire -- for developing a loving relationship with God. Today we start talking about how to turn that desire into reality.
The story has been told, allegedly true, about a small Oklahoma town at the start of the Great Depression. This town was home to a high school which had produced a series of terrible football teams over a span of many years. They usually lost the important games and were invariably clobbered by their arch rivals from a nearby community. Understandably, the students and their parents began to get depressed and dispirited by the drubbing their team was given every Friday night. Going to a football game became a painful ordeal and a standing joke, not unlike my years at Northwestern University.
Finally, a wealthy oil producer decided to take matters into his own hands. He asked to speak to the team in the locker room after yet another devastating defeat. What followed was one of the most dramatic football speeches of all times. The businessman proceeded to offer a brand new Ford to every boy on the team and to each coach if they would simply defeat their bitter rivals in the next game.
Knute Rockne couldn't have said it better. The team went crazy with sheer delight. They howled and cheered and slapped each other on their padded behinds. For seven days, the boys ate, drank and breathed football. At night they dreamed about touchdowns and rumble seats. The entire school caught the spirit of ecstasy, and a holiday fever pervaded the campus. Each player could visualize himself behind the wheel of a gorgeous coupe, with eight gorgeous girls hanging all over him.
Finally, the big night arrived and the team assembled in the locker room. Excitement was at an unprecedented high. The coach made several inane comments and the boys hurried out to face the enemy. They assembled on the sidelines, put their hands together and shouted a simultaneous "Rah!" They ran onto the field and were demolished, 38 to 0.
The team's desire to win, exuberant and passionate though it was, did not translate into a single point on the scoreboard. Seven days of hurrah and whoop-de-do simply couldn't compensate for the players' lack of discipline, conditioning, practice, study, coaching, drill, experience and character.
So too with our love for God. Although loving God begins with desire, and will never happen without desire, desire alone is not sufficient to get us where we want to go. Desire needs to be followed by discipline, conditioning, practice, study, coaching, drill, experience and character if we ever hope to turn our love for God into a vibrant and living relationship.
This is one way to interpret the inclusion of "soul" on the laundry list of how we should love God in what Jesus called the greatest commandment of them all. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If heart has to do with feelings, mind with thoughts, and strength with bodies then soul has to do with all of the above. The soul is not a separate part of who we are; it is the parts taken as a whole. It is the relational sea in which we live and breathe. It is the coherent and constructive statement we make with our lives. It is the fulcrum upon which everything else balances.
Loving God with all our soul means that we organize our lives around our passion for God. It means that we put our time, talent, and treasure where our heart is. It means that we actively engage in spiritual disciplines that remind us of who we are and of who we hope to become. To desire a relationship with God is not enough. We must take action upon that desire. We must allow that desire to bear fruit in our everyday lives.
This is no different than any other human endeavor. We decide what we want, and then we apply effort to achieve what we want. The larger the project, the more effort we apply and the longer it takes to accomplish. No one is surprised to learn that it takes 40 years to build a retirement, 20 years to raise a child, 8 years to become a doctor, or 5 years to renovate this grand old edifice. So too with loving God. It takes a lifetime of practice and commitment if we hope to translate our heartfelt desire into palpable reality.
But somehow, when it comes to God we seem surprised to learn that the same rules apply. We want God, if we believe in God at all, to be at our beck and call. Without much discipline, conditioning, practice, study, coaching, drill, experience or character we expect immediate gratification of our desire to love and be loved by God. It is, perhaps, a symptom of our culture -- which doesn't like to work or wait for much of anything. We would rather try our luck for a large windfall than put our hand to the plow of incremental growth.
This is not, however, how life works. The reign of God, Jesus said, is like a grain of wheat. It is planted, germinates, takes root, and grows until harvest time. Little by little it develops, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. (Mark 4:26-29). One reason for opposing (and refusing to participate) in legalized gambling and state lotteries is the way they undermine this natural way of things. They promise to take us straight from desire to fulfillment, without delay, effort, commitment, or setbacks.
Ancient wisdom and common sense tell us that it's not that easy. When Deuteronomy urges us to love God with all our soul, it surrounds the command with a string of active corollaries as if to illustrate the depth of commitment it requires: fear the Lord, walk in all God's ways, love God, serve God, keep the commandments, submit to God's will, execute justice, love strangers and aliens, hold fast, praise God's name for the great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. (Deuteronomy 10:12-21).
