Fellowship

Love God and Neighbour – Are you a “why” person, or a “how” person?

July 13, 2025 — Leave a comment

Deuteronomy 30:9-14
Psalm 25
Colossians 1:1-14
Luke 10:25-37


May only the Truth be spoken, and may only the Truth be heard,
in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I have a question for you this morning.
Are you a why person, or are you a how person?
What’s your mind’s go-to response?  Why? or How?

Our lessons today deal with the law of God – the wonderful, life-giving, freedom-filled gift which is God’s law. Not a burdensome set of rules, nor is it something that should fill us with fear because of our natural and universal inability to fulfil it without a lot of God’s help; but a gift.  As we read in Deuteronomy, it’s in living into and living out the Lord’s vision for how we should live that we will find true blessing, true prosperity, the lasting inner peace that can carry us – together – through the ups and downs of life.

And Jesus sums it all up for us in a way that I’m sure many of us have committed to memory.  

Hear what the Lord Jesus Christ says: (say it with me!) you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

If you haven’t committed that one to memory, take it home.  It’s on the front page of your bulletin.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And Love your neighbor as yourself.

What does it mean to live a Christian life?  Love the Lord your God…
What does it look like to follow Christ? Love the Lord your God…
How should we live if we want to see the Lord’s blessing?  Love the Lord your God…

It’s all pretty straight-forward, right?
Look again at Deuteronomy: God, through Moses, suggests that this is all rather easy!  The Law is not far away, hidden in heaven or buried in the depths that we need someone to bring it to us.  The Law, God says, is not too hard for you.  In fact, it’s very near, it’s in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.

Easy, right?

(…well, lets just say I won’t ask for a show of hands for those who think they’ve succeeded!)

But I will say this: the Law is easy, in as much as it is easy to understand. 
When God says something, He means it.  He doesn’t throw words around lightly.

When He says “all”, it’s simple enough to understand – He really does mean all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.  Hold nothing back.  Go all in.

And when He says “to love your neighbour”, again it’s simple enough – there’s no bones about it, no beating around the bush: the word is agapeo, agape, that fullest, sacrificial definition of love, the love that prefers the other above the self, the love that is defined as a desire to see and bring about the well-being of another.   On the one hand, it’s that simple: love your neighbour, desire and seek to bring about what is best for him or her, all the way.

It’s Simple enough… until our minds get in the way!

“It’s in your mouth and it’s in your heart”, God says, “so that you can do it”.

But did you notice what God did not say?

The Law is in your mouth and in your heart… the issue, though, is that, for us sinful human beings, we like to follow our minds. 

And that’s not where God says the Law has been written, even for those who are redeemed, who are filled with the Holy Spirit.  The Law isn’t found in your rational mind. Yes, by grace, over a lifetime of sanctification, we pray along with Romans 12 that with God’s help we can be transformed by the renewing of our mind, or with Ephesians 4 to be made new in the attitude of our minds, or with Philippians 2, that we would come to have the mind of Christ in us as we learn to decrease our self-interests so that the Body of Christ may increase.

My brothers and sisters, we have to be aware of this: yes, the Law is to be found in your mouth, each and every ordinary Christian, sharing that Good and life-giving News, and yes, God’s law is written deep on each and every human heart… but be aware – your mind, my mind, won’t live out God’s law naturally.

So let me as you… are you a why person, or are you a how person?

When you hear the law of God, what is your first response?
Are you a why person?  No shame, I think all of us are “why” people by nature.

You hear someone like me say “God wants you to go all in”… and, the natural human response is to say “what?  Why would I do that?  I’m not a preacher. I put my money in the plate, I pray for my church family, I come out on Sundays, I read my Bible most days.  Surely that’s good enough, or it at least counts for something, right?

Why should I need to do more?  Why should I need to be made into more or “transformed” any more than I already am? I’m already doing so much more for the Lord than most people are, most can’t even be bothered to get out of bed on Sunday morning. …No, I can’t say that I love God with all my heart or all my mind, but come on, why should I need to?  And hey, while we’re at it, it’s not like you’re living a perfect life either… and on and on and on it goes.

