SPEAKER_02 0:00

Good day, and welcome to North Raleigh United Methodist Church behind the scenes podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss this week's scripture and sermon. My name is Kevin Van Hall. I serve as your host and moderator for the program. And joining me today is our what of one of our senior lead pastors here at North Raleigh, Kevin Johnson. Hi, Kevin.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hey.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

So last week, Kevin and Laura were both here on the show. It was a busy week last week. Holy week, in case you've missed it. I know you didn't. That's right. It was very busy. This Sunday was uh Easter Sunday. Beautiful services all around, full churches. Uh all of the services were full. I think uh the kids even had Easter egg hunts. It was a good time for everyone. And thank everyone for coming out. I hope you enjoyed it. Uh I enjoyed this the service, and uh it was on live stream. So if for some reason you'd missed it, on vacation, traveling, there's an opportunity for you to go back and view the services as well. So we're gonna go forward. The reason for this podcast is we sit down and can go into the depth a little bit more of what's coming up, and I get to ask a little bit of some questions, some inside questions to give you some thought. And this next series is going to be one of, I think, a lot of thought. We're starting a new series. Well, Kevin and Laura introducing a new series called I Love You But. And this series is going to go on for six weeks. So today, this coming Sunday being the first in that series of I Love You. And we're going to be in uh Matthew 22, talking about the greatest commandment. So that's where we are uh today. But before we get uh started, how about a word of prayer first?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you have risen and that you are with us. Um, and we pray for your guidance as we look into your word today. We also pray for um ears to hear what you would have us to hear and eyes to see, and that you might open us up to how you are calling us. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Amen. So I said we are in Matthew uh 22. So you heard plenty of Matthew, Mark, John, all of the gospel is here coming up on Holy Week. All about the triumphal entry, uh, Palm Sunday, the Last Supper and Easter. But we're going to go backwards just a little bit before then, not too much farther, but a little bit before then. And we're at a point in the Gospel where Jesus is coming in to well, enter Jerusalem, and he's getting questioned. He's preaching, and he's getting questioned by the Pharisees daily, and they're trying to trap him, are they not, Kevin?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Why? Why are they trying to trap Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Well, um, honestly, so that they can bring a case against him and kill him. I mean, that's really their hope is to take him out so that he stops garnering a following. And frankly, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and whatever political Jewish leaders, you know, they had a pretty good thing going where they were. And so they really did not want it to change. And they saw kind of the revolutionary tendencies of Jesus, both in his teaching and then also in this kind of ragtag bunch of followers with him, and they they wanted him gone. And so they they were really seeing, I think, if they could bring up charges of heresy against him. That's why they keep the other their questions are always gearing at trying to get Jesus to say something that they can prove is heretical. It's why on you know, in his trial, right, they're trying to, well, he said he was God's son, or he, you know, they're they were trying to use some hold on to something that he would have said and kind of from their view incriminated himself.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Well, obviously they view him as a threat. He's gained a huge following with all of his teachings and all of the miracles and signs, things he's been performing up to this point. Um they're trying to catch him, like you said, in a way that might turn the people against him. I don't think they succeeded until uh actually they get uh Judas's to betray him and basically false charges. But we are before that point. We are in Matthew 22, and we're going to be talking about uh verses 34 through 40, and Kevin's gonna read for us.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had left the Sadducees speechless, they met together. One of them, a legal expert, tested him. Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law? He replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it you must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the law and the prophets depend on these two commands.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Well, excellent. So they're trying to trap him. And I like how they, in your version, they say they tested him. As if, let's see what kind of answer he gives. He gives quite a very prophetic answer. Max in uh Mark's gospel, it goes on so well, they're so impressed that at the end of they stop questioning him. They stop testing, they obviously come to the conclusion that they cannot trap him. So, what does it mean when it says this is the greatest commandment? As in the first, as in, are they weighted more one important than the other of the ten?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

