Sunday Sermon Snippet Nov 16
“No man is an island…” John Donne
This week’s posting of the Sunday Sermon Snippet comes from Sunday’s sermon on Exodus 20:12-14; 18-21, entitled, “Love God? Now, Love Your Neighbor.”
In our series on The Ten, we’ve made it to the fifth, sixth, and seventh commandments. Critical to understanding this portion of The Ten is to understand that the decisions we make in our lives do not merely shape our own journey, but those on the same path around us. We live in interconnected webs of relationships and humanity.
See the sermon snippet below where I set the table for how this determines our understanding and application of The Ten, with Jesus himself as our guide.
And if you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
No Human Is An Island
In 1624, while gravely ill with a fever and near death, daily hearing church bells tolling for the dead and dying, author and poet John Donne wrote a series of meditations. Included in Meditation 17 are these lines:
“No man is an island, entire of it self;
every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main;
if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a Promontory were,
as well as if a Manor of thy friends
or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankind;
And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
Donne’s words are an important reminder to fiercely independent Americans, who are prone to self-reliance as well as self-centeredness. We have within us this dangerous idea that we can do what we want because what matters is what’s best for us, as if those decisions have no consequences for our friends, families, communities, or nation. “I’m my own person” is our mantra and rallying cry.
But Donne’s fragile state produced an unassailable epiphany — we’re not our own persons. No one is an island, entire of it self. Every person is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. In other words, he is struck by the interconnectedness of humanity, rejecting false notions of independence in an overwhelming realization that we depend upon one another, each person a piece of the whole.
Further, he’s discovered the importance of each person to that whole — even “if a clod,” the smallest clump of the continent possible, be “washed away by the Sea,” the whole continent is truly the lesser for it. And so, humanity, each one made in God’s image — when one’s removed from our community, pushed or cast aside — we are the lesser.
And he’s overcome by our mortality — realizing “any man’s death diminishes me,” diminishes us all, because we’re all a part of mankind, the bell tolling not merely for the dead, but for the listener, waking us up to our shared bond of life, reminding us that the same fate awaits us all.
Donne’s meditations are a cold splash of water in the face of our supposed independence meant to awaken us. He soundly rebukes notions of isolation, in favor of the reality of our communal bonds. His suffering, as suffering can often do, has lead him to a discovery of how the Creator has, in fact, wired the world. Namely, he has always meant for us to operate within a social fabric where each person is aware of their actions and behaviors contributing to the health and strength of the family and wider community of which they are a part. No person an island.
And so it should come as no surprise, that when the Creator, Yahweh, would communicate some of the most important guidelines — his Law — to those he had created, that after commands concerning our relationship to himself, he would provide commands concerning our relationship to others.
Most of us will recall how Jesus summed Yahweh’s law when asked by a religious expert, “Teacher, which command in God’s law is the most important?”
‘You must love Yahweh your God’, replied Jesus, ‘with all your heart, with all your life, and with all your mind. This is the first commandment, and it’s the one that really matters. The second is similar, and it’s this: You must love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law hangs on these two commandments — and that goes for the prophets, too.’ (Mt22:34ff)
This is really important, and will guide the remainder of our study in The Ten, as we cover commandments five through ten over the next two sermons. Because we’re going to seek help from Jesus for how to interpret and understand the extent of these commands. For who better to look to than the Son of God in order to understand the law of God? Jesus cared deeply about Yahweh’s instructions. It’s why, when he came as God’s prophet, like Moses, he too went up on a mountain; he too provided guidelines, the law of Messiah, by which we are to live. We see the core of it in his sermon on the mount. But he didn’t recreate the wheel, seen in his response to the legal expert.
He summarized it. You heard that a minute ago: “Love God; and then, love your neighbor.”
You See, he showed us how to wrestle with it. That we can’t merely grapple with the law’s near or explicit meaning — that would be too simplistic, particularly with these terse statements. Rather — through his interpretive example — Jesus shows us that we must consider their legitimate extensions. For it is through such textual grappling that we find the far richer applications and consequences of what it means to live our lives according to Yahweh’s design, producing health and prosperity for the whole community, and not just it’s pieces.
So now, let’s start with the most basic — but most important! — interpersonal relationship there is. The family….
If you’d like to check out the whole sermon, just click here.
