It was the week before he would be killed and things were heating up. Over the course of several days, in a series of encounters, an array of religious leaders had come at him with confrontational questions: to test Jesus and, they hoped, to trip him up.

This time it is the Pharisees. They send their best front man, a scholar, who is also a lawyer, an expert in Torah. He poses a question that is, on the face of it, innocent enough. What is the greatest commandment?

This question is no idle matter in 1st century Judaism. Jesus and his contemporaries counted no less than 613 commandments in the Hebrew Bible: 365 of them negative (thou shalt not) and 248 positive (thou shalt).

The lawyer who poses the question is, therefore, engaging in a familiar ethical and theological inquiry. Among these hundreds of laws, what is the most important? How can hundreds of commandments be boiled down to their essence? What nugget of truth lies at their core?

If you are having trouble imagining the passionate interest this sort of debate inspired in the first century … if you are trying to imagine what was at stake for those who tested and questioned Jesus, you might think about the current confirmation hearings for the openings on the US Supreme Court. What John Roberts has recently endured, what Harriet Miers is facing … this is the very sort of high stakes, intensely charged, Q & A to which Jesus is being subjected.

Just as the US Supreme Court confirmation hearings focus on the most contested areas of our common life; just as the very process of the hearings exposes partisan positions and too often serves more to divide rather than to unite; just as those engaged in the debates are often more inclined to grandstand than to embark upon an earnest quest for wisdom and truth … that is what is happening with these examinations of Jesus.

Hoping to trip him up, the lawyer asks: Which law is the greatest? What is the one thing, above all others that matters most in the eyes of God?

As we will shortly welcome 24 new members to Old South Church, that’s an excellent question to ponder. There is a lot about being a Christian and a member of Old South: but what’s the one thing? What does it boil down to?

Is it the Ten Commandments or is it the Sermon on the Mount? Is it our statement on the Inclusive Dimensions of God’s Grace or is it following the Congregational Way? What is the one thing? Is it the music program or is it the Christian education we provide our children? Is it the pastoral care we extend to members and friends or is it this congregation’s emphasis on social justice? Is it our belief in the priesthood of all believers (by which we mean the ministry that each of us has) or is it the fact that every member of Old South has a right and responsibility to vote at Congregational meetings? What is it that is essential that we cannot do without?

To begin to answer those questions we need to have some consensus about what sort of an entity we are. Perhaps we can get at that question by circling around it … by saying what we are not.

For instance, the church is not a social club. It is not a place or occasion in which people primarily gather to enjoy each other’s company, to engage in activities together … although we do those things and fellowship is profoundly important to us.

The church is not primarily an educational institution … although we do educate, and indeed we have been known to found educational institutions: our forebears founded Harvard and Yale, and the first public schools in this nation.

Nor is it appropriate to think of the church as another charitable institution, although we have founded charitable institutions. Old South founded or co-founded numbers of charitable institutions including City Mission Society and Sea Farer’s Friend. Old South hosted the very first organizing meeting of the YMCA in this country.

If not those, then what is the church? The Christian church is the body of Christ with a calling unlike that of any other organization.

Last Sunday at the Leaders Lunch, Nick Carter, president of Andover Newton Theological School, said that it is helpful to think of the church as an event, rather than an institution.

Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees about what is the most important, the one thing, is to the world of religious inquiry the sort of moment Albert Einstein gave to science when he first wrote E = mc2. It is Newton’s eureka moment, and Copernicus’s sun and earth moment, and Darwin’s Origin of the Species. It is the reason we are still talking about Jesus today and why the Bible is still on the top of the bestseller list and why Jesus is the head of the church. It is what makes us different from other institutions.

Love God with all your heart and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it. That’s the one thing and everything else is negotiable. The virgin birth? Negotiable! The Creation story? Negotiable! The resurrection from the dead, the atonement of sins, even heaven: all of that, all of the rest, is negotiable. But this is not: love God with all your heart and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. There we have it.

At the end of Paul’s marvelous hymn in first Corinthians, he names the three biggies for Christians: faith, hope and love … but then says without equivocation, and in concert with Jesus, the greatest of these is love.

Why love? Well, the Gentiles in Germany had faith when they put six million Jews to death. They had plenty of faith. But they had no love. The Christian crusaders who sought to stamp out the Muslims, the so-called infidels, had faith. Oh, they had lots of faith. But they had no love.

 So, it boils down to love. In ancient Greek there were different words for love, just as there are in modern English. When Jesus says that the one thing that matters most is love, you will not be surprised to hear that it is not the word for erotic love that he uses; nor is it the word for familial affection. The word he uses has a definition that goes something like this: the whole turning of the whole self in devotion and reverence. It is the lure of a flower drawn toward the sun.

Or, let’s try another metaphor. Mariners find their bearings by the sky. They will not find their bearings by the lights of other ships, or by flickering shore lights. Those in the other ships and those on shore, are creatures like we ourselves. They have no final wisdom to guide us. The church then, is a people gathered in the name of Christ … the church is the body of Christ, for whom God is our sky: God is our stars and moon by night; our sun by day.

Christians nurture this relationship to God, this bond with God, by worshipping regularly: coming to places such as this to sing and pray and read and listen … to get our bearings. God knows it is chaotic and stormy out there in the world. It is very easy to loose one’s way. Weekly, then, we agree to re-gather here to reorient ourselves, to get our bearings, to find our compass.

In a few moments 24 people, young and old, from all kinds of backgrounds, will stand before this congregation and proclaim that they are committed to this one thing, above all things: to loving God with all their heart and mind and strength and their neighbors as themselves. They will make no more difficult or challenging promise in all their lives.

In the meeting they attended to prepare for this moment, they heard about the Protestant Reformation and the United Church of Christ. They heard about the storied history of Old South Church. But they also heard something about the expectations of the Christian life: that it is a way of life. It is as demanding and challenging and exciting a way of life as any have every tried to live.

It is a way of life marked by three practices: the giving of our time, of out talent and of our means.  We give of our time in worshipping together – in prayer and praise. In so doing we express and practice our love for God.

We give of our talents in volunteering, in helping and caring, in doing unto others. In so doing we express and practice our love of neighbor.

And we give of our means: joyfully sharing a meaningful portion of our material wealth with God for the work of the church. In so doing, we express and practice our gratitude to God and our trust in God. These are the marks of the Christian life.

Like the Pharisees – and like those engaged in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings – we will continue to debate matters consequence, and God, help us, matters of inconsequence. We will continue to argue about and to discern what is most important to our common life.

But so that we do not loose our way; to prevent our passions, our positions and our egos from threatening to sink the ship of the church, we have is this guiding compass, to which we must always return: love God with all your heart and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
 

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