What’s the Most Important Thing to Do in Life?
When I was growing up, former New England Patriot running back Ron Burton came to my school in Brookline and gave a speech about life. He said the most important thing you could do in life was to run five miles every morning and if you did, it would change your life. He went on to say that if a person got up early and ran many other positive things would happen: you’ll be physically healthy and have more energy, you feel more confident, you learn the value of self-discipline, and getting up early enables you to be more productive and make the most of your day. It was an impactful talk that my friends and I still remember, although now that we’re all over 50 I don’t think any of us run every day and we debate whether running every day is good for aging joints. However, Burton’s point about good self-leadership and self-discipline is true whether one walks, runs, bikes, swims, or uses an elliptical.
May 22, 2016
Matthew 22.36-40 – What’s the Most Important Thing to Do in Life?
Pastor Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
I thought of Ron Burton’s speech this week because this is the season for commencement speeches at college and high school graduations. While those speaking engagements are daunting – be humorous, inspiring, and brief while offering wisdom that is beneficial – some of them succeed.
Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook delivered the commencement speech at the University of California, Berkeley, on May 14. She began her speech this way, “I am not here to tell you all the things I’ve learned in life. Today I will try to tell you what I learned in death. One year and 13 days ago, I lost my husband, Dave. His death was sudden and unexpected. For many months afterward, and at many times since, I was swallowed up in the deep fog of grief — what I think of as the void — an emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even to breathe. Dave’s death changed me in profound ways. I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface, and breathe again. I learned that in the face of the void — or in the face of any challenge — you can choose joy and meaning.
I’m sharing this with you in the hope that today, as you take the next step in your life, you can learn the lessons that I learned only in death. Lessons about hope, strength, and the light within us that will not be extinguished. The easy days ahead of you will be easy. It is the hard days — the times that challenge you to your very core — that will determine who you are.”
Sandberg’s speech is very good and I encourage you to read it (online right here). The content of commencement speeches varies widely, but good ones often seek to give wise advice on what’s most important in life even if many in their audience aren’t listening or paying close attention. So in honor of that tradition, I chose today to speak about What’s the Most Important Thing to Do in Life. Each of us can ponder how we would answer that question: What’s the Most Important Thing to Do in Life? If a child or grandchild approached you and asked you that question what would you say? If a person who was struggling to find purpose asked you that question what would you tell them? If you knew the days of your life were nearing the end and you wanted to pass on your answer to that question what would you say? Perhaps our answers would be shaped by our life or work. A Dentist might say, “Floss every day.” An athletic trainer might say, “Exercise regularly.” A financial advisor might say, “Understand and act on the power of compounding.” Jesus had an answer to this question and it’s found in Matthew 22.
Before I read his answer though, you should know that the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of Matthew contains several scenes of escalating conflict between Jesus and his critics from three different groups: the Sadducees, Herodians, and Pharisees. The Sadducees didn’t believe in the possibility of resurrection, the Herodians, in order to reap the benefits of being close to power, aligned themselves with the ruler Herod who was a puppet of Rome, the Pharisees advocated faithful and strict obedience to the Law of Moses. None of them were happy with Jesus. So in Matthew 22:15-22 the Pharisees and Herodians try to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes and Jesus’ answer left them amazed (preview of coming attractions, I’ll be preaching about that passage July 3). Next the Sadducees step into the ring (Matthew 22:23-33) and Jesus brilliantly responds to them saying they’re wrong “because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God,” and the crowd was “astounded at his teaching.” In this spiritual interrogation tag team wresting saga, it’s the Pharisees turn again. After they hear that Jesus has silenced the Sadducees, “they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.”
Before I reveal the question he asked I have to tell you something else. One of the things you discover when you read the Gospels is that sometimes people ask Jesus a question not because they want to know what he thinks and not because they’re looking to learn and grow and live a meaningful life of truth and love. Many of the questions posed to Jesus are intended to trap him or to force him to say something that could be used against him to discredit or harm him. Regardless of the motives behind the question, Jesus always answers truthfully, as if the interrogator is sincere because he is the Truth and he cannot and will not lie. That is the case in Matthew 22:36-40 as well. So the lawyer asks him, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” [1]
Many times when Jesus is asked a question he doesn’t give a short, concise answer. Often he responds to a question with a question of his own or with a parable, “That reminds me of a story, once there was a man….” When the lawyer in Matthew 22 asks Jesus to identify what’s most important, for once Jesus doesn’t answer the question with a question. He doesn’t tell a story or a parable. He gives a clear, straightforward answer. What’s most important? That’s easy, Jesus says, Love God and love people. There is a lot that isn’t clear, in faith and in life. But, this one thing is clear. The most important thing, the thing that Jesus shows us with his life, and flat out tells with his words, the most important thing to do in life is to love God and love people. So we don’t have to wonder, and we don’t have to argue – not about this. This one thing is clear, this one thing we know without any doubt: the most important thing in our practice of faith is to love God and love people.