So I think well, what's interesting, right, is that Jesus here quotes Deuteronomy in that first one. You must love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. That it's sometimes they don't say strength. That's this one says, you know, my my version instead of the word soul says being, which is a really um, it's a nice translation of the Hebrew word nepesh, uh, which often means soul, but it really means kind of our whole being or ground of being. So it's not just describing this kind of spiritual part of ourselves. Um and so I kind of like the description of being in there. But we've got to think, you know, there's what 613 or 616 laws in the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

I was gonna say you meant to Deuteronomy.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

I was gonna say so so he's trying, I mean, they're trying to get him there, they want to catch Jesus on technicality here, right? But what Jesus does is opens with what they call the Shema, right? That and so in Mark, we actually have, you know, Hero Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord alone is one. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the whole of the Shema in Deuteronomy. The Shema is the prayer that a Jew would have prayed multiple times per day, was the way they started every prayer time. Hero Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. It's called Shema, because that word here is Shema in Hebrew. So they would have launched in so Jesus saying that took away their it kind of put their guard down because they don't have any more, like they have no more ammo against him because he begins there. And essentially, you know, when we think about the Ten Commandments, we could basically break down, and we've probably talked of this before, but you can really break down the first four, or at least the first three, and then the last six, um, with a fourth as kind of a bridge, but you know, the first one being, you know, um, you know, honor the Lord your God, and the second being make no idols, right? Uh, and the third being Blasphemy.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Do not use the Lord's name in vain. Okay, don't use the Lord's name in vain. Where the fourth one is your is your bridge there. It's the Sabbath, right? Uh actually and honor your and then honor your mother and your father, and then and then the last ones are the sins against your neighbor.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Sure. So that you have, you know, don't kill, you know, don't kill false testimonies. Right. So so what we have essentially is that we already essentially have these two greatest commands uh in the Ten Commandments. It's either some are about loving God and some are about loving neighbor. And so what Jesus is doing, he's he's essentially summarizing it all and refusing their categorization that would say, well, pick out this one, right? Or pick up that one. Instead, Jesus is saying, no, let me tell you, like, this isn't as hard as we've made it, right? He it's not as hard to comprehend, so it's not as hard with our mind to understand, but it's harder with our hearts, right? So this is it almost ties back to earlier in Matthew when he says, Well, you've heard it said before, do not commit adultery. But I say to you, he who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery, right? You've heard it said, don't murder. I say to you, whoever calls a brother, you fool.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Or hate within your heart, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

All right, so so so it's not Jesus saying, I'm so tired of you trying to catch me on technicalities, and that this life of discipleship, this life of living in God's um good world into living in God's kingdom as Jesus talks about it. It's not about knowing all the right stuff, it's about embodying it, and it's about how you live. And that dang that way is hard, right? But it's not hard to understand, you know. That's why he says, be like a little child, like just come and do it, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Right. Well, like you said, he's all of these uh can be summed up into these. So it's almost more of a uh summation, like you said, simplifying it versus a single greatest commandment. He said he didn't come to uh abolish any of the laws. So he tells us, but first, just like in the first commandments, you have to start off with God who started and built and did everything, and then your neighbor as yourself. How do you love your neighbor as yourself? Are we supposed to love ourselves? I thought we weren't supposed to be prideful and arrogant. I thought we were supposed to be humble. What is Jesus seeing really saying here when he says, love your neighbor as yourself? I understand love your neighbor and love yourself as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

