29 Jesus answered, “The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31, NRSA
We all know that justice without love can become self-righteous and just plain mean. Jesus frequently condemned such mean self-righteousness and warned those guilty of such arrogance that they may be shocked at the “justice” they may receive from a loving and holy God. One of the great strengths of Dr. Martin Luther King, Ir. was his insistence on the priority of love in the search for justice. He knew that justice achieved without love was bitter and barren. There must be justice, but it must always be in the context of love. Justice without love is brutal and short-lived.
But love without justice can become sentimental or even a cop-out. Often in the church, when people say, “We ought to just love everybody,” what they mean is, “We should not upset or challenge anyone.” It can be a strategy for those in advantaged positions to maintain those positions while those who are taken advantage of are chided for not accepting the status quo. Throughout history, the wealthy and the powerful who benefit from an oppressive status quo promote such hypocritical talk. So, how can we move beyond this struggle between love and justice? How can we have justice without becoming self-righteous and mean? And how can we have love without becoming sentimental and preservers of a status quo that needs to radically change? This morning I want us to look in three directions for our answer.
1) Martin Buber, one of Jesus’ Jewish brothers and without doubt one of the greatest religious thinkers of the 20th century, offers a wonderful translation of our verse for today: “Love your neighbor as yourself means love your neighbor; he or she is like you.” Buber’s translation focuses on equality. We are all equal in the eyes of God. Regardless of the masks, titles, and pretenses we manufacture in our world, we are all the same before God. Whether we are kings and queens or paupers and peasants–billionaires or bag ladies–straightlaced or on skid row–gentle saint or convicted criminal, before God Almighty, we are equal. It is that fundamental equality in the heart of God which defines each and every human being on the face of this earth. Among unequals there is only condescension, not love. In a very real sense, only equals can love one another. And if love has its foundation in our equality before God, then love must seek justice, for what is justice but those acts and decisions which guarantee equality? We cannot love our neighbor without seeking justice for our neighbor, for he or she is like we are.
2) Women theologians provide our second source of help. They are sensitive to the abuse and oppression of women over the centuries. And so, they are suspicious of any definition of love which does not go beyond self-sacrifice. They know all too well that regardless of how noble such an ideal as self-sacrifice may be, it can be consciously or subconsciously misused by the powerful. Self-sacrifice is an inadequate if not inappropriate definition of love for oppressed and marginalized peoples. And so, along with the concept of self-sacrifice, women theologians place the principle of equal regard. They insist that love cannot exist in the long haul without equal regard for all people, including oneself. Love is thus the struggle for the fulfillment of all people (which is another way of saying that love is the pursuit for justice.)
3) Our third source comes from a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu as reported by George F. Regas. As the two men shared what was on their hearts, Tutu said, “George, you know I was raised in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of our church. We would have on the altar a tabernacle in which we would place the consecrated bread and wine, those elements made holy by God. And every time we would come by that tabernacle, we would genuflect. We would bow our knee in respect for God’s presence at the altar. You know, I feel like genuflecting every time a white person or Black person comes across my path. Bowing before them because they are vessels of the holy and living God.”
We don’t have to choose between love and justice. Indeed, we shall have neither love nor justice if we neglect one or the other.
Tutu said this in the midst of apartheid in South Africa–in that caldron of violence, bitterness, and hatred. Many of these white people before whom Tutu wanted to genuflect were his enemies; they sought his degradation, suffering, and death. But because Tutu saw them by his side in the heart of God and recognized them all as children of God, he could love his enemies. That, however, did not mean that Tutu was a doormat. He was courageous in his pursuit of justice for his people. He never hesitated to confront the evil principalities and powers of his day, and he always spoke truth to power and never hedged in the struggle for justice. But he also saw even his enemies as equal to himself in the eyes of God. And such equality demands both love and justice, both for them and for himself.
We don’t have to choose between love and justice. Indeed, we shall have neither love nor justice if we neglect one or the other. The key in keeping these twin sisters together is understanding that we are to love our neighbors because they are like we are; that love is defined as equal regard for ourselves and for others; and that we are all equal before the eyes of God. This kind of love can be tender and compassionate when necessary and tough and confrontational when the situation requires. This kind of love sacrifices neither truth nor mercy. It refuses to accept the status quo but recognizes that those who are so anxious to maintain the status quo are fearful children of God and precious to the Almighty.
Christian love is not sentimental, naive, or easy. As William Willimon says, “Christian love is not a stupid unwillingness to look at the world as it is. It is the recognition that, because the world is as it is, nothing less than love will do.”
Communion
Before these holy sacraments, we come to a profound understanding of our equality before God. At the foot of the cross, we all stand on level ground. There is not a one of us who dares strut before this altar.
Commission
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminds us, we will encounter two altars this week: This sacred table with its sacraments of grace and those persons who will cross our paths. They too are vessels of the holy and living God. May we neglect neither altar.
