What Matters
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
November 2, 2003
Ruth 1:1-18; Mark 12:28-34
I. INTRODUCTION
There’s an old saying about law school that John Houston repeats in the film The Paper Chase. He tells his first year students that in law school they will teach themselves the law and he will teach them to think like lawyers. And that’s pretty much the way it works. You take class after class in which you aren’t taught what the law is so much as how to think about the law.
It’s a pretty hefty price tag to pay for learning how to think, but considering that all good lawyering is really thinking well, I suppose it’s a price that must be paid.
So when you’re busy teaching yourself the law, the professors are busy teaching you how to spot the relevant issues. That’s what all the tests are about: reading huge fact patters and figuring out what the relevant issues are. It almost doesn’t matter if you don’t remember the law or even if you misstate it. The most important part is figuring out what the issue is—what matters.
That’s the whole of the lawyer’s job when composing briefs or preparing arguments, is figuring out what the issue is, figuring out what is central, figuring out what matters. The ability to do this is what separates the really good lawyers from the mediocre ones.
II. WHAT DOESN’T MATTER
But how do we go about figuring out what matters? Well, first we can figure out what doesn’t matter.
That list is easy to find, because it’s everywhere. Let’s start with television. After the nightly news has tried to ruin your dinner with a steady diet of sensationalized, fear-producing news stories, the “news tabloid” programs come on. I won’t name them, but one of them has a lot of access to Hollywood, another seeks to give you the news “Extras” and a third tries to clue you in on what the entertainment is tonight. And what do they report on?
Celebrity. Marriages and relationships of people we will never know or who will never do anything for us, but whose faces fill our screens and our magazines. For some reason, these people’s lives are incredibly interesting for us. Apparently it matters a great deal what these people wear to big parties that they throw in which they give out awards to each other. As I mention this stuff it sounds even more ridiculous than when I first thought about it.
And then there is the British Royal Family. This one I have never understood. I mean, didn’t we fight a war to get rid of these people? And here we are reporting on their marriages, their divorces, their personal failings, their affairs… Am I supposed to believe that this stuff really matters?
Or then there’s the sports stuff. Is Daniel Snyder going to fire Steve Spurrier if the Washington football team loses another game? Do Kobe and Shaq really hate each other? I mean, after all Kobe called Shaq fat and lazy. Will Grady Little be hired by the Orioles? Will Don Zimmer quit the Yankees? Will Manny Ramirez be released on waivers –and will he even notice that it has happened?
And then there’s the primetime television. Will Joey and Rachel get together? Will Phoebe get married? Will Chandler and Monica be able to adopt a child? What about Dr. Carter? Will he come back from Africa? Will he and Abby get back together? Or will Dr. Kovac reignite an old flame?
Does any of this stuff really matter?
If not—then why is it on television so much? Could it be that not even television itself matters? I don’t know if I want to go there… There are certainly an awful lot of things out there vying for our attention. A lot of things that people are trying to convince us really matter. We have to sort them out.
III. WHAT MATTERS: RUTH
The way Ruth did.
Ruth is the Moabite daughter in law of Naomi. Naomi, along with her husband Elimelech and their two sons, sojourned in the land of Moab when there was a famine in Israel. Elimelech and Naomi is left with her two sons. They each take Moabite wives, which is a problem. But times are tough. But then the two sons die and Naomi is left with her two daughters-in-law. She hears that the famine is over in Judah and seeks to return. She tells her daughters-in-law to go back to their mothers’ houses and return to their people. One, Orpah, does. The other, Ruth, refuses. This is after Naomi has painted a somewhat bleak picture:
“Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the LORD has turned against me.”
But Ruth refuses still. Is it that lack of a husband was no small matter? Quite the contrary—lack of a husband is a very big matter. Without a husband or father, women were often in dire straits. Unable to earn a living or to provide for themselves. Without a husband a woman could lack in means. Without a father, there was no dowry to attract a husband of means. No these considerations are actually quite important. Ruth is going to a foreign country. Away from her land and traditions. She is going with her mother in law—whose repeated insistences that Ruth return home really make us wonder whether she even wants Ruth around. These things matter.