So I think that we for a long term for a long time in Christianity dropped off those words as yourself. Right? So how I learned it, gosh, in Sunday school was Jesus others you was the order of operations. It's always Jesus first, then other people, and then yourself, right? Um you could go point back to the monastic and the ascetic traditions, right? Where it's like you put yourself, I'm the lowest of the low, I give up everything. This is you know, this is kind of some of the themes of Lent that come out and everything like that, is make my life kind of miserable to prove myself to you somehow, God and faithfulness, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Or or humbly servant. You're supposed to be a humble servant.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Sure. I think the thing is is that there's a way to love oneself and to honor who God has made me to be. That is not arrogant, right? And and and and I think the reality is that if I don't love myself and honor who God has made me to be, then I can't love my neighbor very well. Then I can't love the people around me if I'm constantly wallowing in self-pity, if I am constantly beating myself up, I can't very well then look out and care about the people around me. Um, I think I even think about Jesus' example. Yes, Jesus kind of had hints of the kind of ascetic lifestyle, but Jesus also like seemed to enjoy a party with his friends, right? He seemed to and and I think that's what bothered the Pharisees so much sometimes is that they they were maybe living more ascetically than him, and by and by that I mean kind of the the the monkish type of life or the I don't do all of these things and I only do these things. And instead, Jesus is there enjoying himself with his friends, not doing anything sinful, but they were so caught up in the uh minute details of the law that then they they they you know they they just lost the heart of it completely. And so I do think this idea of loving our neighbor as ourselves means that we do there's a responsibility um you know we call it today in 2026 self-care, right? We would talk about how are you making sure you take time for you and caring about who God has made you to be. Um I think the practice of Sabbath, as much as it's honoring to God, is also honoring to self. So, you know, in Egypt they made bricks ten days a week. It was a 10 it was a 10 week, 10 day week. 10 day week. 10 day week, no days off. The day started again after 10 days. And in Deuteronomy, when the commandment for Sabbath gets repeated, it's on that day you shall do no work. Because you were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord God brought you out of that, and so you don't have to live like that anymore. You know how many of us are a slave, if I could show you my cell phone in my hand, right? How many of us are a slave to this little box, right? This this little box that shows me lights and stuff and tells me all the information I need in the world, but also dings at me and tells me what I have to do, as opposed to being free from that and having the opportunity to commune with God, right? So so part of it is that when we are actually following the commands to love God and draw ourselves closer to God, in that we end up loving ourselves too, and it's good for us, and then we're able to love others with a greater love. When we can have compassion with ourselves, then I can start to see others and say, you know what, man, they got some struggles too. And they're mine looks like this, theirs looks like that, you know. So I I recently did the Enneagram study here at church back in in a couple months ago. And anytime I do a study where I start to realize, oh, like we've all got our own stuff that we're carrying, we all have our own issues, and different people think about those things differently. Like some people don't have the same struggles that I have internally, lots of people don't, right? And there's some people who do, they they they they know exactly the kind of vibe that I've got going on, the type of things I'm I'm dealing with, but there's a lot of other types out there, and um and when I'm able to understand myself, care for myself and have compassion on that part of me, I'm also better able to understand the other people around me. So I think that's a a means towards how it works.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

