“Lovers Can’t Be Choosers”
Text:
Mark
© November 5, 2006 by C. Edward Bowen
The
more options we have to choose from, the better. Isn’t that what we believe? If you walk into a typical supermarket and
want to buy some cookies, on average you’ll find that you have about 285
different brands and types of cookies to choose from. And even if you know that you want to buy
some chocolate chip cookies, you’ll find that you’ll have over 20 different
brands and types of chocolate chip cookies to select from. In the same way, the typical supermarket
gives us about 230 different kinds of soup to choose from, about 60 different
kinds of sun tan lotion to choose from, and at least 40 different kinds of
toothpaste to choose from. That’s a lot
of choices that we have to make.[1]
But
is it really true that the more choices we have, the better it is? For instance, you’ve probably seen those
tables they set up in the grocery store to let you try samples of different food
products. Well, if one table was set up
with 6 different kinds of jelly that you could taste and buy, and another table
was set up with 24 different kinds of jelly that you could taste and buy, which
table would sell more jelly? The answer: the table with 6 different kinds of jelly.[2] What researchers have found is that if people
are presented with too many choices, we end up feeling overwhelmed. After all, at the table with 24 different
jellies, by the time you taste-tested jelly number 24, you probably couldn’t
even remember what the first one tasted like.
And so, when we’re presented with too many choices, often what we end up
doing is we throw up our hands and choose “none of the above.”
Or
let’s say that I asked you to take out a pen or pencil and a sheet of paper,
and I said to you, “Draw anything.” What
would happen? Many people would sit
there, with pen or pencil in hand, and draw nothing. Why?
Because you would have too many options to choose from. If I said to you, “Draw anything,” you would
be thinking to yourself, “Should I draw a person? What person?
Should I draw a picture of myself or my next door neighbor? Or should I draw a picture of someone famous? But what famous person – George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin? Or
maybe instead of drawing a person, I should draw an animal. But what kind of animal? Or maybe I should draw a building, or a tree,
or a cloud.” Having too many choices can
paralyze us. Having too many choices can
actually hold us back from taking action and doing what we need to be doing.
And
so that’s why, in our reading today from the Gospel of Mark, that man walked up
to Jesus and asked him which commandment in the Bible is the most
important. The man asked Jesus that
question, because according to the religious authorities in that day, they
counted 613 commandments in Old Testament.
According to the religious authorities in that day, they counted 365
commandments about things that you aren’t supposed to do and 248 commandments
about things that you are supposed to do, for a grand total of 613 commandments
in all. And so when that man approached
Jesus, he realized that the average person can’t focus on 613 different
commandments at the same time. And so he
asked Jesus to tell him what the most important commandment is.
And
what did Jesus say to that man? Jesus answered
by quoting him two passages from the Old Testament. First, from the book of Deuteronomy, Jesus
said, “Hear, O
Just
about all of us have probably heard these words before, where Jesus commands us
to love to God and to love our neighbors.
But what exactly does loving God and loving our neighbors consist
of? What does it look like? The old saying tells us that beggars can’t be
choosers. Well, I believe that if we
really want to understand the kind of love that Jesus talks about, then we need
to understand that lovers can’t be choosers either.
When
it comes to God, lovers can’t be choosers.
By that I mean that if we’re going to love God like Jesus means for us
to, then we have to give up on the mindset where we figure that it’s our job to
choose who we’re going to worship, that it’s our job to choose who or what
we’re going to make the focus of our lives.
No, if we really love God, we’re going to have our lives so focused on
God, that we’re not even going to think about what other choices might be out
there, vying for our worship and attention.
Because
if we start looking around at what other choices there are, we’re going to find
that there are quite a few out there. Probably
back in junior high or in high school you spent some time learning about all
the different Greek and Roman gods. And
at the time, maybe you thought to yourself – wasn’t it silly of those Greeks
and Romans to have so many different gods?
But even though we don’t necessarily call those gods by the same names
now, many of those gods are still alive and well and doing their best to get
people to make them the focus of their lives today.
For
instance, how many people do you know who have chosen to worship the god
Dionysus? Dionysus is the god of
pleasure. How many people do you know
who, instead of loving and worshiping God, have chosen instead to make pleasure
the focus of their lives, doing whatever it is that makes them feel good?
Or
how many people do you know who have chosen to worship the goddess
Aphrodite? Aphrodite is the goddess of
beauty. How many people do you know who,
instead of loving and worshiping God, have chosen instead to make beauty,
fashion, appearance the focus of their lives?
Or
how many people do you know who have chosen to worship the god Ares? Ares is the god of warfare and violence. How many people do you know who, instead of
loving and worshiping God, have chosen instead to make conflict, anger, and
revenge the focus of their lives?
Or
how many people do you know who have chosen to worship the god Plutus? Plutus is the god of wealth. How many people do you know who, instead of
loving and worshiping God, have chosen instead to make money and possessions
the center of their lives?
Whether
we realize it or not, there are a lot of other gods floating around out there,
all of them trying to get our attention and our devotion. But Jesus says that if we really love God –
the God of the Bible, the God who Jesus worshiped and served – then we need to
focus ourselves so much on God that we won’t even think about trying to choose
someone else to worship and serve.
And
it’s the same basic idea when it comes to loving other people: lovers can’t be choosers. Back around the fourth century quite a few
Christians went out into the deserts of
What
that spiritual leader was addressing was a problem that has always
existed: the temptation to leave a
religious community or a church in search of greener pastures somewhere else. The temptation is that when some problem or
conflict arises, or if things aren’t being done exactly the way that you might
prefer that they be done, some people pack up and go off in search of another
religious community or church that they feel will suit them better. But if you do that, that ancient spiritual
leader said, you’re going to do harm to yourself.
But
what kind of harm was he talking about?
I believe what he was talking about was the fact that if we’re always
ready to break off the relationships that we have whenever those relationships
get put to the test in some way, so that we can go out and choose other people
we’re willing to associate with, people who we figure won’t put our
relationships to test that way, we’re never going to end up doing what Jesus
commands us to do – and that is to love our neighbors, to love one another.
For
example, marriages end in divorce for a wide variety of reasons. But one of the major reasons that divorce
happens is because some couples say “I do” and get married, but what they
really mean with their wedding vows is “I love you and care about you right
now. But I’m going to keep my options
open. And if at some point someone
better comes along, I’m going to leave you and choose that person
instead.” But as far as Jesus is
concerned, lovers can’t be choosers. If
you love someone, really love them like Jesus wants you to, then even thinking
about cutting off the relationship that you have with that person so that you
can go out and choose someone else, that’s not an option.
And
it’s the same thing with our next door neighbors, our friends, our co-workers,
our fellow church members. Jesus
commands us to love those people. Jesus
doesn’t tell us to go out into the world and choose people that we think we’d
like to show love and concern to. No, Jesus
commands us to love the people that are already there in our lives, many of
whom are people that we didn’t necessarily choose, but they’re a part of our
lives nonetheless. Love them, love those people, Jesus says.
On
this day that we call All Saints’ Sunday, it’s a special time when we’re
invited to consider how we’re doing at being the saints that God wants us to
be. No, to be a saint doesn’t
necessarily mean that we’re going to walk on water, or turn water into wine, or
be sinless in all that we do. Instead,
to be a saint means to live up to the calling that Jesus has for us – and that
is to love God and to love our neighbors.
When it comes to loving God and loving other people, how are you
doing? Just remember: lovers can’t be choosers.