“Empathy over Apathy” – Mark 12:28-34
November 3, 2024
Prayer: Illuminate your Word for us, by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we may be reminded of what is most important and be guided by your simple, yet challenging commands in our complex and divided world; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
As you may be aware, this is rather an important week for the good ol’ United States of America.
Because of the gravity of this election season, people from all backgrounds and both parties
have been reporting fear, insecurity, anxiety, uncertainty…do you feel it?
Some have told me they have a feeling of dread; others report they are not sleeping well.
A few are worried about outbreaks of violence. Certainly, after the barrage
of political attack ads, the mental well-being of us all has been impacted.
I came across a quote the other day from Oli, Robert Gamble’s friend from Ukraine
who visited us a few months ago.
She told us that “The war taught us to value every moment, every minute spent with our family,
because we understand that absolutely everything can disappear in an instant.
We thank God every day that our children are alive, that we have food and water,
that we can do our chores during the hours when there is electricity.
We support each other and thus overcome stress…
The war taught us to unite, to find a way out of any situation, to set priorities correctly,
to persistently believe in our strength and our ideas, and to be happy because we are alive…
We communicate and listen to each other a lot, we rejoice and are sad together,
laugh and cry, often hold hands, and hug when we meet.
This is how we try to share…empathy, care and love…”
Whatever happens in the coming weeks, there is no doubt that empathy for one another
will be a necessary task for our nation.
Empathy is defined as “the action or capacity of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to,
and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” (Merriam-Webster)
How difficult it can be to relate to the feelings and experiences of others!
Most of us want to be the right person and do the right thing,
so we are feeling tension and anxiety and fearfulness because our neighbors
and extended family members have a very different idea
of what the right decision or what the right vote will be.
The opposite of empathy could be apathy.
Apathy is defined as “the lack of feeling or emotion (related to others)
or the lack of interest or concern (for others), indifference (toward others).”
In a divided and polarized society, no matter what happens in the coming weeks,
we must guard against having too much apathy regarding those who are different from ourselves.
In order that it may go well for us, for all people,
Jesus came to teach a still, more excellent way, the way of love.
Today is All Saints’ Sunday – a day on which we honor and remember before God
those members of the church who died in the past year.
Many of these members lived through difficult times of stress and warfare.
John Weitnauer, whose memorial service was yesterday, was born in 1926.
Imagine all that John experienced and the national stress and divisions that he endured
in his 98 and a half years.
Our Call to Worship for this morning came from Deuteronomy 6:1-9, the Shema as it is called,
which comes from the Hebrew word “hear” or “listen”.
This particular Scripture was central to synagogue worship,
being recited at the beginning of nearly every time of worship.
reminding people to love God alone with heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Our New Testament reading, which contains the core of the Shema,
resulted from an encounter of Jesus with a thoughtful scribe, a teacher of the law.
Jesus and his disciples have recently entered Jerusalem.
They spend their nights in the gardens at Bethany, but their days are spent in and around
the temple, the center of Jewish politics, culture, and religion.
On the Temple mount, the conflicts with the temple leadership began to intensify.
On his first full day in town, Mark reports that Jesus drives out the money-changers
and those who were buying and selling in the temple, effectively shutting down for a day
the temple system, the economic support of the religious leaders.
When the chief priests and scribes hear it, they agree to keep looking for a way to kill Jesus.
Over the next days, the chief priests, scribes, and elders barrage Jesus
with a series of questions that were meant to trap him.
The first is a question about power: “By what authority are you doing these things?
Who gave you this authority?”
Next they send some Pharisees and Herodians to trap Jesus with a question of politics.
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”
Taxes are sure to get a rise out of the crowd,
to put a wedge between a candidate and constituents.
Third, they send Sadduccees to ask him a question of theology.
Surely, if power and politics do not drive a wedge between Jesus and the crowds,
then surely religious beliefs will.
The Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, ask Jesus the question about whose wife
a woman who had married a succession of brothers would be in the resurrection.
Jesus flatly tells them that their ideas about the resurrection are wrong
and that they know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
Questions of power, politics, and religion are always sure to get a rise out of people,
to trap an up and coming leader, to influence a rowdy crowd,
and turn the tables on someone’s popularity.
But with each successive question, the leaders become more frustrated
with their inability to trap Jesus, to find a reason to arrest him and put him on trial.
A certain scribe who had been listening to these exchanges noticed how well
Jesus handled these questions, and so he asks a question about the law –
this scribe’s particular specialty.
Hear the Word of God from Mark 12:28-34.