I I I understand that I yeah, kind of get that, you know, understand that God created you, God doesn't create bad things. Um, so if you want, if you love others and they love you, you can love yourself. There's no reason why you can't be loved as well. Love yourself. Yeah. Uh it doesn't need to exalt yourself. No, no, no. There's a difference between love and yourself.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, I would also I I really like this phrase that's in it's been in kind of therapeutic circles the last couple of years, or probably more than that, but but it's a really good practice that has made itself real in spiritual direction and and kind of Christian circles, is that of self-compassion. So rather than beating myself up, which is not helpful, right, I can have compassion. And then I'm able to move forward. Then I'm able to grow. Then I'm able to know I shouldn't respond, you know, um, in that way that I usually do, or that I I have a tendency towards, right? And instead I can have compassion on that part of myself, recognize I want to do something different next time and grow from it.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yeah, yeah. So you don't want to be treated badly. Treat do you love yourself? You don't want to be treated badly. Just the goal that goes back to the golden rule. So don't treat other people.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Sure. And the golden rule, right, is from Jesus, right? It's not it's not some like it's not something out there from like Confucius, say, or whatever like that. No, like Jesus said it. And and and there's it it fits completely in line with you know who like you said, it's it's based kind of in the image of God, who God has made us to be. And so, um, yeah, so so we're able to love our neighbors then when we love ourselves. It's it's a weird for those of us who grew up in the my needs are last. You know, maybe we learn that through church. Maybe we learn that uh because we grew up in a misogynistic world and we're women and we had a very tough, like basically it was I always put myself under everyone, right? And everyone else's needs before mine, like frankly, like most mothers do, right? So, like so it's kind of relearning and retooling that so that um I can also have compassion on myself and and therefore I'm able to love others better.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Well, so we use the word others quite a bit here. Gold rule, others love others, but the actual word is neighbor. Am I reading too much into that? I've heard it before. Some people sometimes the far right want to use this as, well, that means other Christians, just like some people would have read the Old Testament of my neighbor being other Jews, but not necessarily, so my neighbor is the person that believes like I believe. Is that should we read it that way? What does he Jesus say or mean when he says neighbor versus just others?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Well, I mean, I think we could take, you know, when Jesus answers the question, I there's another time where he gets asked, well, who's my neighbor? After he answered this question, right? And he launches into the story about the good Samaritan, right? And at that time, the Samaritan wouldn't have been any Jews' next-door neighbor, right? But it was their neighboring nation, right? It was the neighboring people group, it was a neighboring viewpoint, the Samaritans really being essentially a really, you know, in Harry Potter language, it'd be like half-bloods or something like that. They were Jews, but not all the way, and it's from back in history and stuff like that. And we we don't need to get into that. But but that's who ends up being the good guy in the story, right? And and who's the bad guy in the story? Well, it's the priest, it's the Levite, it's it's it's the it's the people who are supposed to be the good guys. They end up walking on the other side of the street, and it's the Samaritan who takes care of them. And and so I think for Jesus, neighbor neighbor doesn't have uh a geographical limit, nor does it have a religious belief limit. I think that's his point of using the Samaritan. Um, so so I think for Jesus, uh neighbor is anyone created in God's image. So that really stinks when we go forward in this passage, because or it's not in this passage in this series for the next six weeks, because we're gonna have to reckon with what it means that Jesus tells us to love all of our neighbors.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Uh we've heard it say to love your enemies, and we know that's hard. Um, and a lot of people would say it's not too hard to love my neighbor. But so Iranian our Iranian citizens are neighbors? For sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, that's what I mean that's what the passage says. When as soon as as soon as we make something to someone else to be an other who God does not love, then then we've then we've committed one of the great sins. And so as soon as we make as soon as we say that person must be outside of God's saving realm and outside of God's saving grace, well then we've that to me is like what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is. And we we're we're we're pushing someone outside of the bounds of who could be loved by God. That that's why Jesus brings in the Samaritan example. So we could take any example of someone who is quote unquote other in our life. For those who are listening who live through civil rights, that was African American folks who got put in that category. For those who were around in the 1920s, which probably Isn't anyone listening to the podcast right now? That was, you know, that was women's experience until suffrage and everything going on, right? Um in in today's world, that's become the immigrant among us, right? Could be folks who are LGBTQ. Uh all anyone who gets classified as other, and then we want to place outside of God's realm, or I want to kind of put exclusions, I love you, but therein lies the problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Well, we can remember the Pharisees. Jesus tried to explain, you are the experts in the law, but you're like whitewashed tombs. You might know it, but you don't practice it, and you don't showing it to other people. You're only using it against other people. He talks about the Pharisees laying the burden on people, literally kicking them out of the kingdom of God versus trying to bring them into the kingdom of God. That was uh, you don't remember, Jesus had a lot of love for everyone, all the sinners didn't have a whole lot of love for the Pharisees, and these were the supposedly religious, righteous that knew the law. So um there's it what happened 2,000 years ago is still happening today, I would I'd say unfortunately. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Well, and I think the problem for someone like myself, I mean, I'm I'm professionally religious, right? And so I wonder at times how much when I'm reading these texts, if I if if I don't ever view myself with the Pharisees and I'm always I'm always on the good guys' side, maybe I'm reading that text a little bit wrong too, right? So so so I think I have a responsibility about how I come and approach this. So so I mean it's it reads me just as much too, because how many how many times have I tried to how many times have I tried to pin Jesus down for something, right? How many and and so so it's not just a it's not just a a word to the people out there, it's a word to myself as well.