Now we're starting to put some flesh on the bones of what it might mean to love God with all our soul, with our entire being. These are things we must practice, each and every day. When John the Baptist came as the herald of Christ, proclaiming the salvation of all flesh, he told people to straighten out their crooked ways in no uncertain terms: share with those in need, treat people fairly, find contentment in what you make. Don't think that your spiritual pedigree will save you. Descendants of Abraham -- the church of Washington Gladden -- none of this means a thing if you don't put into practice the teachings of our faith.
So what are those teachings about how to love God with all our soul? What can we do to practice the presence of God once we decide that this is, in fact, our heart's desire?
It all starts with prayer. There is no more time-honored tradition than taking the time to talk and listen to God on a daily basis. Prayer is, in fact, how Eugene Peterson translates the command to love God with all our soul. "So love the Lord God," Peterson writes, "with all your prayer." Pour your heart out to God, each and every day. Don't just wait for a crisis or opportunity to come along which is outside your control. Instead, communicate regularly and consistently with God.
I know how easy it is to forget to pray. There are times when I forget to do it myself. But as a rule, prayer has become a daily part of my life. Asking guidance for wisdom and understanding. Sitting quietly with God at the start and end of the day. Singing to God in the shower. Saying grace, either silently or out loud, before eating. Writing out what God is saying. Praying with people, and for people, who have needs or ask for help. Reading the newspaper and identifying particular situations for concern or celebration.
Prayer is like a shroud which brings soulfulness to our ordinary lives. If we throw the shroud over our day, it can make everything an extraordinary demonstration of God's blessing and love. If we forget to throw the shroud over our day, we can quickly find ourselves in the valley of dry bones. Prayer is what brings spiritual meaning to life.
Ironically, making the effort to pray may be the most difficult effort we'll ever make, since it amounts to taking time away from other "more productive" things. Sitting in silence. Talking to ourselves. Writing down our glimmers of faith, hope, and love. Stopping to kneel at the private altar of devotion. These are not exactly the things that turn the wheels of industry or make for jazzy entertainment. But they are exactly what we need to be doing if we ever hope to love God with all our soul.
Worship is another activity which appears at first glance to be a distraction from the business of life. Witness the growing encroachments of our culture on Sunday morning; from athletic events to shopping malls there is increasing competition for the time-honored tradition of starting out the week by gathering with family and friends to remember God, give thanks, and sing. How many of you view this time as inviolable, or at least as a strong commitment that stands above all other commitments on Sunday morning?
The scriptures tell us that Jesus was in the habit of going to worship on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16), and so should it be for us. It is part of worshiping God with all our soul. Centering ourselves in the spiritual truths of our tradition. Singing the songs of faith. Taking time to be holy.
Never underestimate the power of this habit, and never let it fall by the wayside. I tell our new members that the most difficult time in developing their relationship with our church, or any church, will be the first six months after they join. They don't know many people, and they are often not in the habit of going to church on Sunday morning. For six months, I tell them, you will have force yourself to be here Sunday after Sunday. It will take discipline, commitment, and conscious intention.
But slowly, as time goes on, the habit of worship will begin to take root. It will become second nature. You will look forward to seeing the people that you know and to taking this time with God. It will become something that you look for even when you're out of town. It will become a defining part of your identity as a Christian.
Finally, there is the matter of study. Whether it be the bible or other literature, whether it be privately or in small groups, there is no way to love God with all our soul if we never do any reading or reflection. We simply do not know enough based upon our experience alone. Someone has said that what separates human beings from other animals is that human beings have the ability to learn from the mistakes of others. But if we never take the time to study what other people have experienced and understood, if we never take the time read, listen, and watch the work of others, then how can we learn? How else can one generation stand on the shoulders of the next?
This too is undermined by contemporary culture, which glamorizes everything young, new, and different. Music written more than five years ago is viewed, by some, as outdated. The classics are given little treatment in school. The discoveries of ages past are relegated to the scrap pile rather than rejuvenated by fresh attention and applied zeal. Hence old libraries are waning while new bookstores are waxing. We want the latest prophecy and perspectives.
