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Which Side of the Aisle? 10.25.26 · St. Paul Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone and welcome to the St.
0:08
SPEAKER_02: Paul Podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_02: My name is Mark Needhammer, Senior Pastor at St.
0:11
SPEAKER_02: Paul Lutheran Church, located in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Greater Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: Right here, each week, you will find beautiful music and a message of hope and good news to guide your life.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm hopeful that this podcast can inspire you and help you on your journey of faith as you grow in love and trust in our God.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: I will love you the Lord with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strain.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: These Pharisees approach Jesus and they ask, which commandment in the law is the greatest?
4:12
SPEAKER_02: Now, for us in this day and age, the question isn't about which is the greatest, it's more along the lines of, what do I have to do?
4:20
SPEAKER_02: What do I have to do to earn God's love?
4:22
SPEAKER_02: Or what do I have to do to earn salvation?
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: The urge for generations is about what our faith is supposed to accomplish.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: Now in this reading, Jesus' response is fascinating.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: He answers the question plainly, but he also invites those around him to an even deeper question.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: So here's the reading from Matthew's gospel.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?
5:03
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: This is the greatest and first commandment.
5:12
SPEAKER_02: And the second is like it.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: On these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question What do you think of the Messiah?
5:29
SPEAKER_02: Whose son is he?
5:32
SPEAKER_02: They said to him, the son of David.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: He said to them, How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord?
5:40
SPEAKER_02: saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.
5:48
SPEAKER_02: If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?
5:54
SPEAKER_02: No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: Which commandment is the greatest?
6:06
SPEAKER_02: What must we do with these lives that were given?
6:10
SPEAKER_02: Both are good questions, but there's also something deeper.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: So let's dive into this sermon on Reformation Weekend about sorting, belonging, and something called a happy exchange.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Oh, people of God, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: What's not to love about going to a good wedding?
6:40
SPEAKER_02: People get all dressed up in their fanciest clothes, families come together to celebrate.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: Friends from different eras of life are all together, and it's both weird and awesome at the same time.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: Weddings themselves are nice.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: There's beautiful vows.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: There's, I'm sure, a good sermon.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: I guess maybe I care about that a little more.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: There's the first kiss, which brings a smile to people's faces.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, at a reception, there's often dancing and chicken or salmon, of course.
7:13
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, the best part is cake.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: We go to weddings for cake.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: Just me, that's fine.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: But there's a moment at every wedding that tells the truth about each person who's there.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: So you walk into the venue, you have your congratulatory card in hand, you have your wedding, your marriage advice ready to go, so when you can talk to the couple, and almost right away an usher leans in and asks the question, Who are you here for?
7:43
SPEAKER_02: And you know the answer.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: You don't even really have to think about it.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: You likely already know which side of the aisle you belong on.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: And then at the reception, of course, everyone crowds around that table of little place cards, finding their name, and then they go to the map to figure out which table they get to sit at.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: Family up front near the couple, of course.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: The coworker that no one really likes, but you had to invite anyway, there by the kitchen door.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: There's too many laughing people at that one.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: Then, of course, there's the kids' table, which is either the best seat in the house or a deep personal insult.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: I will let you all kind of figure that one out for yourselves.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: But really, you find your name and you find out where you belong.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: Now, this isn't just at weddings.
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SPEAKER_02: We really never stop trying to figure out where and to whom we belong.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: Some of you, before I had even unpacked a box upon moving to Iowa, asked whether I would be cheering for the Hawkeyes or the Cyclones.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: This is a big deal.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: I think either answer would have been fine, anything but Nebraska, and we're okay.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: But it's an oddly human thing to want to know which side of the aisle everybody sits on.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: And I think we all still want everybody to know where we sit as well.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: This time of year it hits a little harder, maybe too hard.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: Campaign signs go up in yards, stickers go on bumpers.
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SPEAKER_02: We put out signs that tell the whole neighborhood who we belong to.