The first thing Jesus says is, “You shall love the Lord your God.” The most important word in that phrase is “your.” You aren’t to love “God,” you’re to love the Lord your God. This implies a personal relationship, an intimate friendship; it’s not impersonal and distant. God is with us and for us. We love the Lord who is our God. Jesus says you’re to love the Lord your God with all that you are, with every bit of yourself. Did you hear the threefold repetition of the word “all?” We’re not to love God half-heartedly, lukewarmly, or when it suits us. We’re to love God with all our heart passionately in surrender and abandonment as we truly love anyone. We’re to love God with all our soul. The soul is what integrates all of our different parts (our will, body, heart, and mind) into a single person. Jesus says we’re to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and – what does he say next – with all our…mind.
Now here’s something interesting. Remember Jesus is answering a lawyer’s question about which commandment in the law is the greatest and Jesus’ answer is to quote Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Jesus actually changes the final word of the great commandment from “might” to “mind.” While you and I can’t alter the words of scripture at our own discretion, Jesus makes an intentional change that is found in any translation you look at – so why would Jesus do that? I believe Jesus changes the word from “might” to “mind” on purpose because even though he knows the lawyer’s question isn’t coming from a good and sincere heart, Jesus wants him and us to think about what we’re saying and doing. We’re to love God with all our mind. True Christian spirituality and faith challenges us to think deeply about the great questions of life. We’re to love God with our heart and our emotions, with the totality of who we are, and with the fullness of our intellect. This is the greatest and first commandment and it’s nothing new, it’s something every Jewish child learned at home from a very young age.
Jesus continues, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ We have to stop and linger here for a moment because there’s something that we need to acknowledge. You can’t love your neighbor as yourself if you don’t love yourself appropriately. To love ourselves the way God wants us to means we grasp in our gut that our life matters to God, to other people, and to what God wants to see happen on this earth. Do you understand in your heart of hearts that God loves you deeply, your life has eternal significance, and God wants and needs you to do things that only you can do? This is really important. God loves you more than you know. Having a positive self-view that comes from knowing God loves me and that my life matters is crucially important to loving yourself. Some of us grew up in families where love and trust and having a healthy sense of self were part of our upbringing. Others of us unfortunately didn’t have that beneficial experience. However, part of the value of being a Christian and part of a church is we learn that even if important people around us didn’t love us or don’t love us the way we deserved to be loved, God does. It’s because we’re loved that we can love our neighbors. You can’t share what you don’t have. If I don’t have love in my heart for God and myself, I won’t have any to share with anyone else. Romans 5 tells us God’s love has poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Connecting to something bigger than ourselves and realizing that there is someone out there who is wiser than we are who accepts us unconditionally, is more loving than we can imagine and there to help us makes a difference to how we feel about ourselves. We’re able to love ourselves.
Having said that, Jesus very clearly tells us we’re to love other people. That’s foundational and basic to being a Jesus follower – we love God and we love people. If we don’t do those two things, if we aren’t doing those two things, it doesn’t really matter what else we’re doing, we’re missing the main point. Jesus is quoting from the Law again from Leviticus 19:18 (NRSV) which says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
What’s the most important thing to do in life? Jesus connects two verses one from Deuteronomy about loving God and the other from Leviticus about loving our neighbor. To Jesus and for us, they’re inseparable. This is beautifully stated in the New Testament in 1 John 4:7-11, 19-21, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” 19 “We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
What a difference it would make in our country and in our world if those of us who call ourselves Christians simply sought to live up to those words and the clear answer of Jesus to the lawyer – love God, love people. It’s that simple and that vital. In fact Jesus says, 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Can you imagine owning a beautiful and incredibly valuable painting by Leonardo Da Vinci in a big heavy frame and then hanging it on a little hook with a small nail? You’d never do that because you know what would happen. Your priceless painting wouldn’t be priceless for long after it fell off the wall and broke the frame and tore the canvas because the nail, hook, and wire weren’t strong enough to hold it. Jesus says loving God with all our heart soul and mind, and loving your neighbor as yourself are like strong and sturdy hooks and wire that can hold everything else. There’s nothing more important in life. Everything else written in the Law and the Prophets in the Bible is simply commentary on those two commands.
Ron Burton was right – rising early and exercising is very beneficial. Your dentist is right about flossing daily. Financial people are correct about the power of compounding. Sheryl Sandberg’s right, “It is the hard days — the times that challenge you to your very core — that will determine who you are.” But Jesus is right that the most important thing to do in life is to love God and love people because that’s the path to a joyful, contented, and love-filled life.
Questions for Discussion or Reflection
- How do you determine what’s important to you? How are your priorities formed?
- A lawyer asks Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” How would you respond if someone asked you, “What’s the greatest or most important thing I should do?”
- What does it look like to love God with all our heart?
- How do we love God with all our soul?
- Why is it important to love God with all of our mind?
- What is significant and transforming about Jesus linking loving God with loving our neighbor?
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Mt 22:36–40). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.