When Jesus was asked, "What is the greatest commandment?", he said:
"‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” [Mark 12:29-31]
Scot McKnight calls that "The Jesus Creed" and we've been exploring what it means to live these out in our lives. Before I get to the discussion questions and activities of the week, I'd like you to think about the command to love your neighbor as yourself. We can live this out on a personal level in the ways we treat those who live around us, sit next to us in church, and work with us. We've experienced times when that's easy to do and times when that's not so easy.
How do we live this commandment out as a church? That's a question we're exploring in companion post How do we become better neighbors? I invite you to click on the link and offer your ideas on how we, at Grace Presbyterian in Springfield, can be better neighbors with those who live right around us. What would that look like? What are we doing now and what can we do better? I look forward to hearing (or seeing?) your thoughts!
And now, here are this week’s Questions for Discussion:
(Things to talk about with your family)
- What are the four things you value most?
- How do they compare with what your school/work/ community values most?
- What do your possessions reveal about you and where your heart is?
This Week’s
Suggested Follow-up Activities:
(Additional actions you can try if you feel led)
- Recite the Jesus Creed and the Lord’s prayer daily.
- Practice the Golden Rule at home, work, and school.
- Focus on someone you are having difficulties getting along with.
- Go to How do we become better neighbors? and offer your suggestions on how we can be better neighbors
Our youth explored this week's discussion questions at Youth Group on Sunday. There was some fun "what not to wear" going on (and some of them were really creative). Alisa used this passage from Matthew as a follow-up to the discussion questions:
ReplyDelete“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" (Matt. 6:25-27).
As I listened, I wondered what kind of examples we adults provide them. What are the things we show are important in the way we live and go about our day? What kind of example am I setting for my kids? I can quote scripture all I want, but what they're going to remember is what I'm doing.
If you're following "40 Days Living the Jesus Creed," the reflection for Day 20 (At the Center of a Centered Life) touches on this. McKnight asks "If we could choose the absolute center of our life, what would it be?"
I'd like to think my choices - from work to family time to the things I do at Grace and elsewhere - are focused toward God. But that's not always true.
"So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ...But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matt. 6:31-34)
McKnight says about this passage: "Jesus wants his followers to live now as if we find ourselves in a society in which the will of God is already established."
I'm still seeking to put "seek first" at the top of my list every day.
If you're reading "40 Days Living the Jesus Creed," the reflections for Days 26 (First Move of Love) and 28 (Boundary-breaking Love) might be useful when you're trying to focus on someone you're having difficulties getting along with or are pondering how to become better neighbors.
ReplyDeleteMcKnight talks about cycles of "unlove" that can get in the way of loving one another and the challenges of breaking that cycle. I thought about what cycles of unlove I need to break (there are a few). We don't have to look far to see a glaring cycle of unlove in the way this country has become so polarized politically. That's not going to change until people want it to change. And that may take people who are not on the extremes of the views being determined enough to get people to sit down and find constructive ways out of the mess we've made for ourselves.
The reflection on boundary-breaking love (I read ahead, in case you're wondering) offers a different way of thinking on this. I just realized I have a lot more bouncing around in my head on this than can fit into a comment, so I'm going to try to organize them in a coherent form and put out a "bonus" post later today (assuming I actually can fit in a lunch break).