The Law of Love Written on Our Hearts

March 21, 2021 
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-33[1]

Peace to this house.

I saw a bumper sticker once that read: “When Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies,’ I’m pretty sure he meant ‘Don’t kill them.’”

You’re familiar, I’m sure with the greatest commandment. Jesus was asked by a lawyer:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, ”’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”[2]

Jesus didn’t make this up, though he makes it clear for us.  This command to love your neighbor can be found in the Torah, the books of the law.  In Leviticus we read: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”[3]  Rabbi Hillel, a Jewish leader from the first century BCE, summed up Jewish law like this: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”[4]

The Prophet Jeremiah told of a new covenant that God would make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. The law of God, the law of love, was to be put within them, written on their hearts. As their spiritual descendants, we too have the law of God written on our hearts. The Lord is our God; we are God’s people. Our iniquity and sins are forgiven. Our commandment is to live in community with others guided by love.

Okay, that’s easy enough.  My neighbors are fellow Israelites, right?  I can love them; they’re just like me!  As long as I can hate my enemies, I’m fine.  That’s in the scriptures too, isn’t it?  In Psalm 139 it says: “Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.”[5] Okay, hold on there. Let’s think about that.

Jesus doesn’t leave it there.  Loving your neighbor as yourself is not enough.  Jesus gives an even greater challenge: “Love your enemies.”[6]  This too comes from the Torah: “The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”[7]  Luke records the familiar parable of the “Good Samaritan,” in which Jesus tells us that the enemies of the Israelites, the aliens that resided with them – the Samaritans – are precisely the ones that should count as neighbors.

Whoa!  Love my neighbor and my enemy?  That’s a lot to ask.  I mean, really, my enemies?  Those guys are out to get me!  I suppose if we were stuck in an elevator, I could tolerate them, but love them?  That’s fine for Jesus, he’s like, God, or the Son of God, or something.  He can do anything.  I’m just an average person.

Well, who was Jesus?  We believe that Jesus was the Son of God, or God in a body. John refers to him as the Son of Man. Jesus was also a human being like the rest of us.  He lived, breathed, ate, slept, had friends, laughed, cried, sang, prayed, and learned the scriptures.  Only a few people knew about him before he was baptized and began to preach and teach.  In a way, he was a typical person with an above average understanding of God.  He understood, in a way that most of us struggle with, how much God loves us, and what that means.  And he tried to show us that we too are children of God, with the law of God’s love written on our hearts.

Now, as we near the end, with the palms of Jerusalem waving in the air and the shadow of Golgotha on the horizon, Jesus begins to talk about the kind of death he was to die.  “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.”[8]  The crucifixion, the violent murder of the child of God, the embodiment of the law of love, would bring judgement against this world.  That which would be driven out, the ruler of this world, is the power of domination, violence, and death.

One way of understanding what happened in the death of Jesus is to see the phrase “this world” not as synonymous with the earth as created by God, but rather as the System that seeks to control human life and hold us captive to the ways of death.  This world, this System rules using domination, violence, and death to destroy the children of God who should be ruled by love.  It is this System which is exposed by the cross for what it is, a System opposed to the ways of God.[9]

We are all caught up in the System.  We might see it in consumerism, an economy that depends upon the continual making, selling, buying, using, and disposing of things to mark the value of life.  My value in the System depends on how much work I contribute and how much product I consume.  In this sense, a human life can be reduced to hours of labor and net worth.

We are also caught up in domination, where the value of a person is determined by where they fall in the hierarchy of winner and losers, insiders and outsiders.  Our place in society is locked in by categories of race, sex, age, nationality, and affluence.  We are each placed in a box, and the boxes are stacked in order of value.  God help you if you don’t fit neatly into your box, or try to move to a different one.

The most pernicious trap in this System is violence.  Our society seems to believe that the way to deal with threats is to violently eliminate them.  Those who threaten what we believe to be the “natural order of things” must be seen as enemies to be dehumanized and destroyed.  There can be no compromise, no negotiating with the other side.  Stand your ground or those others will get you.  We’ve watched violence be used in protest and against protesters.  And we’ve seen violence against Asian-Americans increase as they are blamed for the coronavirus.

The System of violence, domination, consumerism, and other ways of diminishing the humanity of others, is the System which crucified Jesus.  On his journey through Galilee and Judea, and most especially through Jerusalem toward the cross, Jesus refused to comply with the demands of the System.  Jesus resisted the devaluing of people, offering healing and hope to all who asked it of him.  Jesus broke the rules that separated people, welcoming women and men, rich and poor, lepers and tax collectors to join him.  Jesus rejected the violence of the Romans, responding to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”[10]

Jesus on the cross exposes this world, this System, for what it is: not divine but evil, opposed to God, leading not to life, but to death.  The execution of love, peace, and faith exposes the ruler of this world and drives out the System of death.  Once we have seen the System for what it is, we can be free from captivity, free to live as whole, valued children of God, able to live in peace with one another.

This is “the kind of death he was to die,”[11] death within the System in order to break the System and set us all free from its dominion.  We are free to be valued simply as children of God, and not for our productivity.  We are free to love and be loved just as we are, not based on which category we’re enclosed in.  We are free to be at peace with one another, and not seek to destroy the other.  We are free to live with the law of love written on our hearts, to resist the System that destroys life.  As Christ is raised up, we are drawn to eternal life, and the honor of God.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Matthew 22:36-39.

[3] Leviticus 19:18.

[4] Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a.

[5] Psalm 139:21-22.

[6] Matthew 5:44.

[7] Leviticus 19:34.

[8] John 12:31.

[9] This interpretation of kosmos, “the world,” as “the System” is used by Charles L. Campbell in his “Homiletical Perspective on John 12:20-33” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 141 ff.

[10] John 18:36, italics mine.

[11] John 12:33.