“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Who and what is depending upon you right now?
One of the old translations of depends is to “hang on.”
So we could ask it this say, “Who and what is hanging on you right now?”
Is it projects at work, projects at the house
Is it people in your family, people among your church and people among your friends?
Is it older people, younger people, sick people, hurting people, or just people people?
Our Lord Jesus says that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and in this commandment puts us in a world of order in which people and things depend upon us and we depend upon other people and things.
This very moment as Christians I am depending you as a hearer of the Word of God and you are depending upon me as a preacher of the Word of God.
And we are depending upon our the Creator and Preserver of sun and air and ground and water and our bodies and soul
and the bodies and souls who are giving us electricity for light and sound and temperature,
and the bodies and souls of the ones who once build these pews and this pulpit, and in so many other things that we didn’t do, and aren’t doing, but someone else did and someone else is.
Our world likes to preach independence – you depending upon you. There’s some truth to this.
People can be lazy, yes.
And we can abuse and take advantage of others.
But the world preaches independence so much that it misses completely that there really is no such thing.
We live in God’s world, not our world, and God’s world is a life of interdependence. A world of depending on Him and on each other.
Jesus says you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And in that is the summary of how we should live in interdependence upon each other.
We should be constantly be thinking about each other – you thinking about your neighbor and your neighbor thinking about you.
In another place Jesus summarizes the Law and the Prophets in this way:
12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
And if we were to follow this law perfectly, we live in marvelous community, a wonderful family, an amazing workplace and an inspiring church.
Our Lord’s laws are good and beautiful and it doesn’t take much glancing around to notice where things go off.
Honor your father and mother.
How often do we see kids mouthing off to their parents or teachers or how often do we see those in authority abuse those who are depending upon them?
You shall not murder.
How often do we see conflict and disagreements turn into fights and yelling and hitting and abuse and violence?
You shall not commit adultery.
Marriages of selfishness, resentment and abuse,
lack of marriages because of selfishness, resentment and abuse,
sex outside of the marriage bed has likely in some way hurt you or someone you love.
You shall not steal.
We’ve likely all been cheated and stolen from. We all know what it’s like for people at work to not do their job or for jobs to be stingy to those who are good and worth it.
Dependence.
If we were to live to this life of dependence upon each other and love each other according to our Lord’s law, it would be so beautiful.
I don’t want to live in a world where others to gossip about me. So I shouldn’t gossip.
I don’t want others angry at me without me knowing it and having the possibility of addressing it.
I want to live in a world where others forgive me and gently correct me and pray for me and encourage me to love Jesus,
because I have to little faith and too little hope and I am weak,
and when I depend on me I have pride or I have despair,
and I look for security and safety and hope in the wrong the places,
and I am guilty and I am hurt and I am weighed down by all that is hanging on me,
and disappointed when others leave me hanging.
So I’m going to go to church to receive healing and I want you there, too.
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?
This is not a one and done lesson.
The question was asked out of insincerity but we ask it in faith.
He is the Great Teacher and the great commandment is to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
A life of dependence.
But that’s not Jesus’ only Word for today.
That’s how Jesus teaches when He is asked a question about what we are to do in what depends upon us. But after answering that question, Jesus asks them and us a question that is supposed to get them and us to think about what is depending upon Him.
41Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
What do we think about the Christ living in a world that isn’t always so beautiful?
What do we think about the Christ as we too often let others down who were hanging on us and others leave us hanging, too.
What do we think about the Christ when we too often collapse under the weight of the people and things hanging on us or even worse, pretend they aren’t and push them away.
God be praised that Jesus does not leave us hanging today with only a word of things depending upon us and us depending up other. That would be frightening.
What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is He?
He is David’s Son and David’s Lord.
He is my God and He is my neighbor.
He both tells me what to do and hangs on a cross to forgive my sins of what I have done and left undone.
I love Jesus and so do you.
And the reason we do is because we know how much He loves us.
We know the relief that not everything depends upon us, but that everything depends upon Him.
We know that out of love for us, He became the curse we deserve by hanging on a tree.
We know that instead of leaving us hanging in a world of fear and loneliness and condemnation, He loves us with all His heart and soul and mind.
What is hanging on Him? Our sin and damnation. That’s not hanging on us.
What is depending upon Him?
Our life, our heart, our soul, our mind, our everything.
It all depends upon Him. Someone else does it.
It all depends upon Him and His love for us and He will not let us down.
He will not sin against us.
He fulfilled what we could not and in being loved by Him works in us a desire to begin to love Him back with all our heart and soul and mind.
And in that, too – we see that the ones depending on us and the ones we are depending upon need that love, too.
We don’t always live in that world of interdependent love, but we ought want to.
And we don’t always live in that faith that depends solely on our God whom everything hangs upon, but we ought want to.
But today we are strengthened to want the right things and renewed to do just that.
We don’t always live in a beautiful world, but we do always have a beautiful God, who is good and almighty is loves us, and so in faith and loving Him back, we’ll depend and hang everything upon Him.