Jesus said, “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 commandments. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
Matthew 22.37–39
Hymn “Morning glory, starlit sky”
1 Morning glory, starlit sky,
leaves in springtime, swallows’ flight,
autumn gales, tremendous seas,
sounds and scents of summer night;
2 Soaring music, towering words,
art’s perfection, scholar’s truth,
joy supreme of human love,
memory’s treasure, grace of youth;
3 Open, Lord, are these, thy gifts,
gifts of love to mind and sense;
hidden is love’s agony,
love’s endeavour, love’s expense.
4 Love that gives, gives evermore,
gives with zeal, with eager hands,
spares not, keeps not, all outpours,
ventures all, its all expends.
5 Drained is love in making full;
bound in setting others free;
poor in making many rich;
weak in giving power to be.
6 Therefore he who thee reveals,
hangs, O Father, on that Tree,
helpless; and the nails and thorns
tell of what thy love must be.
7 Thou art God, no monarch thou,
throned in easy state to reign;
thou art God, whose arms of love
aching, spent, the world sustain.
William Hubert Vanstone (1923–1999)
Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 12
Words: © Mrs Isabella Shore.
Let us pray.
Give us, O God, a vision of your glory,
that we may worship you in spirit and in truth,
and offer the praise of glad and thankful hearts;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The presiding minister says:
Holy God, we confess that we have not loved you
with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
Loving God, forgive us:
Make us holy, for you are all holiness.
Holy God, we confess that we have not loved our neighbour
as we love ourselves, and as we hope to be loved.
Loving God, forgive us:
Make us holy, for you are all holiness.
Holy God, we confess that we collude with a society
in which there is little reverence for the values of the kingdom.
Loving God, forgive us:
Make us holy, for you are all holiness.
Holy God, we confess that we are too comfortable with a world
in which the poor are exploited and the destitute starved.
Loving God, forgive us:
Make us holy, for you are all holiness.
Holy God, we confess that we have worshipped the false gods
of power and superiority, of success and status and conquest.
Loving God, forgive us:
Make us holy, for you are all holiness.
May almighty God
have mercy on us,
forgive us our sins,
and keep us in life eternal.
Amen.
Eternal God, giver of love and peace,
you call your children to live together as one family.
Give us grace to learn your ways
and to do your will,
that we may bring justice and peace to all people,
in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Gospel Reading Matthew 22.34-46
34When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ 37He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ 41Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42‘What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David.’ 43He said to them, ‘How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
44“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet’”?
45If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’ 46No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Reflection
On Friday 23rd October at 12.01am precisely Greater Manchester becomes ruled by the Tier 3 Highest Alert regulations. Yesterday I spent much of the day with some other people trying to work out whether part of the work of the community organisation which I chair could continue. In the end we decided we could carry on but working out how to apply rules and regulations can be stressful. On BBC GMR I heard people ringing in asking what they can or cannot do in this or that situation when they were trying to meet up with family or friends. The best thing seemed to be to make sure there are 6 less people, stay 2 metres away from each other and meet in the middle of public park miles from other people.
No wonder many Mancunians are feeling fed up.
But honestly we are lucky!
You see I read somewhere; someone (not me!) has worked out that strict Jews had 613 laws that they had to keep. Imagine that. Some Jewish Rabbis spent their entire lives working out precisely how people should keep these laws in any given situation.
So, when a lawyer comes to Jesus with a polite question, ‘Teacher, which is the greatest law?’ it is something important he’s asking. He is not trying to be awkward. People used to debate this. But there is one obvious answer and Jesus gives it. The first answer is: Love God with all your heart, mind, and strength. Almost all Jews accepted that this was the first and most important of the laws. This would be the answer that the lawyer would probably have expected to get.
But Jesus had not finished. The lawyer only asked for and I think expected to get one answer, but Jesus gives a second law: ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’. This was not a new law. It is in the Jewish scriptures. In the book of Leviticus. However, the thing is that it is just one amongst lots of rules. But when Jesus speaks again Jesus just promotes it to the Premier League of important laws. In football terms it is a bit like promoting Salford City in League 2 so that they are on a par with current Premier League Champions Liverpool. Jesus makes “You shall love your neighbour as yourself an umbrella law – one that covers pretty much every situation. Basically, he is saying, ‘Keep these two laws and you can’t go wrong.’
