GOD’S ETERNAL LOVE

The Memorial Service of Sue Chermside

May 13, 2005

R. Charles Grant, D.Min.

Bon Air Presbyterian Church - Richmond, Virginia

Texts:  Romans 12:3-8  Matthew 22:36-40

Romans 12:3-8

³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Matthew 22:36-40

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷He said to him, “‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

            These two texts were given to me by Sue, in her instructions and requests for this memorial service.  First of all, I would suggest that it is a mere coincidence that after living with her lawyer husband Herbert for 68 years, she chose a gospel text in which the antagonist of Jesus is a lawyer!  These two texts – one from Paul’s greatest work, the letter to the Romans, and a brief quotation of a saying from the lips of Jesus – are key texts in the NT and expressive of the heart of the faith of the church.  These two texts also are expressive of the faith lived by Sue Chermside.  Let us hear what God’s word - and Sue Chermside -  would say to us today:

            As happens so often in the gospels, an antagonist comes to Jesus and demands of him “Which commandment is the greatest of all?”  What he really is asking is “What is your summary of our religious obligation?  What does God demand of us?  What is faith?”  Jesus replies by quoting the OT faith of Israel:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, AND, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

            Love of God and love of neighbor cannot be separated.  Faith in God and faith in your neighbor cannot be separated. For if you don’t believe in your neighbor, if you don’t believe your neighbor is also a child of God, how can you possibly LOVE your neighbor?  Faith in the God of Israel, faith in Jesus Christ, is a faith that is God centered and neighbor directed.  Religious faith always has a personal, spiritual side – faith is about your personal, even private relationship with God.  And faith has a moral dimension as well – how you treat your neighbor.  From the perspective of Jesus, the spiritual and the moral dimensions cannot be separated because they are one and the same.  You cannot claim to love God if you do not also love your neighbor.  And your love of neighbor, however sincere, lacks a lasting compass pointing to the true north of truth, if that neighborly love is not grounded and shaped and directed by Godly love. 

            Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  Paul said, “don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.”  And both are saying the same thing.  For at the root of both Jesus and Paul is the recognition that God is God and human beings are NOT God.  Just like our neighbors, we live and love because God first loves us.  God loves us – and all of God’s children – with the same open, unqualified, gracious love.  God loves the rascal and the righteous, the saint and the sinner all just the same.  And calls US to love one another even as God loves us:  with acceptance and respect, with appreciation for each person’s special gifts, with humble gratitude for one’s own particular gifts and blessings.

            God loves us and calls us to love without limits. Without the limits of our abilities, without the constraints of time and place.  God’s love for us lasts forever and cannot be broken.  As Paul wrote elsewhere in Romans, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus the Lord.”  Neither adversity nor sickness.  Nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from God and God’s love. Not even death.  Our love for God and neighbor, for sisters and brothers, for our mates and our children and our parents endures forever – as part of God’s unending eternal love for us.

            Our beloved sister Sue took comfort in these words, in this love, in this faith.  Now, so also may you.  And by God’s grace, “May you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”  AMEN.