JC Is Lord, Everything Else Is BS
Scripture Reading: Matt. 22:34-46
Do you know what an elevator pitch is? If you’re not familiar with the term, an elevator pitch is a way of making a connection with someone by getting across a key point in a limited amount of time, about the time it takes to ride in an elevator. If I had to make an elevator pitch for the gospel, I think it would be: “Jesus is Lord, everything else is BS,” although I probably wouldn’t use “BS.” I edited myself for church.
I wish that I could lay claim to coming up with the line, but it belongs to Stanley Hauerwas, an idiosyncratic and somewhat curmudgeonly theologian who is now eighty-three years old and still writing and speaking. If you go to his website (stanleyhauerwas.org), you’ll see the line in bold blue type emblazoned across the top of the page as the lead headline.
To be clear, “Jesus is Lord, and everything else is BS” is not the gospel in and of itself, but if I was challenged to reduce the gospel to one simple phrase, it would do. Jesus faces a similar challenge from a Pharisee in today’s reading. The Pharisee asks him, in effect, what is the essence of the law? Tell us, Jesus, how would you summarize the law in a single command?
As has been the case for the past few weeks of readings, Jesus is still in the temple in Jerusalem. There his presence has drawn the scrutiny of various sects within Judaism. First he was confronted by the chief priests and elders of the temple who questioned the source of his authority. Second, some Pharisees and Herodians—two groups with sharply different ideologies—questioned him about paying taxes to Rome. After that, in a passage that we did not read and that comes just before today’s passage, another sect known as the Sadducees asked Jesus a patently ridiculous question about the resurrection, which they did not believe in.
Now in today’s reading the Pharisees, having heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, return to give it another try. But before delving into the passage in detail, it’s worth pausing to reflect on why Jesus is drawing so much opposition from various different corners of Judaism, even uniting groups that viewed each other warily, if not as rivals. What is it about Jesus that these groups find so threatening?
Most of these groups—the Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests, and elders—are the religious establishment. We tend to think of them as the bad guys of the Gospel, but they are the defenders of orthodoxy. They interpret scripture, lead worship, and offer sacrifices in the temple. In their minds, they’re the ones wearing the white hats. They’re protecting and defending the faith from this Jesus of Nazareth, this troublesome outsider who looks to be leading a populist movement against their authority.
To put it in Presbyterian terms, they’re the functional equivalent of the presbytery—the pastors and elders who lead and govern our churches. I say that not to poke fun at our local presbytery (of which I’m a member) but to highlight just how radical and threatening Jesus was perceived to be. It would be as if Jesus walked into a presbytery meeting today and all the pastors and elders swarmed around him buzzing with their pointed questions that they hoped would poke holes in his credibility.
The Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, contains 613 commands that Jews were expected to follow.
It is with just such intent that one of the Pharisees—an expert in the law—asks Jesus a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” The Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, contains 613 commands that Jews were expected to follow. Aside from asking Jesus to choose one command among 613, it’s not exactly clear what the test is. Perhaps whichever one Jesus chooses the Pharisee might find a way to criticize it. Like the politician who faces criticism for whatever stance he takes on an issue.
“Do you support building a nuclear power plant in your district?”
“Yes, I do.”
“So you’re willing to to risk nuclear meltdown and endanger the lives of all your constituents!” Let me ask again, do you support building a nuclear power plant in your district?”
“No, I don’t.”
“So you don’t care about creating jobs or reducing our dependence on fossil fuels!”
That’s the sort of attack that the Pharisee may be preparing to direct at Jesus, but Jesus, per usual, doesn’t take the bait. In answering the Pharisee, Jesus, as he so often does, refuses to answer within the framework of his questioner. Just as he refused to give a simple “yes” or “no” answer to those who asked him whether it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, so he now refuses to choose one among hundreds of commands.
Instead, quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy, one of the five books of the Law, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is a foundational verse for Jews. The words are spoken by Moses as he prepares the people to cross into the promised land. It’s a final reminder of what God has done for them by making them his people, and what they as God’s people are called to do. As God has loved them by bringing them out of slavery in Egypt, so they are to love God with their whole being.
But rather than leave it at that, Jesus then adds another command from the Book of Leviticus. That’s right, Leviticus—everyone’s favorite book of the Bible, with all those rules and regulations governing priests in the temple. But amidst all those priestly instructions and laws regarding ritual purity, Jesus plucks this gem of a command: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus connects the love of God with the love of neighbor. As he tells it, the two commands are inseparable. You cannot truly love God without also loving your neighbor. For God also loves our neighbor, and to love God is to love what God loves.
This is what it’s all about. This is God’s plan for your life. It’s not about self-actualization and becoming your best self or living your best life. It’s not about having a successful career and retiring with a sufficient nest egg. It’s not even about raising a family and leaving a legacy for your descendants.
There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. As far as goals and ambitions go, they’re all perfectly fine, but they’re not what God is first and foremost concerned with. What God wants is your love—your full-bodied love of heart, soul, and mind. What God wants is for you to love your neighbor, not in some vague “live and let live” sense, but to love your neighbor as your very self.
Wasn’t it helpful of Jesus to distill 613 commands down to just those two? Six-hundred thirteen commands sounds overwhelming, but two…that should be doable. Alright then. So, there you have it: love God, love neighbor. That is the great commandment, the very essence of the gospel.
Wait! Did I say “gospel”? I meant to say “law”…the very essence of the law. But that’s the thing, even as Christians it’s easy for us to conflate the law with the gospel. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself” is not the gospel…it’s the law. And while Jesus may have simplified the law and distilled it down to its essence, if anything, he only heightened the moral demands of the law. For when it comes to the law, less is more. The fewer the number of commands, the more impossible to perfectly obey.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself” is not the gospel…it’s the law.
That’s why Jesus is not like Moses. He didn’t come to give us the law. Nor is he like the prophets. He didn’t come to admonish us for disregarding and violating the law. As Jesus himself says in chapter 5 of this Gospel, he came to fulfill the law. He came to fulfill the law for our sakes because whether 613 or two, we could not keep the commands of the law no matter how hard we tried. And the way that Jesus fulfills the law is through the cross. You see, we didn’t need a new Moses or a new Elijah; we needed a Messiah, a savior.
This connection between the law and the Messiah is one that Jesus makes in the second half of today’s reading. After he’s answered the question posed to him by the Pharisees, Jesus poses his own question. “What do you think of the Messiah?” he asks. “Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they answer.
Jesus responds with another question. “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord?” He then quotes a verse from the Psalms, which have traditionally been attributed to David, in which David refers to the coming Messiah as his lord:
“The Lord [God] said to my Lord [the Messiah],
‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’”
Jesus’s argument is that if the Messiah is the son of David, then why does David call him “Lord”? Why does David, the father, subordinate himself to his son? This isn’t a rhetorical game that Jesus is playing, although he does use his rhetorical skill to silence his critics. He’s doing something more.
By responding to a question about the law with his own question about the Messiah, Jesus is making a connection but also drawing a distinction between the two. Whereas the law is about what we do for God (loving God and neighbor), the role of the Messiah is to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Because we are sinners, the law cannot save; it can only condemn. But Jesus, as the crucified Messiah, fully and faithfully loves God and neighbor, and therefore fulfills the law.
A crucified Messiah. The very concept would have been any oxymoron. It still is. We like our Messiahs victorious and glorious.
A crucified Messiah. The very concept would have been an oxymoron. It still is. We like our Messiahs victorious and glorious. We want a Messiah who defeats our enemies not one who dies for them, not one who would humble himself and become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. But in Jesus’s faithfulness for us unto death,
God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Everything else is…well…you know.