Sermon Nov 3 2024 Mark 12 Greatest Commandment        Rev. Betsy Hogan
So Halloween is over for another year. My annual reminder, when the tiny and medium-sized people come to my door, and says their “trick or treats” and ready themselves for my awe and delight at all their magnificent costumes…

That I am well and truly disconnected from apparently virtually ALL manifestations of popular culture. Because I have NO IDEA what or who most of them are meant to be. Zero. And I can ask them, and they can tell me, and I’ll still have no idea what that is. Because apparently I am so old that I’m totally out of touch, and there it is.

The best I can hope for is that at some point the recognizable-to-me characters from, say, Sesame Street – or something equally archaic and SO last century -- will randomly achieve some sort of retro-cool and return. And I’ll at least have a HOPE of being able to guess correctly, when the tricker or treaters turn up at my door.

There was in fact one Sesame Street character I found myself thinking about this week, though not one very likely to ever feature in anyone’s Halloween costumes…. 

And that was Don Music. Does anybody remember Don Music? He was a muppet, of course, with crazy wild hair – and his schtick on Sesame Street was sitting at his piano and being a great composer.

But a great composer in an almost continual state of terrible writer’s block. He’d play, and stop, and play, and stop, and then he’s collapse dramatically on the piano keys with a great thunderous CRASH, and howl. “Oh, I’ll NEVAH get it, NEVAH”. Every single time.

A few notes, one mistake, and it was just TRAGEDY. To me and my little sister, Don Music was hilarious. So silly. “Oh, I’ll NEVAH get it, NEVAH”. We loved Don Music.

Then I grew up, and had a couple children, and it turned out Don Music lived in my house. Purely and perfectly embodied in my small intense driven and perfectionist Tom. Who’d actually literally pretty much turn into Don Music, whenever he sat down at the piano. Whether to practice or for his lesson. And who’d actually metaphorically pretty much turn into Don Music whenever he hit any OTHER temporary frustration on his path of intensity toward perfection.

Our little Tom Music, as it were, he was going to take some work. Or else he’d be metaphorically crashing his head down on the piano keys -- “Oh, I’ll NEVAH get it” – for the rest of his dear little life.

It’s actually one parenting thing I do feel proud of. Because it WAS a lot of work, and it had to be consistent, and it was very much not fun, but I DID put in the time, and it worked. By the time he was ten or so, Tom Music was a thing of the past. And I never really noticed, until this week, how it was pretty much exactly what Jesus did with the scribe in the passage that Paul read for us just now from the gospel of Mark.

Not that the scribe seems in any way like a scribe version of Don Music, collapsing in despair every time he meets a hiccup – but what Jesus says to him at the end of this passage, it’s striking, it’s meaningful. 

And it really felt familiar. Because what does he say to the scribe? “You’re not far. You’re not far from the kindom of God.” And then the unspoken: “just try again.”

I wouldn’t even want to imagine how many times I said those words. In our house the unspoken DID get spoken, out loud, every time, “you’re not far, just try again”. That desperate necessary effort to lay down for our intense little Tom Music the simple reality that some things take work, and they only come slowly, and that’s how it is. 

And maybe the scribe didn’t need to hear them out loud, maybe he already knew them, and I really hope he did. I really hope that when Jesus said to him “You’re not far, you’re not far from the kindom of God” what he heard wasn’t ‘you’ve failed’ but instead ‘try again’. Because that’s literally what Jesus embodies. It’s literally the gospel. It’s literally the shape of the promise of our faith. Not ‘you’ve failed’ but ‘try again’. Some things take work, and they only come slowly, and that’s how it is.

And I think there IS a “you’re not far” here that’s worth a “try again”, and not just for the scribe and the great crowds who were there on that day, but for us too, now.

Because this is not new content. It’s not new content for us, it’s not new content for the disciples, and it’s certainly not new content for this scribe.

This identifying of ‘which are the greatest commandments’ – love God and love our neighbour as ourself – it’s been the actual heart of what we now call Judaism since basically the very beginning. Since the ancient time of the Israelites, since the ancient time of Moses. 

Jesus’ words here are lifted almost completely and with no change not accountable-for by the linguistic difference between ancient Hebrew and the Aramaic and Greek of Newer Testament times, from the book of Deuteronomy in the Older Testament. From the law of Moses. From the heart of Jewish faithfulness.

So it’s not new content. Every person in that crowd would’ve known those words by heart. The scribe as a religious leader, of course would’ve known those words by heart. 

And it’s not even new content that “these are more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices”, as the scribe puts it. All the religious trappings, all the rules and regulations, all the rites and rituals. Because the Hebrew prophets have made that just as clear, over and over in the REST of the Older Testament.