Are you a “why” person? 

Are you one whose nature, whose natural reaction, is to hear the simple, straightforward, but all-encompassing law of God, and whose first reaction is to explain why it’s not asking anything more of you than what you’re already doing, or why that simple command might apply to someone else who is doing less than you, but you’re alright.

Or, perhaps you hear “love your neighbour as yourself” – and you hear a crazy preacher who went back and looked at the Greek in Luke and Matthew and at the Hebrew in the quote from Leviticus that Jesus was referencing, and who says, no, it doesn’t mean “care about your neighbour”, it actually means agape, that all-in, self-sacrificing, deeper-than-your-love-for-your-own-blood sort of love, and your mind’s first reaction is “that doesn’t make sense, why would I do that?”. 

I care for the poor, I give money and sometimes even volunteer for stuff.  I pray for the homeless and addicted, I even stick around for coffee hour after church for a bit of fellowship with other church people… but what does God want of me?  Seriously? To have agape, all-in, sacrificial love my neighbour who I don’t even really know, and who wouldn’t do the same for me, why would I do that?  I already do more than most people, why would I actually love some random person as myself. 

A ”why” person.  Like the lawyer in today’s Gospel, who says “yes Master, I hear you… but let’s define our terms so that I can tell you why I’m off the hook”.

Now let’s be clear – there’s no shame in admitting you’re a “why” person, if that’s where you’re at right now.  I will confess that I lived most of my Christian life as a why person, including the first 5 years of my ordained ministry.  Yes, the law was in my heart, yes, it was even in my mouth on a daily basis… but my mind did a very good job of comforting myself to justify why other people needed to grow, but I had probably come far enough when it comes to being “all in” with love for God and neighbour.

There’s no shame in admitting if that’s where you are.  And I say that precisely because admission and confession – giving up that denial – those are the first steps to continuing in that journey of who God is calling you to be: someone who really is all in.

Someone whose mind has been transformed from “why”… to “how”.

You see, a “why” person – and we’re all why people by sinful human nature – uses their mind to decide what is right for them, what is good enough for them, and sets about explaining why they’ve already grown and been transformed enough, why the dead simple, totally straightforward, but breathtakingly hard “all-in” language of God doesn’t mean what it says, or at least doesn’t call them to do any extra.

A ”why” person uses their mind to set their priorities.

What’s the alternative?

But, by grace, we can become “how” people. 
You see, a “how” person knows that their mind is not trustworthy for setting priorities.
A “how” person knows that the law is on their heart, but that the transformation and renewal of the mind is still very much a work in progress. 

A “how” person says: ‘ok Lord… you’re right, I haven’t gone all in.  How can I make that simple command more visible in my life?  What’s the next step?”

A “how” person says ‘Lord, it’s hard… I barely know my neighbours… in fact, there are people I worship with each week and I don’t even know their names, and this is a pretty small church!  And Lord, I don’t feel like I have much time or energy… but you say I need to love my neighbour as myself, and I don’t, so how I can I do that better?  What’s the next step?”

Our homework: some practical obedience!

Friends, put that to the test this week.  I will too.
Take your bulletin home, and each day, recite that summary of the law that Jesus gave us, found on the front of your bulletin. 

And catch yourself… because, like the lawyer in the Gospel, your mind will naturally go to why you’re not called to do more, why this isn’t asking anything of you.

But switch, consciously, intentionally, from “why” to “how”.  Each day, read it, and then pray: Lord, this is your command.  How do I make this more visible in my life?  What’s the next step?

That’s the sort of obedience to God’s Law that changes a life; that changes a church; that changes a community.

Because, when we offer something to God – especially when we offer it off the top and out of our poverty, rather than offering God what is left over, He takes it and blesses it and opens the windows of heaven to multiply it.