But for Ruth, something else matters more.
“Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die — there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”
Ruth’s devotion to Naomi, and her devotion to Naomi’s God are what is the most important thing for Ruth. That, she has decided is what matters.
IV. WHAT MATTERS: THE SCRIBE
It is the same conclusion that the man in tonight’s New Testament lesson comes to. In Mark’s version of the story, the man is referred to as a scribe. In Matthew and Luke’s versions he is referred to as a lawyer. Same job. Teacher of the law. Interpreter of the law.
And here we have this scribe, this teacher of the law, coming to Jesus, seeing that he answered the Sadducees well on the question of the resurrection, decides to cut to the heart of the matter: “Which commandment is the first of all?”
He is at once testing Jesus, but at the same time helping to discern for himself what the central issue is of faith—what matters the most. As a scribe, he would have been familiar with the written law, the five books of Moses, which contain 613 commandments. He would also have been familiar with the Oral Law, the body of oral tradition that interpreted, and in some cases expanded upon the written law. It’s a staggering body of commandments and religious law. He is seeking to find out, out of all that, what matters the most. What is central?
And how does Jesus respond?
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.”
The scribe responds to Jesus’ answer by saying,
“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…’”
Like us, the scribe probably knew the answer already. We’ve all heard this from our youngest days in the church. It’s familiar to us. We’ve even gone so far as to name it the Greatest Commandment, and the editors of our Bibles have inserted headings saying that before this portion of the text.
So, we all might have been able to name the two commandments. But the scribe does something remarkable. He continues, saying, “…this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And here he has done the thing that a good scribe or lawyer does. He hasn’t simply identified the rule. He hasn’t simply memorized the law—he has figured out what the issue is. He has figured out what matters and what is relevant. He has put things into context.
In the days of the Temple, worship was animal sacrifice. It had been for centuries. That was what you did when you worshiped. You offered sacrifices and burnt offerings. It can be easy to confuse the practice with the motivation. It can be easy to forget that the reason you sacrifice is out of love for God. That the reason you keep the law is out of love for God and out of response for his grace.
The scribe has figured out what matters. He had gotten his priorities right. And Jesus responds to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Love of God. Love of Neighbor. That’s what matters.
V. ALL SAINTS
Today is All Saints Sunday. It is a day on which we remember those who have died in the past year and those who have gone on before us as members of the Church. It is a day when we connect to the Church in all ages. The Saints, as we understand them, are all the faithful. All of the members of Christ’s church are Saints. Certainly you all here tonight are Saints (I can’t talk about campus ministries on other campuses).
But there have been in the history of the Church those whom we have singled out for special honor and recognition. These are the people we usually think of when we talk about saints. Those saints are male and female, come from all races and nations , speak different languages. They are broadly representative of all humanity. But there is one thing that they have in common…
They are united in their understanding of what matters. They are united in their example for us of love of God and love of neighbor. They are like Ruth and the scribe. They know that everything—everything—starts first with love of God and then with love of neighbor. That these things are more important than all sacrifices and burnt offerings. That is what matters. More than race, religion, nation, or creed. More than money, fame, wealth, or power. More than even life itself is this love—as many would demonstrate through their selfless love of God and sacrificial love for their fellow human beings.
VI. CONCLUSION
This All Saint’s Sunday we come to the table of the Lord. In so doing, we commune not only with each other, but with all those who have gone on before us. In every age the Church has celebrated the Lord’s supper as a remembrance. A remembrance both of the future, of the heavenly banquet, and a remembrance of the past, of the Passover of our Lord. A remembrance of the one whose sacrificial love demonstrates to us both his love of God and his love of neighbor. He invites us to follow. He reminds us that we are “not far from the kingdom of God.” He reminds us what matters.