How do we love God with all our soul? We apply ourselves to prayer, worship, and study. Please don't think of this as original, nor as something that I practice to my satisfaction. Neither would be true. These three simple disciplines, with all their permutations and nuances, are classic avenues which faithful people have used throughout the ages to draw themselves closer to God. How you pray, where you worship, what you study -- these things will vary based upon your temperament, training, and tradition. But that you pray, that you worship, and that you study -- frequently and regularly -- cannot be avoided by anyone with a serious heart for God.
It does indeed take more than desire. Without discipline, conditioning, practice, study, coaching, drill, experience and character we will lose the game of life every time. Without the commitment of love we will be nothing more than noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. But when we put our faith into action, when we commit ourselves to prayer, worship, and study, we will be ready to hear God's voice when it calls and to see God's advent when it comes.
The words to this morning's offertory anthem were anonymously written in the 18th century as a folk hymn and were set to music in this century by Elizabeth Poston. The tree of life my soul hath seen, Laden with fruit and always green; The trees of nature fruitless be Compared with Christ the apple tree. We do indeed thrive when we eat the fruit of heaven and rest our souls in God. Amen.
Loving God With All Our Mind: A Question of Remembering
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
December 14, 1997
Memory Verse: "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." (Mark 12:30)
Today's Texts: Deuteronomy 30:1-6, Isaiah 12:2-6, and Luke 8:4-15
Prayer: Gracious God, you have sown your Word among us and it is growing even now. Help us to listen to your Word, to call it to mind, and to be your humble servants. Amen.
To have a loving relationship with God we need to want a loving relationship with God. It starts right there, and it's no more complicated than that. Loving God is not unlike loving others, as Jesus himself observed. (Mark 12:28-31). If we don't want to develop a loving relationship with another person, if we write that person off as somehow less than desirable, then there's little he or she can do to win our affection. But if we take an interest in someone, if we find ourselves filled with desire, there's no limit to the love that can be shared and experienced.
So, too, with God. We have to take an interest in God, we have to desire God, if we ever hope to know God fully and to see God face to face. Last week we reviewed three traditional spiritual disciplines which can help that relationship grow: daily prayer, weekly worship, and the study of spiritual resources including the bible and other devotional materials. Neglect these habits, and the growth of our relationship with God will be stunted. Practice these habits, and that relationship will grow into a beautiful and aromatic garden.
This morning we turn our attention to another spiritual discipline, prompted by the command to love God with all our mind. I'm not sure what that makes you think of, to love God with all your mind, but the Western tradition (at least since the conversion of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, in the year 312) has taken it to mean that we should try to understand God, to think things through, and to arrive at some rational answers for the mysteries of life. These answers are often codified in creeds, confessions, and books.
This enterprise, better known as theology, has become an activity reserved largely for professionals. Those professionals were first the clergy and later the scholars. The shift from the church to the academy came in the wake of the Enlightenment, which put the church in the First World under increasing pressure to make God relevant and plausible to modern, skeptical minds. Everything became subject to the empirical method, including theology. Today, most modern people have taken up psychological residence in the "show-me" state. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put the matter most succinctly when he asked, "How are we able to proclaim God in a world come of age?" (See Gutiérrez.).
But is this the question Jesus was addressing in the first century A.D.? Is this what Jesus meant when he said we should love God with all our mind? I don't think so. The Greek word for mind, which Jesus may or may not have known, was dia,noia -- which literally means "to think through." Eugene Peterson translates the word as intelligence -- offering some ammunition and solace to those who feel uncomfortable with overly emotional expressions of faith. But intelligence can produce an equally one-sided expression of faith based solely upon logic and reason. It can lead one to conclude that loving God with all our mind has to do with how smart we are and how clearly we think. But nothing could be further from the truth. Loving God with all our mind is neither about cleverness nor clarity. It is about remembering to recognize God with us.
This is a critical perspective of Third World Liberation Theology as it grows out of Central and South America. One practitioner after another has challenged the idea that speculative theology and abstract thinking, sheltered in the ivory towers of First World academia, is anything like what Jesus meant when he told people to love God with all their mind.
Gustavo Gutiérrez, a seminal Latin American theologian, has written of this repeatedly and persuasively. "Adopting the viewpoint of the theology of liberation," Gutiérrez writes, "I will say that we must begin by contemplating God and doing God's will and that only in a second step are we to think about God. By this I mean that worship of God and the doing of God's will are the necessary condition for thinking about God. Only if we start in the realm of practice will we be able to develop a discourse about God that is authentic and respe