Which Commandment is First?

A lot happens between the events in last week’s Gospel reading and the Gospel reading we just heard. Jesus and his disciples entered Jerusalem in triumph, complete with palms and cheering crowds. Jesus cleansed the temple by driving out the moneychangers who did business there. And, most relevantly for us this morning, Jesus engaged in a running debate with representatives of the different groups that together made up the religious elite of the city. Mostly those folks seem like contemporary politicians—more interested in scoring points off their opponent than in seeking the truth or finding common ground.
 
The scribe in our story is the last of the debaters who confronted Jesus that day, but he is not like the others. Unlike them, he serves as a model for us. Our scribe is not trying to embarrass Jesus. His question is sincere. He and Jesus agree, and Jesus praises him as not far from the kingdom of God. This is a man, this is a dialogue, we want to hear.
 
The scribe’s question is deceptively simple: “which commandment is the first of all?”
 
Traditionally there are 613 commandments. Surely our scribe knew them all—that was part of the job of a scribe. And he surely did his best to follow them all. But our scribe understood that the commandments were not all equally important. So, he asks Jesus, which commandment is most important?
 
I’ll come back to Jesus’ answer. But first we need to sit with the scribe’s question. Which commandment is first of all?
 
As Christians, we aren’t concerned with the 613 Old Testament laws. But like our scribe, we often face multiple, competing demands. We, too, need to know what, in our complicated lives, matters most. I’d love to ask Jesus that question.
 
As voters: Jesus, what issues are most important? As busy people: Jesus, how should we allocate our time? As we head towards stewardship season here at Saint David’s: Jesus, how should we spend our money? Those questions are not easy to answer.
 
As many of you know, I attended a Clergy Conference last week called CREDO. At the conference, we asked a version of the scribe’s question. As Christian people, in our case, specifically as priests, how is God calling us to live? What matters most in our lives, and what doesn’t matter as much?
 
CREDO has a process for answering that question, our scribe’s question, that I found really helpful, so I’m going to work through it, using myself as the example. My particular experience is unique to me, but it is an example of the kind of insights this exercise can generate.
 
We began by identifying our core values. We each listed ten values, ten things that are important to us. Mine were things like kindness, faith, fitness, and hope. For most of us, including me, the first few came easily, but getting to ten took some thought.
 
Then we ranked our values, as best we could. That’s when I saw why it was good to start with at least ten. The ninth value that occurred to me was generosity, but generosity is one of the most important values for me.
 
Having ranked our core values, we were in a position to ask the scribe’s question: what is most important to me? What values do I want to shape my life and my behavior? My top three were faith, integrity, and generosity.
 
Then we reflected on different aspects of our lives—on our physical and psychological health, our finances, our vocations, and our spirituality. I added relationships. In each area, we were asked whether our lives as we actually live them truly reflect our core values. Does my life, in all of its major areas, reflect my values of faith, integrity, and generosity?
 
That is a humbling exercise! I don’t think any of us felt like our lives fully reflected our core values. Certainly, I didn’t! As just one example, I am not as generous as I should be, especially with Carrie.
 
Finally, we were invited to consider what changes we need to make to bring our lives into better harmony with our values. We can think of those as the changes God is calling us to make.
 
I had plenty of them. But, sticking with my example, what changes in my life could help me to be more generous with Carrie?
 
I realized that one of the things that limits my generosity is tiredness. When I am tired, I am less patient and I act in less loving ways than I should. So, my specific question was, what changes can I make to be less tired and so more generous?
 
Some of my tiredness comes from exercising at night, which keeps me up too late. I don’t want to exercise less. So, if I want to be less tired and live more true to my core value of generosity, I need to shift some of my exercise into the daytime.
 
But that is more complicated than it may sound. My days are full, so taking time to exercise during the day means dropping something I am currently doing.
 
And I find myself back at our scribe’s question, except that now it is personal. What things that I do during the day are most important, and what can I drop from my current daytime routine? I’m still working on that. But it has only been a week.
 
I encourage you to give this exercise a try. Start with your core values. Assess how well they are reflected in the different areas of your life. And consider what small changes might help you reflect your values better. That’s a way you can answer our scribe’s question for yourself.
 
To help, I have included at the end of this sermon a short description of the different steps.
 
Think what a difference it could make in your life if you took even one or two small steps that helped you live out your values more faithfully. Think what a difference it would make in our country if more of us did that.
 
On the Sunday before election day, I think particularly about how we vote. We all probably do something more or less like this exercise. We decide what values and what issues are most important to us in our politics, and we choose the candidate for each office who we believe best embodies them.
 
But for most of us, that process becomes so automatic that we don’t pause to name our values and issues. Instead, we go with our gut or with our party. Pausing to name our core values and issues could help to ground our voting decisions so that we vote more faithfully. That would be a way to answer our scribe’s question about what is most important to us as citizens.
 
And now, at last, I come back to Jesus’ answer to our scribe’s question. We will all have different core values for our lives and for our politics. But Jesus tells us the most important value of all: love. Love God and love neighbor. Love is a value that is non-negotiable for Christians.
 
As we live our lives, our ultimate question should always be, how can we love more deeply and more faithfully? That should be true day in and day out. That should be true when we vote. And that should be true after Tuesday, as we process the results of the election and then move forward together under a new president and government. Always we are called to love.
 
May God guide us and help us to love better, each and every day. In Christ’s name. Amen.
 
Core Values Exercise
 
Identify ten core values—things that are important to you. Don’t worry about whether you live them out perfectly. They should be ten values that you want to guide your life.
 
Rank your values, as best you can. Don’t worry about the details. The goal is to group your values in general order of importance. Write down on a separate sheet of paper your top five.
 
Review different areas of your life in terms of your values. We focused on physical health, psychological health, finances, vocation/job, and spirituality. I added relationships. For each area you choose, write a few notes about how your behavior does or does not reflect your core values.
 
After spending time in prayer, identify modest changes that would bring your life into better alignment with your values in each area. Write those changes down, and keep the paper somewhere you will see it periodically.
 
Be modest in your goals! Deep transformation can come from small changes that you stick with.