Which Is Important?

Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28-34

When we think of Jesus, all sorts of phrases and ideas probably pass by us in our minds. We think of the little baby laid in a manger who was born to Mary and Joseph. We think of the one who died upon a cross. We get a picture of a man with brown, shoulder length hair, a short beard and mustache, and bottomless eyes. And there are probably a few Bible verses that wander through our mind when we think about Jesus. John 3:16 is probably one of them. And, another one, John 14:6 -- "I am the way, the truth, and the life," is probably just as meaningful to many of us. And perhaps some of the teachings of Jesus are important to us: especially the Golden Rule about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the teaching in today's gospel lesson about loving your neighbor as yourself.

As I was studying our gospel lesson for today, I was reading in one of those 15 volume commentaries on the Bible. It was one of those commentaries that gives you more information about the Bible passage you are reading than you could possibly use in a hundred sermons. And as I was reading, I came upon an interesting word: Halachah (Halaka ).

Now, I usually don't teach Hebrew to my congregations, but this particular word was very important to the Jewish people of Jesus' day, and continues to be a very important term in modern Judaism, as well.

Halachah literally means "the way." For the scribes of Jesus' day, the Halachah was the authoritative Jewish way of life as expressed in moral law and ritual precept. It embraced the whole body of Jewish teaching, legislation, and practices which came out of the interpretation and reinterpretation of the laws of the Bible through an unbroken succession of generations of Jewish teachers (called scribes) from Ezra onward. It also included adaptations or modifications from time to time to reflect changed conditions of life -- economic, domestic, political, social -- by spiritual leaders. Although legalistic in content, the Halachah was designed to bring all human occupations into relation with the service of God.

Thus, as a result, there were hundreds of laws and rules and regulations that the scribes taught so that people could try to live lives that would be pleasing to God. People believed that if they followed the Halachah, they would be righteous and be judged worthy of an eternal place with the righteous in heaven.

But, in Jesus' day, just as there is today, there is a real problem in thinking that you can live a perfect life. No matter how hard the people tried, there was always something that went wrong, there was always some mistake that was being made, some rule being broken, somebody getting hurt. And, in spite of the fact that the guild of the scribes was very powerful and influential, and in spite of the fact that many people tried to do what they taught, the Halachah failed to bring people any closer to God. The Halachah, the way, as taught by the scribes, failed to insure salvation.

How many of us are caught up in following a similar kind of Halachah? When asked what you have to do for salvation, many Christians reply, first of all, that they have to believe in God and in Jesus. Well, that's good. And, in fact, its a given. But, then most Christians begin to list other things, like going to church, and being good to people, and not doing anything bad, not beating your wife, or your husband, or your kids, not having too many bad habits, not being selfish, not breaking the Ten Commandments. In fact, if we were to make a list this morning of the things that all of us sitting here think we have to do in order to have salvation we probably wouldn't have enough time or paper to write them all down. And, upon taking a good look at such a list, we would probably conclude that all of us were probably doomed to some other fate than eternal life. In fact, there might be a few of us who would even give up and ask, "What's the use in trying?"

This is, in fact, what many of the people of Jesus' day were beginning to ask. No matter how hard they tried, the scribes were always able to point out how they had failed to live up to God's expectations. And this was exceedingly frustrating to many.

Have you ever wanted to do a good job but had someone waiting in the wings for you to make some kind of a mistake? It's really frustrating. No doubt, you've all had the experience of having someone just sitting there making a list of all the things you do wrong and then showing it to you at your weakest moment. This is what the scribes did to the people of Jesus' time. And Jesus, himself, became angry about it and totally rejected this thing called Halachah. In fact, in speaking about the Scribes, he said, "Woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them .... Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."

So, many of Jesus' teachings challenged and even rejected the way of the Scribes. And this is why Jesus loudly and boldly pro claimed, "I am the Halachah (I am the Way), and the Truth and the Life."

Thus, Jesus' message was extremely liberating to those who would listen. For those who followed Jesus there was suddenly something far better than perfection. It was faith in Jesus Christ.

So, for Jesus, all the many laws that the scribes taught and thought were so important, were condensed down to just a few simple principles. And that summary of principles is given to us in our scripture lesson for today: "Believe that the Lord is one, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

Following these simple principles isn't always easy. But, with Christ as our "great high priest," as the writer of today's lesson from Hebrews, proclaims, salvation is closer than we think.

And our efforts to put God first in our lives, to love God with every ounce of our being, and to love and accept our neighbors, is simply our creative response to Christ's acceptance of us. Amen.