"'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." These words ring with a comforting familiarity don’t they? It seems as though Jesus wants to end the inane questioning—he is the ultimate teacher. Here are your marching orders! Our text from Matthew’s gospel takes place on the Tuesday of Holy Week and is only a short part of various conversations that day that happen in the temple. Jesus has also been quizzed by the elders and the chief priests, the disciples of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The questioning is not hostile but, each time he has responded with an inspired, careful and clever answer. However, this time, the Pharisees are determined to silence Jesus, and an expert in law questions him about which is the greatest commandment. Jesus’ response is not controversial as he quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, which forms part of the Shema which is prayed by Jews twice a day. What is new is that Jesus adds Leviticus 19:18: love your neighbor as yourself.

Nathan started kindergarten in August. Logan, Nathan and I have all been excited about kindergarten starting this school year. Kindergarten is a big deal. For many children, including Nathan, kindergarten means going to a new school for a longer day. It means learning a lot of new things—reading, math, science, music, art—but it also means learning new rules. The gospel text for today is all about rules. And whether or not Jesus understood the significance of God’s rules. It’s hard to be bound by rules, and it seems to be even harder for us to discern which of God’s rules is the most significant or important. For kindergarteners new rules can be particularly challenging. When is it okay not to follow rules? No fighting, no biting is a pretty obvious rule to obey 100% of the time, but raising your hand every single time you want to ask a question might be a bit trickier. Walking in a straight line and following a line leader when you wanted to be the line leader might be tricky, too. Jesus’ interpretation of God’s law seems ridiculously obvious to us when we read the gospel text. Of course, the most important, the greatest law is to love God. Of course, the second greatest law is to love your neighbor as yourself. As 21^st century Christians, we can easily gloss over this text because it appears at first glance to be so simple. But believing that the gospel message is simple is never a good idea. The word for love used here in Matthew’s gospel is “agape” and not “phileo”. “Phileo” expresses affection, while “agape” expresses more than an emotion. “Agape” is not a passive word, it is instead an active response to God. Biblical love is something we “do”, offering kindness and mercy, and it is also offered generously and continuously. This kind of love that Jesus talks about is not an unsophisticated, simplistic idea of love. Jesus’ kind of love is multivalent with life changing implications.

Our gospel lesson is from the Revised Common Lectionary, and it could not be a more appropriate text for today as we continue our journey into stewardship season. This kind of love that we hear about in the gospel, this kind of love that Jesus challenges us to live out in our lives is the kind of love that calls us to service and support of those who need it the most. This way of loving God and of loving neighbor is powerful. And what better way to communicate the gospel message than by sharing a story. I want to share a powerful story from the October issue of our denominational magazine, Presbyterians Today. This edition celebrates stewardship related work among Presbyterians. The featured story, “Generous Living” focuses on the life and ministry of 90 year old retired Presbyterian pastor and missionary, Arch Taylor. As a boy, Arch Taylor watched his parents regularly donate 10 percent of their income to the church. When they gave him his allowance, they encouraged him to set aside a tithe for God. A lifetime and nearly a century later, he has put that early teaching into action. For Taylor, giving has become a way of life.

The phrase that best describes Taylor’s life comes from the family of his first wife, Margaret, who died in 1984. She and her two sisters took turns caring for their maternal grandfather. As Taylor tells the story, “One day Margaret was preparing lunch for [her grandfather] and he sat down and started eating. She said, ‘Grandfather Terry, aren’t you going to offer thanks?’ He said, ‘My dear, I live in a constant state of thankfulness.’”

Grandfather Terry’s response “has become a common saying in our family,” Taylor says. “I am happy to make that kind of witness when I talk to people.”

Taylor married Margaret Hopper during his final year of studies at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. “Margaret was a pioneer in the women’s movement, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, she taught Sunday school and played the organ,” he says. Had it been possible in those days for women to be ministers, she might have gone into the ministry herself, Taylor believes.

The Taylors wanted to be missionaries in China, but were told that before going overseas they needed local church experience. So Taylor became pastor of two churches in rural Tennessee.

Early on he felt it was important for the people in those churches to develop a tradition of regular giving. So he preached a series of sermons based on 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. “I was pastor there only a couple of years,” he recalls. “I don’t know what effect those sermons had on the people, but I can tell you that they affected me personally.”