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SPEAKER_02: And then we drive past everyone else's signs and decide that we know a whole lot about the people that live in that house.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: Forgetting, of course, to remember that people are often a bit more complicated than we want to give them credit for.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: But before we start sorting anyone else, the question always comes back around to us.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: To whom do you belong?
9:55
SPEAKER_02: Now, in this reading from Matthew's gospel, Jesus walks us right into the heart of that very question.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: To whom do you belong?
10:03
SPEAKER_02: The Pharisees had just heard that Jesus silenced another group of leaders.
10:09
SPEAKER_02: So these Pharisees gathered together and they send one of their own.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: They send a scholar of the scripture or an expert in the law, as our reading said.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: And they do this to test Jesus.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: And the question is, teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?
10:25
SPEAKER_02: Now Jesus' response is beautiful because he doesn't do anything new.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: He quotes something called the Shema, which is in Deuteronomy.
10:35
SPEAKER_02: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: This, Jesus says, is the greatest and first commandment.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: And then he adds, a second is like it.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: On these two commandments, Jesus says, hang all of the law and the prophets, which means the whole Torah or what we might call the Old Testament.
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SPEAKER_02: The Shema, this line that he quotes, wasn't just a nice line that most people happen to know either.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: It's not something you embroidered on a pillowcase or got tattooed on your forearm.
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SPEAKER_02: Everyone knew this verse, and everyone there says it out loud, everyone there said it out loud twice a day.
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SPEAKER_02: This is part of living out one's Jewish faith.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: You recite the Shema twice daily.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: And the Shema itself is at the same time a pledge and a confession of belonging.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: So Jesus answers this question with the pledge that they had all made at least once that day already.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: He might as well have asked them to whom do you belong?
11:47
SPEAKER_02: And this is a great question for the Pharisees, certainly.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: But it's a great question for us as well, for you and me.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Do you belong to a team or a party?
11:59
SPEAKER_02: Are you captive to your money, your calendar, your reputation?
12:05
SPEAKER_02: To whom do you belong?
12:08
SPEAKER_02: As I mentioned a moment ago, it's Reformation Sunday, so here's a line from Martin Luther who kicked off that whole movement that speaks to this question about belonging.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: He writes in his large catechism, which is a beautiful teaching book for households, he says, whatever your heart clings to and relies on, that is really your God.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Whatever your heart clings to and relies on, that is your God.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: When thinking about our belonging or even our priorities, I go to uh I like to go to what I call the cell phone question.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: So you wake up first thing in the morning and you grab your phone.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: What's the first thing that you do?
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SPEAKER_02: Do you check your bank account first to see if it's high enough or if there's enough for the needs of today?
13:02
SPEAKER_02: Do you check the score of the game you didn't stay up late enough to finish because you're old?
13:06
SPEAKER_02: That's me.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: Do you check social media to see how your posts are doing?
13:12
SPEAKER_02: Where does your heart go first?
13:15
SPEAKER_02: Or to maybe go a little dark.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: What are you most afraid of losing?
13:21
SPEAKER_02: When the night is long and you can't sleep, what do you reach for to feel safe?
13:28
SPEAKER_02: Those answers tell the truth about us.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: Whatever we cling to there, that's what we've pledged our lives to.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: Whether we meant to or not.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: Most of us actually have pledged ourselves to a whole lot of things.
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SPEAKER_02: A little of our heart here, a little of our heart there.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: Divided loyalties really mark most of our beings.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: And here's the problem: it would be very easy to hear all of this in light of what Jesus is saying to us, and then decide the answer is simply to try harder.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: To say a quick prayer before you check your bank account.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's a good idea anyway, I'm not sure.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: But the trouble is not that life is complicated and we need to choose more carefully.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: The troubles is the heart itself.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: Martin Luther said that the human heart is curved in on itself, which sounds kind of scary in a way, but there's something tender in that image because it's not describing us and our sinful nature as villainous.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: Luther's describing someone hunched over, holding tight to what they're afraid to lose.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: Even when we love, even when we love well, that love has a way of bending back towards ourselves, toward whatever keeps us safe and comfortable and on the right side.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: So when Jesus says to love God with your whole heart, and or your with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, it's that little word all that catches us off guard.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Not most of our heart.