It’s like the person who tithes of their money before all else.  Anyone’s rational mind can explain why it makes more sense that you should pay your power bill and pay for the repairs on your car before you give money to the Lord… but anyone who has ever tithed knows that by trusting God and saying “Lord, show me how”, you end up with more than you could have asked for or imagined.

So go all in.  Ask God how that should look, for you to love Him first and fully, and to really have agape, sacrificial love for your neighbours – and, lets start that close to home, right here, with getting to know your church family better, taking someone out for coffee, inviting someone over for tea, meeting up for lunch – like tithing, you offer the time and energy in obedience off the top, and God will give it back multiplied.

This is the law of God.  It is amazingly simple. It is wonderfully straightforward.  But it is also breathtakingly difficult to put into practice.

Say it with me.  Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ says. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it; You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

Now… will you start to explain why… or will you ask God to show you how?

To God be the glory, now and forevermore.  Amen.

The dangerous lie of self-reliance

August 1, 2021 — Leave a comment

We live in a world based on personal choices.  Our society is based on the freedom to choose: we can decide what we want to be when we grow up, and work towards it; we can choose who we want to marry; more than ever before, we can choose where we want to live, as families are spread out across the world; we can choose our leaders at the ballot box; we can choose which church we attend, or not to attend at all.  Modern society is founded on the idea of choice.  Even when it comes to controversial topics, the virtue we hear spread far and wide is the ‘virtue’ of minding your own business.

Now don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot of benefits that come from our freedom to make decisions.  As Kristina and I celebrate 10 years of marriage this week, I’m reminded that even 60 years ago, our marriage would have been practically impossible: she was raised a Roman Catholic, and I’m an Anglican; it’s not that long ago in Newfoundland that the idea of ‘intermarriage’ would have been completely unthinkable.  Or, even my freedom to answer God’s call to ministry: it wasn’t that long ago that the son of a fisherman simply couldn’t choose to attend university, let alone find himself kneeling before a bishop to present himself for ordination.  There’s a lot of good that comes with the ability to choose.

But there’s a flipside to that, one that we rarely think about.

As “mind your business” has been drilled into us by the world, we’ve learned along the way that my life is my business.  We’ve learned that, just as we’re free to make choices, we’re supposed to depend on ourselves to carry them out.  And, when things don’t work out, what are we taught to do?  Forge ahead, making lemonade out of lemons.

The flipside of the freedom to choose is the lie that life is meant to be every person for themselves.

Building one another up.

One of the most radical – and, sadly, under-emphasized – ideas of Christianity is that it’s not each to his own, come hell or high water.  The radical truth that we proclaim is that your efforts won’t secure your success; that it isn’t up to us to pull ourselves up and dust ourselves off; that the most important choice we can make is to surrender our supposed freedom to the Lord and accept the shared life of the Body of Christ.

But it’s a hard lesson, isn’t it? The best choice we can ever make is to stop relying on ourselves alone.

This lie of self-reliance, the flip-side of everyone having to mind their own business, is truly heartbreaking.  If our eyes are open, we see the effects even here in our little church.

Every week… no, closer to every day that I walk around town ‘in uniform’, I run into hurting people who come straight out and say “oh, you’re the minister?  I can’t come to church until I get my life back together”, or, “you wouldn’t want someone like me in your church”.

It’s gut-wrenching.  There’s all sorts of explanations, but a big part of it is the lie that we have to put ourselves back together.  It’s the downside of a world that tells us to “mind your own business”.

Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself: what’s the instinct when you’ve had a bad week, when something embarrassing or sensitive has happened, or when word gets out that your marriage is in a rough place, or money is too tight, or you had too much to drink and made a fool of yourself, or it turns out that your child isn’t a model of good character?  Our instinct – taught over and over again by a society built on self-sufficiency – is to hide away.

At those very moments when God has provided the Church, the Body of Christ, and instructed us very plainly that we are to carry one another’s burdens, not just to rejoice with those who rejoice, but to weep with those who are hurting and, when someone finds themselves beat up and lying in the ditch of life, to bind them up and nurse them back to health. The twin lies of minding your own business and relying on no one but yourself lead us to reject the fellowship and ministry of the Church… at least, we say, until we straighten ourselves out first.