unknown 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Well, excellent uh points across uh the board. This is going to be a very interesting and very good, I would have to say, uh podcast going forward with this new series, I love you, but uh we'll continue with the butts being different areas. Um we talked about what's going to be coming up next week um because, like I said, who's your neighbor? Is it someone that just agrees with you or thinks like you, or is it everyone? Because there's people that disagree politically as well, and we're still supposed to love them.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

I would sure hope so.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

So that's going to be a very, very good uh series uh going forward. I hope you continue to uh listen and can come out for the sermon that's coming up. Uh Kevin will be preaching uh this Sunday. This Sunday is also a special Sunday for us as well. Kevin, what's going on this Sunday, especially in the 11 o'clock?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah, at the 11 o'clock service, we're going to be having confirmation for our confirmants. Um we got 10 sixth graders who've been, well, mostly sixth graders. We've got a seventh grade or a or a couple seventh graders and a freshmen who've been journeying through confirmation together. Two of them will be baptized during that service, but they'll be confirming their faith. And I think I think this reminder about loving God with everything and every uh with who they are, every part of who they are, and then also loving their neighbor as themselves is also a kind of a great start for them in this afterconfirmation journey of discipleship that they'll be on. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

So a little just expand on that just a little bit more for Aristotle that might not remember that confirmation process. It's it's we so often we get baptized as a baby. It's just more of an opportunity as an coming into adulthood to accept.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah. Really, so what within our tradition, since we do baptize babies, um, obviously a baby can't make a decision about following Jesus, right? We understand that. We baptize because we believe God's grace is poured out on that child before the child can do anything about it, and it gives the parents an opportunity to commit their lives in front of the church to following after Jesus and raising that child in the faith. So, really, confirmation is the back end of this baptismal journey that someone's on. Um, and confirmation is the opportunity for them to say, yes. We have a couple students in there who haven't been baptized yet. And so they'll get baptized that Sunday and then be confirmed right after that along with their whole class as well. So I like to think of the baptismal journey as something that involves our whole lives, but really it this moment from whether it's as an infant that someone's baptized all the way to this point of kind of confirmation and declaring the faith for themselves, that that's part of kind of a whole, a whole kind of beginning of their baptismal journey together. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

And this confirmation process isn't just all of a sudden someone raises their hand and says, I want to be confirmed. There's classes that are. Yeah, they've been in a class.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Yeah, yeah. So Jen Hazelden, our youth director, coordinates and leads a class that then all three of us, pastors and other staff, have also come and taught throughout the year, as well as they were on a tr a retreat about a month ago. Um, they uh and they they do a project as part of it. So each confirmant on Saturday evening will present a project to the rest of the confirmation class and to their and to their families and everything there, ranging from all sorts, you know, all sorts of different things. But like my daughter's is about different ways to pray, and that's what she's exploring in her confirmation project and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

So excellent. Outstanding. Well, if anybody out there has any questions about baptism or confirmation, please reach out, call the office, talk to uh Kevin or Laura or uh or Jen. So we're going to uh wrap up uh today's episode on uh Love You But and the sermon this Sunday being on that series I love you and on the uh greatest commandment. We've been the confirmations uh process as well to see the new confirms basically joining the church at that time to join the church. So hopefully if you can uh come out this Sunday. If not, uh we'll see you, or we won't see you. You'll go listen to us, hopefully, next week. So we're gonna sign off. So may the love of Christ be with you always. So goodbye, everyone.