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another,
and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’
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.” The second is this,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’
Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that
“he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart,
and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbor
as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’
When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom
of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
In answering the question about the law, Jesus impressed the learned scribe.
Jesus obviously knew the Scriptures and had determined what was most important.
He taught us what we are to always hold dear:
Love God, love neighbor. These overlapping commands take precedence over everything else.
This ideal is ever held before us, in whatever decisions or challenges we face.
An election season is a probably a good time to ask ourselves if we, as a nation, as a people,
are seeking to love God and neighbor.
Are we following that ideal or are we getting caught up in the ways and means of the world?
Are we seeking to live according to godly principles?
Or are we going along with self-serving schemes?
According to scholars, there were some 613 precepts which the religious leaders
of Jesus’ day taught the people to follow.
There were some 248 positive commands and 365 negative prohibitions.
The Rabbis often debated which were most important,
and whether these laws could possibly be distilled into a few, more broad principles.
The prophet Micah had written “do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.”
Isaiah had focused his words upon keeping justice and doing righteousness.
Jesus recognized that the leaders of the day had become so caught up in the system
that they had lost all perspective and forgotten what was most important.
Jesus recognized that many of the people had become so frustrated with the system
that they had become apathetic toward religion altogether, apathetic toward their leaders,
and apathetic toward their neighbors.
Jesus’ desire was to free the people and their leaders to live in love, to live in joy and freedom,
to live each in faithfulness to God and at peace with their neighbors.
So Jesus brought together the Shema – the central teaching of synagogue worship –
and a lesser known text from Leviticus 19:8 regarding love for neighbor.
In so doing, Jesus created a filter – the filter –
through which all questions of daily life can forever be asked:
Does this activity or responsibility exhibit love for God with heart, soul, mind and strength?
Does this relationship or conversation or decision result in love for neighbor as self?
Many of you are aware that Dudley and I and others are participants in the Decatur Rotary Club,
a global service organization. Did you know that we have a filter?
We begin each meeting with an invocation, the Pledge of Allegiance, and then the Four Way Test.
The Four Way Test is a simple four question recitation that Rotary members,
leaders from business, non-profits, education and government,
state together at the beginning of every Rotary meeting.
Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
We may not always fulfill that Four Way test fully in our daily lives, but it is upheld as an ideal.
In reading this passage from the Gospel of Mark,
it seems the religious authorities in Jesus’ day held to an inappropriate filter.
For the most part, they were not bad people.
Many were intellectual, healthy members of their society.
But they lacked an appropriate filter. The systems and assumptions of their day –
how they made their daily decisions – was hindering faithfulness to God and love for neighbor.
This week is a good time to ask ourselves – What is our filter?
Through what filter are we processing our decisions, our activities,
our conversations and relationships?
Who should be in power and have the authority to govern?
What should we decide about taxes and government programs?
What are our theological principles when it comes to marriage and gender and issues of ethnicity?
What filter will we use in order to live rightly before God and live in peace with our neighbor?
Those scribes and Pharisees, the Herodians and Sadduccees,
had lost sight of what is most important.
Their comfortable lifestyle and their fear of losing power got so caught up
in the madness of their system that they failed to live in love – love for God and neighbor.
“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.
And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is the sum of all the commandments.
This is far more important than any political party platform.
This is far more important than loyalty to any person or group.
And yes, we must admit that people of good faith will differ on how they decide
to follow these commandments, even if we cannot possibly seem to understand their perspectives.
Our friend, Oli from Ukraine, told us that, in the midst of war,
“Every day we hope that we will have another day of life,
that our family and friends will be alive, that a missile will not fly into our house at night
and we will not be dug out from under the rubble…”
We have two jokes – one is that we will go to bed in our nicest underwear,
in case they have to pull us from the rubble!
The other is that it is difficult to find a single mentally healthy person in Ukraine.
But we support each other and that is how we overcome stress.
The war taught us to unite, find a way out of any situation and thank God for every day of life…
Hope is stronger than fear. We live hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst…
We communicate and listen to each other a lot, we rejoice and are sad together,
laugh and cry, often hold hands, and hug when we meet.
This is how we try to share…empathy, care and love…”
Whatever happens in the coming weeks, there is no doubt that empathy for one another,
being sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, will be a necessary task for our nation.
And apathy, indifference for others, will be something to avoid at all costs.
The Shema from Deuteronomy makes it clear: Love the Lord your God “and you shall live…
Obey these commands and your days may be long.
Observe the commandments (to love your neighbor) diligently so that it may go well with you,
so that you may be fruitful in this land that flows with milk and honey.”
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Todd Speed
Decatur Presbyterian Church
Decatur, Georgia