Most famously, the prophet Micah – who speaks to the people with God’s voice and says “I hate, I despise your rituals, when they’re empty and disconnected from love of God and neighbour – because the only thing I want, the only thing I require, is that you do justice, and love kindness, and travel humbly with God. The only thing I require is love God and love your neighbour – “

…and it’s not even new content but only contemporaneous content to end that phrase with the words of the Jewish Rabbi Hillel who was teaching at the very same time as Jesus, “and everything else is commentary”.

So, which are the greatest commandments? The answer is known. There’s literally nothing new here, for that scribe or that crowd. Or frankly for us.

So then why is he only “not far”, that scribe, from the kindom of God? Is it really just a matter of ‘love God and love your neighbour’ is always kind of an incremental journey, and some things take work and they only come slowly so try again? And try again? And try again?

It could be. It’s certainly very true that even our best record of loving our neighbour as ourself is sort of perpetually awash in pretty non-biblical caveats. We’ve insisted so often as a human family, for example, on deflecting our understanding of the word for “love” that Jesus uses in this context – which is agape, serving love, sacrificial love – in favour of philia, feelings of warmth and affection and kindliness, that we’ve often lost his point altogether.

Which instead is quite simply wanting for, acting for, ensuring for our neighbour all the essentials of well-being we want for, act for, and ensure for ourselves: food, shelter, safety, peace. 

Because THAT’S what agape loving our neighbour as ourselves means. We GET to want for ourselves the well-being that God wants for us. The call is to want it, work for it, ensure it, just as much for the other guy too. Which is certainly a call to service and it might be a call to sacrifice, when what we have is more than enough.

What it defies completely, though, is any handwringing we might engage in when our neighbour is manifestly un-loveable, in the sense of making us feel warm and kind toward them. Because, totally irrelevant! Do we treat them as worthy of food, shelter, safety, peace? Then we’re all good. That’s agape loving them. It defies completely our handwringing if we can’t muster up philia love.  

And even more importantly, frankly, what it equally utterly defies is the very modern take that ‘we can’t love our neighbour until we truly love ourselves’. 

Because Jesus fully completely and God fully completely want us to know ourselves to be beloved and loveable and the beautiful flawed pieces of creation that we are – but that has absolutely NOTHING to do with agape “love your neighbour as yourself”. 

Because assuming that we want and work to ensure for ourselves food, shelter, safety, peace, like we believe we’re worth food, shelter, safety, peace – then we do truly agape love ourselves already. It’s arguable, in fact, that if we actually have the time and energy to wonder if we truly agape love ourselves, then we most definitely do.

And we’re being called to love our neighbour in exactly that same way. Wanting and working for and ensuring for the other guy, THEIR food, shelter, safety, peace, just as much as our own.

So there’s that. Which, it’s straight-forward, and it has nothing to do with having to actively muster up warmth and affection – but still, I’m probably not the only one here who very much needs Jesus gently encouraging me with a bit of a “try again”. Loving our neighbour as ourselves is probably always kind of a work in progress.

But what if there’s another provocative possibility. Not instead of any of those reasons why Jesus says to the scribe, to us, “you’re not far, try again” – but alongside. 

Because the scribe, he’s a faithful man. He’s committed, he’s a doer, he wants to know from Jesus what’s right, what do I do, how do I be. When the scribe hears a commandment, he hears it always as the subject of its imperative. And honestly, so do we.

But what if… we’re also meant to hear it as its object? What if… part of what’s keeping the scribe at “you’re not far, try again” is that he only thinks of agape love of neighbour as something he’s called to GIVE. Rather than also something he’s called… to RECEIVE. 

Because sure, it’s infinitely more pleasing to think of ourselves as the helper who gives help, rather than the needer who needs it. But neighbour is a relational noun: that’s not just chance. ‘Who is my neighbour’ can’t exist without ‘whose neighbour am I’. 

I don’t think, in the context of an election campaign, that there’s any commandment that exercises its moral imperative on us more forcefully as Christians than the simple ‘secure the other’s well-being’ of ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. 

But I think it’s just possible, as Jesus gazes upon the scribe who’s only ever thought of the service and sacrifice and benevolence of ‘love your neighbour’ as the subject, as the doer, as the giver –

That his ‘you’re not far’ is about the extra necessary stretch it takes – the grace, the humility – to break down what’s essentially arrogance, however well-intentioned, to equally understand ourselves and see ourselves as the receiver. The one who needs the help. Neighbour is a relational noun. And that matters.

By the end of every Sesame Street sketch he was ever in, Don Music had a new composition that worked. Sure because he tried again, but always and invariably because he realized he needed help. 

He had to be someone’s neighbour, and accept it. And he did. Will we EVAH get it, EVAH??? “You’re not far,” Jesus says. “Just try again.” Amen.