And then, we find that Jesus still has more to say. While the lawyer is working out what Jesus has just said, Jesus asks his own question. ‘What do people say about the Messiah?’
And suddenly, out of nowhere, it is the lawyer who is being tested. Jesus links the law, and the Messiah, and the lawyer can only come up with an answer – a common answer, a good answer, but Jesus shows that it is not good enough. Instead, he talks in a way suggests he knows what King David thought, he speaks as if he really understands who the Messiah is. And if that is right, the Messiah is someone totally unexpected, not a political king, someone more like – well more like – Jesus. And the lawyer does not want to think that Jesus might be the Messiah. But he is too surprised, and too anxious, and may be a bit too afraid of what Jesus is saying, to be able to answer Jesus. And from then on, we read that no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions to test him.
Questions to think about
When Jesus said love God and love your neighbour you could be forgiven for thinking that loving just means having a squishy feeling inside. But for Jesus love was not so much about feeling as intention and action.
So how are you going to do to express your love for God today?
In what practical way(s) are you going to show your love for your neighbour?
A short video to listen to and reflect on
The City Harmonic Manifesto
Hymn Beauty for Brokenness
1 Beauty for brokenness,
hope for despair,
Lord, in your suffering world
this is our prayer.
Bread for the children,
justice, joy, peace,
sunrise to sunset,
your kingdom increase!
2 Shelter for fragile lives,
cures for their ills,
work for all people,
trade for their skills;
land for the dispossessed,
rights for the weak,
voices to plead the cause
of those who can’t speak.
God of the poor,
friend of the weak,
give us compassion we pray:
melt our cold hearts,
let tears fall like rain;
come, change our love
from a spark to a flame.
3 Refuge from cruel wars,
havens from fear,
cities for sanctuary,
freedoms to share.
Peace to the killing-fields,
scorched earth to green,
Christ for the bitterness,
his cross for the pain.
4 Rest for the ravaged earth,
oceans and streams
plundered and poisoned —
our future, our dreams.
Lord, end our madness,
carelessness, greed;
make us content with
the things that we need.
Refrain
5 Lighten our darkness,
breathe on this flame
until your justice burns
brightly again;
until the nations
learn of your ways,
seek your salvation
and bring you their praise.
Refrain
Graham Kendrick (b. 1950)
Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 693
Words and Music: © 1993, Graham Kendrick / Make Way Music Ltd, PO Box 320, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. TN2 9DE UK. <www.grahamkendrick.co.uk> Used by permission.
Prayers for others
God of Love, you know that we don’t find loving easy;
it demands so much of us:
so much commitment and self-denial;
so much thought and imagination;
so much courage and faith.
God of Love: help us to be loving.
Help us to love you with all our hearts,
to make our relationship with you
the most important thing in our lives,
transforming all our other relationships.
We pray for those we love and know,
especially for . . .
God of Love: help us to be loving.
Help us to love you with all our souls,
to commit our very selves to you
in faith and trust and hope,
and to share that saving faith with others.
We pray for the mission of the church,
especially for . . .
God of Love: help us to be loving.
Help us to love you with all our minds,
to seek your way for our world,
your guidance for our lives,
your truths that can set humankind free.
We pray for the future of troubled areas in our world,
especially for . . .
God of Love: help us to be loving.
Help us to love our neighbours as ourselves,
to treat one another with respect and understanding,
as we seek to meet the deepest human needs
and work for the coming of your kingdom of love.
God of Love: help us to be loving.
In the name of Jesus, Teacher of love. Amen.
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your Name,
your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.
Hymn “O thou who camest from above”
1 O thou who camest from above
the pure celestial fire to impart,
kindle a flame of sacred love
on the mean altar of my heart!
2 There let it for thy glory burn
with inextinguishable blaze,
and trembling to its source return,
in humble prayer and fervent praise.
3 Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire
to work, and speak, and think for thee;
still let me guard the holy fire,
and still stir up thy gift in me —
4 Ready for all thy perfect will,
my acts of faith and love repeat,
till death thy endless mercies seal,
and make the sacrifice complete.
Charles Wesley (1707–1788)
Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 564 .
Blessing
The presiding minister says:
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord look on you with kindness
and give you peace. Amen.
Dismissal
The presiding minister says:
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. Amen.