As we read this morning in Ephesians, the message of the Gospel is the exact opposite, almost uncomfortably so.

“walk… with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” (It’s as if Paul knows it’s going to be messy!)  “… There is one body and one Spirit…” and the work of the ministry that we offer to each other isn’t from a place of ‘having it all together’.  No, what does Paul write?  He says that on our own, we’re immature, “tossed two and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” and by craftiness and deceit.[1] 

On the one hand: ouch!  That’s pretty harsh, especially as those raised to fend for ourselves: Paul says we’re immature and easily tossed around.  But if we can get away from that lie of self-reliance, we’ll find that the message of the Gospel, that God’s plan, is for us to be knit together, a family where every person – broken though we may be – has a place and the opportunity to both build one-another up and to be built up by the ministry of God through others.

Just look at that last line from today’s epistle: “when each part is working properly” – joined to Christ, the head – it “makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love”.

Do we build ourselves up?  Do we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps?  Does the person lying beaten in the ditch have to clean himself up first and take a shower before the Samaritan can bring him to hospital?  Does the family carrying the burdens of life need to get their act together before they come to  my office?  Does the drunk on the bench at the four-way need to get sober before she’s welcome at a recovery meeting?  No!

Sure, it’s insulting, but Paul’s pretty clear: you can’t build yourself up, you’ll only be tossed about and blown around by lies.  What we need is to come together, all of us as imperfect followers of Jesus, and the result is that we’ll all be built up together, better than we could ever be alone.

It takes that harsh realization that yes, all I once held dear, and everything I’ve tried, everything I’ve built my life upon, at worst it backfired; at best, it’s going to be worthless because I can’t take it with me.  It takes the bold move to go against everything the world teaches, and instead of putting on a brave face and listing the things that make you a “good person”, admitting that the greatest thing you can do is make the choice to surrender, to proclaim not yourself – successes and failures – but proclaim the love of Jesus, and to say together with all the Body that Christ alone is the sure foundation, our only strength and stay amid the waves and winds of life.

Just imagine if word got out that the Church was the place to go when life is rough, not the place to hide away from until you get your life together or make yourself “good enough”.  Just imagine if word got out that the Church was a hospital for sinners, where our business isn’t “minding your business”, but carrying one another, lifting one another up, working together as apprentices of Jesus our Master, as we are built up together.

It’s a choice.

As great as it is to live in a world of choices, a world where we can choose to be what we want to be, it means we have to be honest about the shocking message of the Gospel. 

More than ever before, we’re told to seek what makes us happy; we’re told to find fulfilment and to find our purpose; to be mindful and seek our well-being, to satisfy that inner hunger.  We’re not unlike that crowd in the Gospel, who had their bellies filled with loaves and fishes, so they showed up the next day looking to get their bellies filled again.[2]

But the choice of turning to Jesus, the choice of coming into the embrace of the Church isn’t one of choosing what fills you up or makes you feel good.  It’s the stunning act of saying “yes, I’m free to choose; I’m free to go it alone.  But, I choose to come as I am – not as I hope to be, I choose to surrender, I choose to give up chasing what fills me up or makes me happy, and instead I offer myself as a servant, to begin the work of being built up by the Body of Christ, as I also let myself be used by Christ to build up others.

That’s the key to growing into maturity as followers of Jesus, of becoming all that God wants us to be to do the work he has given us to do.  And, in a world of choices, yes it starts with a choice: the earth-shattering, life-changing choice to stop going it alone, to admit that, yes, as harsh as it sounds, left to my own devices, I will be blown around by the lies of the world, so I choose the sure foundation that is faith in Jesus.

Relying on ourselves and following our bellies will leave us tossed about and empty.  But whoever turns to Jesus will never hunger or thirst, and will find themselves built into something greater than we could ever ask or imagine. To God be the glory. Amen.

[1] Ephesians 4:1-16

[2] Luke 6:24-35