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SPEAKER_02: Or the the part that is best of us.
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SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's our Sunday best, I'm not sure.
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SPEAKER_02: He demands all of it.
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SPEAKER_02: And the honest truth here though is that we cannot.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: The Pharisees couldn't do it, the disciples couldn't do it, not one of us in this space has loved God with an undivided heart for a single day of our entire lives.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: But that's what this commandment does to us.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: It holds up a mirror, and the mirror reveals something that I'm not sure all of us really want to see.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: But the commandment still matters.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: Jesus said all of Scripture hangs on these two commandments, and he meant it.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: God is not going to lower the bar, and I'm not going to lower the bar for you today either.
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SPEAKER_02: Because someone did meet it.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: That was Jesus himself.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus loved God with all of his heart, not as an example for you to copy, because you can't.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: Jesus did this as a gift for you to receive.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: Jesus loved God with his whole heart, and he did it for you and in your place.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: He loved his neighbors and you all the way to the cross.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: On a hill outside Jerusalem, Jesus hung on that cross carrying every way that we have ever failed to love God and neighbor.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: And then, as Luther and a whole host of other wonderful theologians have said, something called a joyful or happy exchange took place.
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SPEAKER_02: Christ took our divided and curved in hearts with all of their wandering, and he gives us, gives you his heart.
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SPEAKER_02: Our sin becomes his, his faithfulness becomes ours.
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SPEAKER_02: Which is then to say that our salvation, which is what this is, does not rest on you keeping these commandments.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: It rests on Jesus.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: And it's not one you have to get right.
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SPEAKER_02: You belong to our God, the maker of heaven and earth, our God who put on flesh and bone in Jesus, who lived and loved, died and rose.
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SPEAKER_02: And God's already chosen you.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: You as flawed as you might be, you who can't fully love your neighbors the way God commands, you with the past you bring, the sins you've committed, the relationships that have failed, the forgiveness hoarded, you are a child of God, holy and dearly beloved, forever.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: Not until you pick the wrong team, or your heart wanders off to your phone tomorrow morning, forever.
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SPEAKER_02: Our allegiance wavers to the gods don't.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: So let's go back to that wedding for just a second.
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SPEAKER_02: We spend so much of our lives deciding who sits on which side of the aisle, reading yard signs and bumper stickers, separating ourselves from some notion of the other.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: But in just a minute, we're all gonna come forward to this meal of bread and wine, this holy communion, with God as our host.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: And you're not gonna be asked which side you sit on.
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SPEAKER_02: Your place card was written before you even walked through that door.
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SPEAKER_02: You didn't choose the seat.
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SPEAKER_02: Your place at this meal was given to you.
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SPEAKER_02: And the person with the other yard sign, their name's on a card too.
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SPEAKER_02: Same table, same host.
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SPEAKER_02: Hawkeyes and cyclones alike, even a line eye are welcome at the party.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: Everyone comes forward with you, together, beside you, holding out their hands, receiving the same bread given for you, given for them too.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: That's where loving your neighbor begins.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: Not with getting everything right, but with seeing that the seat next to you is given by the same grace as yours.
19:15
SPEAKER_02: So what do you do with this?
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SPEAKER_02: With the salvation, that love, that grace.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, you don't love God and neighbor to earn your seat.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: You love God and neighbor because you already have a seat.
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SPEAKER_02: Amen.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.
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SPEAKER_02: Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us, save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil, for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: This week you may realize that your lives are in fact divided in a million different ways.
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SPEAKER_02: But know that no matter where you find yourself, you are beloved and cared for by our God, and there's nothing you can do to separate yourself from that blessing.
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SPEAKER_02: You belong to God, and you always will.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: I hope you've enjoyed this podcast, and thanks for your support of the ministries of St.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: Paul Lutheran Church.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Our commitment to endeavors that lend hope to other people stretches across the country and around the world.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: We hope that in a good way you feel a part of that reach.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Tune in next Thursday for another edition of the St.
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SPEAKER_02: Paul Podcast.