The Great Connection

Remember that the Pharisees and other interested parties are trying to trap Jesus. They figure since he’s a new Rabbi, he will stumble over a difficult question and condemn himself. Well, this trickery isn’t so well for the Pharisees. They have one last question, after which, as you will see, they give up. Jesus is too good. They’ll have think of another way to stop him.

But the last question they have is, “What is the greatest commandment?”

Before we get to that, let us start with, “What is a commandment?” period.
We understand that it’s something you are supposed to do. Sometimes I notice when I give a commandment to my sons, there seems to be some kind filter or microchip in their brains that automatically translates my “commands” into something else. I hear myself giving commands, but they hear me making suggestions.

And so they look at me like, “thanks for the suggestion dad.” Parents if you’ve ever seen this on your child’s face, that’s what that look means – thanks for the suggestion.

But remember the original question. For a Jew in those times, anything God tells us His Word is a command, especially anything in the first five books of the Bible called the Torah. Torah means “the Way.” They believed the best way to live was how the Torah said to live. Any command (mitzvah) must be obeyed.

Therefore, the question posed of Jesus by the Pharisees was sort of a trick question, beside the point. But here is how Jesus answers:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.

Jesus implies that if you follow these two commandments you’ll be okay with everything else. These two commandments point to connections. If it weren’t already the name of a cheesy tv dating show, I would call the Love Connection. We’ll call them the Great Connection. We have a vertical connection with God and we have a horizontal connection with other people. Both are crucial and remember, the second is “like unto” or dependent upon the first – love God.

Loving God is never a solitary activity. Even when you are a lone in prayer you are connected through Spirit with the Body of Christ, the Church. Ephesians 3.17 says,

“(may you be strengthened in your inner being) that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”

Folks, love is not a feeling; it’s not a thought. Love is relationship. And in a sense, all of life is relationship. Relationship brings growth and healing. Isolation brings decay and death. There are continual studies being done on the Happiness Factor in peoples lives. You know what the number One indicator for happiness in our lives is? It’s not money, it’s jobs, it’s not education, it’s not power. It is relationship. The more and better quality of our relationships the happier we are likely to be.

If you are a socially isolated individual you are two to five times more likely to die before the average life span. In fact, the relationship factor trumps other factors like general health, whether a person drinks or smokes or comes with a difficult family history. Winston Churchill was a classic example of this. He was a great politician and statemen and knew so many people and by most accounts had a great marriage and many friends. He was also drinker and cigar smoker and loved to eat. He was once asked if he ever exercised, to which he replied:

“The most exercise I get is being a pall bearer at the funerals of my friends who died while exercising.”

To be in relationship with others is literally life-giving and life-receiving. It is a Torah command, “the way to live.”

Proverbs 18.1 goes so far as to say, “The one who lives alone is self-indulgent, showing contempt for the common good.”

Before I get angry emails from many of you who live by yourselves, I think we rightly understand this verse in the context of having meaningful friendships and being connected to our community. We may live by ourselves, but none of us can afford to live alone.

St. Paul says that “he who does not love abides in death.”

Now the Great Connection is not always easy, otherwise everyone would do it and do it easily. To live in community is to live in conflict. Here is a simple picture of this truth. And as you watch, you might think about the classic brother tale of Cain and Abel. This is called “Charlie Bit Me – Again.”

View clip.

This is the human story. Even brothers hurt each other. We all get our feelings hurt. And then we choose to Attack or Withdrawal. Just yesterday I got my feelings hurt at a football game. I felt like I was attacked. And I had a choice to attack back or withdraw. I withdrew. When we are in relationship, connected in community, there is a third way, and that is to engage in love.

Love is not just a feeling or an idea. Love is a force. It is much more powerful than we understand or imagine. To say Love is a force is to say that God is a force, because God is Love. When we love God and we love each other we feed the roots that make us grow.


“I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. “ Romans 8.38-39


Over the next month or so we will continue to focus on the Great Connection that we have with God and each other. We will look at the quality of our community together as a church and how we can be connected to our community beyond these walls.

We’ve adopted a new mission statement that reflects this focus for our church:

Our mission is to make disciples for Jesus and create community.

What is going on in our lives right now? How many friends do we have? What is the quality of our connections? Have we invited them to love God with us?

I think back to when we first moved to Duncansville. The boys were much younger and did not know many other kids. Seth wanted to get a neighborhood football team together, with Seth as head coach of course. At the time, Seth only had two other players signed on for his team, his new buddy Ryan, who lived up the street, and Michael his younger brother. I remember overhearing this conversation on our back porch as the three of them made their plans.

Seth: Okay, we’ve got me, you, and Michael. Ryan, you need to get some of your friends to play on our team.

Ryan: I don’t have any other friends.

Michael: (Looking up at Ryan intently) Ryan, God is your friend. God is your friend,
Ryan.

Seth: (Interrupting his brother) Yeah, that’s great, God is your friend. But we need
more football players.


Life is relationships. The two great commandments point to this. And when we’re missing one of these commands, we’re missing both.