"Love thy neighbor is not advice, it's a command." This quote by Bono, the lead singer of the rock band, U2, as well as a global humanitarian leader, calls to mind the theme of last week's sermon, fueled by Luke's story that we've come to know as the story of the Good Samaritan. I want to change his quote just a little bit to help move us into this week's theme, "Loving God."
     Last week, I talked about how all 10 Commandments written in the book of Exodus and studied by Lutheran Confirmation students all over the world in Luther's Small Catechism could really be boiled down into two. The last seven are about loving your neighbor. We went over those last week. The first three are about loving God. You shall have no other gods before me. Don't take the name of the Lord in vain. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
     Just like Bono said, and I'm tweaking it now just a little bit, "Love God is not advice, it's a command. It's a command that without exception every single one of us would like to follow - or chances are we would not be sitting here today. So, what does loving God require of us? The list of answers to this question is unending. But we can get a start on it today. We can get a start by remembering the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel reading chosen for this day. If we think about this reading along with our question of the day, "What does loving God require of us?", we can begin our list as we write down the word "trust". Loving God requires our trust.
     Mary, who sat at the feet of Jesus and simply listened, is a shining example of trust. While her sister, Martha, worried about all of the tasks at hand and issues of hospitality, Mary devoted herself to Jesus and what he was teaching. We hear this story today and many of us easily find ourselves siding with Martha. We've all been in situations where we feel like we're doing all the work while someone else isn't pulling their weight.
     So, we wonder. Why should Martha have to do all the work while Mary just sits around with the rest? What we don't understand is that Mary's actions don't have to do with laziness at all, but in fact have everything to do with trust. They are actions that help us see that she trusts in divine possibilities. You see, women in her day were expected to do what Martha was doing - cooking, cleaning, setting the table and all the other preparations that had to be done for guests in those days.
     Only men would have been welcome to sit at the foot of a teacher. Yet, there Mary sat - a woman and, therefore, a very unlikely disciple. So, what does Jesus do? He proves himself worthy of her trust as he affirms her actions when Martha reprimands her. Mary's love for him, shown by her trust, allows Jesus to go beyond the status quo and create a new standard - a new possibility. "Mary has chosen the better part," Jesus says to Martha, "which will not be taken away from her." And just like that, a woman has been accepted as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
     Martha, on the other hand, lacks trust in the Gospel story for today. It's not her gift of hospitality that is the indicator. That, in and of itself is a positive thing. What Jesus reprimands Martha for is her distraction and worry. They are universal indicators that trust is nowhere to be found. Without trust that everything will get done in a timely manner and in a way that is acceptable to everyone, Martha has to control every little detail to the point that she can't even hear Jesus' message or enjoy having God's son as a guest in her home.
     In August of 1989, Time magazine reported the story of a man from East Detroit who died of fear or worry. He had taken a number of fur-trapping expeditions over the years and had been bitten by his share of ticks. When he heard about Lyme disease which is carried by deer ticks, he became obsessed with the fear that he had been bitten by one of these Lyme disease carrying ticks and that he had passed the disease on to his wife.
      Doctors tested him and assured him that he didn't have the disease and that even if he did it was pretty much impossible that he could transmit it to his wife. The man, however, did not believe his doctors. He didn't trust them and he ended up killing his wife and then himself. In the investigation that followed, the police found the man's mailbox jammed with materials about Lyme disease and a slip from another doctor for an appointment for another Lyme disease test.
     This is an extreme example, but a good one, of what happens when trust goes out the window in our own lives. When trust leaves us, it leaves a void that must be filled and often is by things that kill us - fear, worry, anxiety and hopelessness. When trust leaves us, we lose our ability to be open to the divine possibilities that exist for us as children of God. When trust leaves us, it takes light and clarity with it, so we end up either stumbling around in a spiritual and emotional darkness or trying to control each and every little detail of life which ultimately we can never do. On the other hand, when we can maintain trust - even in the face of tragedy, disappointment, illness and the dark pit of the unknown - we give God the opportunity to hand over to us God's divine promises for our lives. We allow God to make human impossibilities divine realities.
     As I began thinking this past week about our command to love God, a song kept popping up in my head. I think I must have learned it in Sunday School a long time ago and the chorus goes like this. "Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me." It's the last line - because he first loved me - that really gets me and brings home the place where love begins, ends and is grounded. And that is in Jesus Christ. We can make list upon list of what it takes to love God and what it takes to love our neighbor. But, when we get to the bare bones of our ability to love, it all comes down to God. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. . ." We can love God because God first loved us. We can love our neighbor because God first loved us. It's that simple. . . and that complicated.
     Amen.


Use our big cross and have the kids help me tape the commandments on the crossbeam or the up and down beam depending on if the commandment has to do with loving God or loving our neighbor. Remind the kids that we can only show love to God and our neighbor because God showed love to us first. One of the ways we know God loves us is because he sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and then be raised again on Easter.