Learning in human

 

Matthew 22: 34-40
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
October 25, 2020

You’d think it would be enough. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind… and love your neighbor as yourself.” You would think it would be enough for human beings to live peaceably with one another. Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy, the great Shema: the prayer to be made when waking and before sleep, to be taught to one’s children and written on one’s doorpost and on every heart: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is 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 might.” And from Leviticus, the book that so many quote from to condemn, but ironically neglect this commandment in chapter 19: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. “…On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”



The Law that was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, the Ten Commandments, eventually expanded to 613 commandments or mitzvot: 248 do’s and 365 do not’s. DO rest on the Sabbath and on other feast days. DON’T exploit the stranger or oppress the weak. The Law of Moses, the Torah, governs every aspect of human life, but even then there is room to argue and push back, to struggle with the text and even with God—all so as to live a better life in relationship with others, with God, and with the earth.

The prophets arose out of the conflict between Yahweh and the kings of Israel and Judah. God was supposed to fulfill the role of king for God’s people but the people wanted to be a kingdom like other nations around them. The first king, Saul, set the stage for the rest. He was disobedient to God’s ways and an unpredictable tyrant —at times loving but also given to fits of jealous rage. With an earthly ruler and a unified government came all the evils we still grapple with today: corrupt power, the accumulation of obscene wealth, the cruelty and slavery of poverty, scarcity in the midst of plenty, unjust taxation. And so God called up prophets to reproach, guide, challenge, as well as comfort God’s people. It is the prophets who assert that there is one God, that God is a God of righteousness and justice and mercy, and that God’s people are expected to behave and live according to God’s ways.



By the time Jesus arrived on the scene, centuries had passed since God’s people had been exiled to Babylon and returned, the temple in Jerusalem destroyed and rebuilt. It was thought that because God’s people had been unfaithful, the exile was punishment for their disobedience. So when God’s people returned to their homeland, they set about reforming and purifying their faith of foreign influences and keeping God’s law. However, some foreign influences remained such as dualism: light and dark, good and evil. All good comes from God and all evil comes from forces that seek to thwart God through God’s creation, through human beings. The hope was that one day there would be an apocalypse, a final battle in which good will overcome evil.

So when Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment, there is only one answer: Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. What is profound about his answer is when he connects the great Shema to loving one’s neighbor as oneself. We cannot say we love God if our neighbor suffers injustice or if we do evil to our neighbor. There is no right relationship with God if there is no right relationship to one’s neighbor. All the law and the prophets are to be read through these two commandments. In Luke’s version of this story, Jesus says, “Do this and you will live.”



Two commandments: not suggestions, not philosophical ideals, not a self-help manifesto, but commandments. God’s commandments were intended to be a labor of love, a mitzvah, a good work, an act of grace, something to hold us accountable, not an edict or a list of rules in which to find loopholes. There are times we human beings don’t like being told what to do even when it’s the right thing to do. We often have to find it out for ourselves.

And yet there are other times when human beings long for strong leadership, for structure, uniformity, and social control, especially in times of economic hardship, communal trauma, and powerlessness: why after the exodus, the people wanted a king; why after the exile, the Pharisees preserved tradition and interpreted the Law of Moses; why Christians persecuted for centuries converted an emperor and joined an empire; why many nations throughout history have welcomed authoritarianism as a way to conquer their fear and claim certainty in the midst of calamity.



In the early 1980’s psychology professor Robert Altemeyer at the University of Manitoba developed a scale to identify authoritarian tendencies in people of any political persuasion, called the Right-Wing Authoritarian scale. Right-wing refers not to political inclination but to a strict sense of what is proper, right, or lawful. A study using this scale was published recently and it showed that there is a sizeable bloc of Americans who have these authoritarian tendencies. They are the most fervent supporters of the current administration. Their average score on the scale was around 74%. To give you an idea of the range of results, the average score for someone who strongly opposes the current administration was around 34%.

I asked friends on Facebook and Twitter if they would take this test. 37 people participated. The average score was 14.7 %. The lowest score was 4.55%, the highest was 42.61%. Yours truly scored 22.73%, almost smack dab in the middle. Even though all the scores were within range of the lower average of the Altemeyer study, some people made comments of surprise that they scored as high as they did.



I wondered what it meant to get a low score, so I searched and found another study by Altemeyer in which he invited high scorers to play a simulation entitled Global Change Game. It ended with a highly militarized society, nuclear war, and eventually everyone on the planet died. Even when given a second chance there were still conventional wars and unchecked overpopulation, famine, and disease. When those with a low score played the game there was eventual world peace and widespread international cooperation that produced food, health, and jobs for nearly everyone.

By definition those who score low on an authoritarian scale don’t try dominate or push their way to the front or strive to be in charge or act as enforcers, but they also don’t submit passively to those who do. I would think that those who score low on this scale try to love their neighbor as themselves, including neighbors they greatly disagree with, at least to do them no harm. Rather than a fight or a competition it’s an evolution in which we try to rise above our lizard brain, our desire to fight or flee, and the strong leader is all of us working together.



We can persuade, we can educate, we can build coalitions and bridges and communities, we can share what we have, we can be open and transparent, we can connect wholeness—holiness—with human living, but in the end it has to be a free choice. As does forgiveness and reconciliation. We learn in human, we learn in person. To some degree the authoritarian mindset may be with us so long as there is pain and uncertainty and powerlessness, and we lack the tools, the resilience to deal with it.

And so every day, my friends, cultivate some resilience, not only for yourself but enough to share.



In the words of the poet Wendell Berry:



“…every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

"...Ask the questions that have no answers.

"...Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

"...Practice resurrection.”