Do acts from Love, it’s how we know God, and how we know what we do is OF God.
If it’s not about love, then it’s not of God. Now in the Gospel of Mark, we see the really, really fast paced love of Jesus Christ. It is still the love of Christ, but the feeling of Mark’s Gospel is decidedly different. I find it edgier than all the other Gospels. More so in the Greek, this Gospel is rapid fire, always on the move. Mark’s favorite word seems to be “immediately.” He uses it a lot, the Greek word εὐθέως. In English, sometimes that word is translated as “immediately” but other times it gets translated as “and then” or “now,” to break it up a bit. You can imagine with every “immediately”, “and then” and “now” we see in English as a Greek εὐθέως , the narrative would just propel you on even more than it already does. There is also this sense that in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is all action and few words. (And in fact, it is the shortest of the four Gospels.) Jesus is on the move. If you blink, you might miss him. But you wouldn’t miss the love part of Jesus, even in Mark’s Gospel.
What Jesus is up to is showing love, making the afflicted person whole, not tortured. I actually don’t want to get into a discussion around Jesus casting out demons, and/ or whether demons were really mental illness that Jesus healed, frankly for my purposes, (and maybe for Jesus’) I don’t think it matters. (It’s another sermon anyway.) What is key or most important is that Jesus does not seem to care if his healing of the one affected by demons on the Sabbath angers the powers that be. If healing on the Sabbath angers those in charge, then so be it. One doesn’t quit caring, quit healing just because it is the Sabbath. For Mark, the proof that Jesus is the Messiah is that he does things. Jesus speaks his message by walking the walk, not just talking the talk. The scribes may know the right things to say, and may in fact say the right things, but they are no match for Jesus doing the right things, doing what is necessary, what restores health. If healing on the sabbath is required, then one does so, one does not hide behind rules of “keeping the sabbath holy.” He is one who does everything with authority. He speaks; he acts; and this is all held together in the DOING that is his own presence and ministry.
In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he is concerned with curbing one’s actions if it is going to hurt someone else—it’s a primer on how to not hurt your neighbor, even if you think your neighbor’s logic is silly. It is easy to get mired in Paul’s verbiage about eating food offered to idols, because the concept is so foreign to us. Paul’s point is actually a lesson on how to live in community, how to love those alongside us who may not be entirely on the same page with us. This is an ethos for living. There is a way to show real compassion, and rather than worry too much about the rules of any system; one instead needs to follow a simple rule is to ask if the action is caring and kind, and if it is, then it is from God. This Corinthians passage shows us how to live it out by loving those in community with us. Just like the Gospel, there is an invitation to walk the walk and not merely hide behind talking.
So we are admonished to do what we can to show care to our neighbor, and to show love as Jesus would, which would be immediately. But how do we manage to get there? Well, evidently Deuteronomy is pretty clear that you don’t fake it until you make it, at least not when it comes to what God asks of us. And don’t hedge your bets and then worship something other than God. Evidently there are consequences to not following God properly. Goodness knows it is just plain hard to follow God. It is hard to follow. If just wanting to follow were not hard enough, one has to be utterly sincere and discerning, given the parameters in Deuteronomy. There are consequences for giving out misinformation, mis-prophesying.
Do acts from Love, it’s how we know God, and how we know what we do is OF God.
SO… we have Jesus on the move in Mark, caring in spite of rules, Paul teaching how to care around people’s rules, and Deuteronomy making sure we don’t ignore any rules from God…mean what you say, don’t tell lies, particularly not about other gods.
All that seems daunting altogether, it reminds me of a cartoon a friend shared from Greta Thurnberg’s social media.
First panel, a person speaking to a crowd: who wants change? –everyone’s hand goes up.
Second panel: who want to change? Blank looks, no hands up.
Final panel: who wants to lead the change? Everyone leaves.
That is all of us, in our human foibles. It’s good to believe in Jesus, it’s even better to do the work of a Christian, if only we did so immediately. What if, instead, everyone wanted to lead the change. What if “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. What if I tell you that “fear” used here is more like awe rather than being afraid, that probably IS the beginning of wisdom.
Do acts from Love, it’s how we know God, and how we know what we do is OF God.
Let us all show up to lead the change of this world immediately, to do acts from love, which is the beginning of wisdom. And when we don’t – because we more often than not we are a mess, and we often don’t – we trust God to forgive, and to give us the strength, to ACT.