After their time in Tennessee, the two began their mission service—not in China, as they had anticipated, but in Japan. Both taught at Shikoku Christian College for many years—she in the social welfare department, he in biblical studies.

“When Margaret died we’d been married 40 years,” Taylor recalls.

Through a series of events that were economically advantageous, Taylor found himself at retirement age not only with Social Security and a pension, but also with inherited assets, including a legacy from his father. “I didn’t earn any of it—they were just gifts to me,” he explains. When he realized that his Social Security and pension provided sufficient funds on which to live, he began to look for ways to give away the “extra.”

“As I was growing older and I had these assets and had made my will, I got to thinking, ‘Why am I holding on to these assets and paying income tax on them when my intention is really to give them away? Why not start doing it now?’”

So Taylor has been doing just that. When it came time to designate which charitable causes would receive gifts, the seminary and Presbyterian World Mission were obvious recipients.

“It’s not our money; it’s not their money; it’s the Lord’s money,” he says. “I believe in the Presbyterian Church and I want it to succeed and I want to support it in any way that I can.”

“Arch’s generous gifts have been used to support PC(USA) mission personnel in countries around the world,” says Hunter Farrell, director of Presbyterian World Mission. “Arch continues to help the church do what it does best: addressing the root causes of poverty, sharing God’s love in Christ and working for reconciliation.”

During the two years the Taylors spent in Louisville as Margaret struggled with cancer, she was active in the events of the Women’s Center at Louisville Seminary. So as a tribute to Margaret, this year Taylor’s giving includes a donation to the Women’s Center.

“My wife Margaret helped me to have an attitude adjustment,” laughs Taylor. “I was a good ol’ Southern boy, and she was always very forward-looking. She was very generous and patient with me, and God gave me the grace to listen and learn.”

Six years after Margaret died, Taylor married again. Wanda Myers had been a widow for 10 years, and neither of them was looking for another spouse. Even so, they were happy to find each other and were happily married for 16 years. When Wanda began showing signs of dementia, the two moved into a retirement home. She died in 2006.

“After Wanda died, I was able to make a contribution to the Healing Place in Louisville,” says Taylor. The couple had visited this treatment center for alcohol and drug addicts to learn more about its work. Wanda’s interest was personal: her second daughter had been killed by a drunk driver.

Anyone who spends time with Taylor comes away impressed by the generosity and thankfulness with which he views the world.

“I urge everybody to take out their Bibles and read 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 and reflect on them,” says Taylor, when asked what advice he might have for others as he looks back on his life and ministry. He points out that the two chapters end with the words “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.”

Many people take that to mean the gift of Jesus, who died on the cross for us, Taylor says, but he’d like to push that understanding a bit further.

“I think if you read those two chapters together, you see that it is God giving us the privilege to share in the work of God by our contributions and out of our resources.”

So, while many are holding on tightly to what they have, Taylor is looking for ways to use his assets for the work of God. His life insurance policy will ensure that his three sons also receive benefits. “They understand that my other assets are designated for these charitable causes,” says Taylor.

 “It has been a great blessing to me to share these good things that I didn’t really do anything to earn,” he adds. “I am very fortunate. I am able to share, and so I do.”

For me, the story of Arch Taylor is a wonderful example of our stewardship theme for this year: Blessed to be a Blessing. God calls each one of us to love God and to love neighbor. How are you living out that call? If you do love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, if you do love your neighbor as yourself, then I think you should be prepared to give to God of your resources. We give to God because what we have is a gift from God. It is not ours to hold onto and keep close. Those resources from God are meant to be shared with God’s people. When someone gives you a gift, you respond with a gift. We are called to love God, and we are called to love our neighbor. We are called to practice the ethic of reciprocity, the golden rule—to love our neighbor as ourselves. We do this by giving generously out of our great and wonderful love for God—not because we are told to give but because we are returning God’s gift to us. May you practice reciprocity in this season of stewardship, and remember Arch Taylor who said—it’s not our gift but God’s. Amen.

 ***************************************************************************************

 Bibliography

The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version.

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/8052/23oct2011.pdf

http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/today/october-2011-cover-story/