When Love Becomes a Challenge
a sermon based on Mark 12:28-34
by Rev. Frank Schaefer

Is there a person in your life that you just don’t care about?  Never mind not being able to love people, but there are those that we genuinely have trouble not hating.   And, naturally, we would struggle with such feelings, because we know it’s not right to feel that way about another human being? Jesus says: “love your neighbor as yourself” is just as important as loving God.   

If you’re not really struggling with loving people, how about this:  is there perhaps a person that you know who can’t stand you and no matter what you do, you can’t seem to make them like you?

I think one of my hardest lessons to learn in the ministry was, that no matter how hard I try, I can’t please everybody.  And who wouldn’t want to be liked by everybody?  I found it hard (and still do) to know that there are people that are dissatisfied with my style of ministry, leadership, my personality, or just my way of doing things.

So, I learned that whenever there are people together in one place--whether they are in the country club or in the church--not everybody likes everybody.  I think it’s a phenomenon that some of the nicest people, people that I think the world of don’t like each other.  It’s frustrating.  You’re sitting there wondering: how can they be such good friends to me, but have a problem with each other.

Have you heard about the preacher in town who asked the bishop to be appointed to a new church?  And the bishop asked the preacher: “what kind of church do you have in mind?”  And the preacher said, “well if you ask me like that, how about a church without people?”

Well, in light of God’s call to be caring, in light of Jesus word: “love your enemies, there are only a limited number of ways we can deal with people we dislike or with people that dislike us.

1. One way to deal with this problem is to claim senility.  It was only very recently that one of our church email list friends sent us the senility prayer-- an aberrant version of the serenity prayer.

 

THE SENILITY PRAYER

God, grant me the Senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,

the good fortune to run into the ones that I do like,

and the eyesight to tell the difference.

 

Now, unfortunately, as clever as this solution may be, it is reserved to people of an older age.

2. A preacher friend of mine deals with this problem in the following manner: he says: “nowhere in the bible does it say that you have to like your neighbor, it just says that you have to love him.  And he maintains that it is perfectly possible to love someone you also completely dislike.

O.k. that may sound contradictory, but there is a lot of truth in this statement.

Let’s look at Jesus’ teaching in our bible lesson from Mark.  Here is the standard that Jesus gives us.  When asked which of the commandments is the most important

Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one, 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.”

Perhaps a sigh of relief went through the crowd after Jesus answered.  Yes, this is what we thought.  Loving God?  Sure, we can do that!  It is so much easier to love God than anybody else.  It’s easy to love someone who is almighty, perfect, loving, caring, etc.

But just then, Jesus continued: “The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Wait a second!  Jesus did not answer the question correctly; it was supposed to be one commandment: which is the one most important commandment, not the two most important.

Interesting how Jesus answer also changes our question sometimes. That’s certainly what is happening here.  Jesus tells the scribes and everybody else around him in so many words: your question shows that you don’t quite get it.  You cannot separate love of God from love of neighbor. 

But there is more, by linking the two commandments, Jesus is also saying that we completely miss the boat if we think love of God is sufficient for our salvation.  We can love God like all get-out and, if we don’t love our neighbor, we actually don’t really fulfill the commandment to love God either.  You cannot fulfill a command by only meeting half of its conditions!

Ok, then.  That leaves one question wide open:  who is our neighbor?  That question, too was asked by a number of people in the Gospels:  surely, the Samaritan cannot be considered neighbors, can he or she?  No doubt, this attitude was the reason Samaritans became heroes in Jesus’ parables.

Ok. So Samaritans are neighbors too.  No problem for us. Or is it?  Who are our Samaritans?  Muslims? Homosexuals? Radical fundies? Flaming liberals?

The long and the short of it is that anybody and everybody is considered to be our neighbor—Jesus really makes the circle all inclusive when he says in Luke 6:27 ff: “Love your enemies! Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst!  When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person, don’t use energy to dwell on the negative, the way they offended you, don’t spend energy to think of all kinds of things to do to them.  Break the cycle. If they slap you in the face, take it.  No more tit-for-tat stuff.”  (The Message)

And Jesus continues by giving us help on how to do it.  He says: “here’s a simple rule of thumb for behavior:  ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them!

Now, allow me to explain something here. This saying of Jesus is often confused with the golden rule (“Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you”), but if you pay close attention to his words, Jesus is actually expanding it.   The golden rule says: don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done to you.”  That’s a great rule to live by, but while it may be good, Jesus takes this rule and turns it from a passive into an active.  He’s not only saying: don’t do bad things to others.  That’s peanuts!”  Jesus is saying: “do good things to others, especially to those you don’t get along with.”

And let me tell you, as difficult and superhuman as this demand may sound, it is actually a great and well kept secret on how to live a more easy-going, successful, and, yes “fun-filled” life.  This is good stuff for family, church, school, and workplace relationships.  The whole nine yards.

O.K. Jesus, how does it work?  I’m ready to learn this lesson.

“Look at yourself, buddy.”  Yes, Lord,  I’m looking.

“Now look at your own needs in relationships.”  O.k. I’m still looking, Lord.

Now, buddy, tell me what you need when you get around other people.

O.k. Lord, I want to be admired, adored, I want to be popular . . .

“Dude!”  “Yes, Lord.

“I said: “tell me what you need, not what you want.”
Oh

Ok., I guess I need to be accepted, respected, cared for, and I want to be needed.

O.k. now where have I heard this before?

“Yes, go on!”

“It’s what every human being craves, isn’t it, Lord?

How can we love our neighbors—even enemies? We can make them feel accepted, respected, cared for, and needed, among other things.
 

I think it is true for almost anybody that there are people in our lives that we have a hard time getting along with.  I remember struggling with this when I was forced to work together with a grumpy old nurse at the mental hospital I served during my Clinical Pastoral Education.  I could not ever please her;  anything I did was wrong or not good enough.  She would criticize the way I handled patients, the way I charted notes; the way I responded to calls. . .

No matter how hard I tried to be nice, she remained hostile toward me.  What did I ever do to this lady?  I tried to please her and conform to her standards and still no change.  So, I started praying for her.   Isn’t that what Jesus says: “pray for your enemies?”

Something interesting happened when I did: I became aware of how unhappy she was.  After a while I picked up that nobody was ever good enough because she herself struggled with being accepted.  It occurred to me that not accepting others may be a protective mechanism.  By not being accepting of others, she pre-empted others of not being accepting of her. 

So, loving her started with complimenting her.  I let her know that I respected her, that I accepted her and her way of doing things.   

And after a while, something incredible happened: She started to smile at me when I greeted her.   After a while, she became my friend.  A lot of other people complain about her, but I’m getting along with her fine.  In fact, I can ask her for things nobody else even dared to ask her about.  And everybody was wondering: how come you get along with her?  What’s your secret?

Let’s look at the benefits of  loving “difficult” people:

1) they can make YOU feel good about yourself (let’s not forget it).

2) it often makes others feel good about themselves

3) it puts you in charge of the difficult relationship. (And it’s not about control, it’s about CARE.  See whoever starts to be the care giver is in charge in a positive way as the need of the other is met.  This is the principle of servant-leadership.

And guess what else, your boss, your supervisor; the people around you will notice sooner or later that you are good at relationships.  People are observant.  And guess whom they will invite to their party, guess whom they will hang around with, guess whom they will give that promotion? 

Once again: God’s commandments are for our own good;  they are spiritual principles that will make us prosper spiritually as well as in other ways—and not just later, but already here and now!  So let’s make our lives better and continue to love God and work on loving our neighbors—even if they seem to be our enemies!  Amen.