Today’s message is based on a reading from Mark 12:28-34. 

What is important? I mean really important? I suspect that for most of us the answer to that question might depend the situation. It might depend on where we are at the time, or what we’re doing. Let’s face, there are times that it’s really important to get dinner on the table at a certain time because you have a meeting that night. Or if the kids are running late, it might be really important to get them going and off to school. If we’ve lost our jobs, and have been looking for while, it might be really important to find something, anything, to bring in some money and put food on the table. All those things are important. And they all seem really important at the time, but in retrospect, I wonder if they are the most important.

When you listen to the news, you might hear of things that they tell you are really important. Currently, we are hearing about the H1N1 Virus, the Swine Flu. We’re being told daily how serious this is, and how important it is to take precautions to limit our exposure and reduce our risk of getting infected. And I suppose this is important. But is this really important?

I did some research, and I found that in the 1970’s, approximately 16,250 people died of the influenza flu every year in the US alone. The vaccine for influenza was developed in the mid 1970’s. In the mid 1990’s, twenty years after the vaccine, the death rate actually increased to approximately 65,000 per year. Twenty years after the introduction of the vaccine, the number of deaths jumped fourfold over what it was before the vaccine. In the late 1990’s, some medications were developed to help treat the flu, and today the annual death rate is somewhere around 36,000 per year, here in the US.

Why do I share this? Because I want to put H1N1 in perspective. Swine flu started in Mexico in September of last year. It went over four months before we heard about it, but it’s been over a year now. Since then, about 1300 people in the US have died from it. That’s important. Every life lost is a life too much. But during that same period of time, 36,000 people have died from the influenza virus, why aren’t we far more worried about that? Nearly a million people a year die from heart disease, a little over a half a million die each year from cancer, so the 1300 from H1N1 is not really the biggest health risk we face. 

Yet, that’s all we hear about. Every time we turn on TV we see a story about the H1N1 virus. Every time we pick up the paper, there is something in there about it. The media is creating a panic, causing us to think this is way more serious than anything else we face. Is it important? Yes. We should be doing those common sense things, wash your hands regularly, if you have flu-like symptoms, stay home. But is it the most important thing? Probably not.

Last year, the big thing on the news was the economy, and we still hear about it now. I honestly think the economy tanked as far as it did because the media created a panic. That’s all we ever heard about. And we were all a little afraid that another Great Depression was right around the corner, so we cut back on our spending. And when we cut back on our spending, the economy got worse. People were laid off. Jobs were lost. The media goes from one story to the next, creating fear as they go. The economy is important. The H1N1 virus is important. But are they the most important thing? No. They aren’t.

What is? If the media is creating panic and fear, and the things they are reporting on aren’t really the most important things, then what is the most important thing? What is deserving of our fear? What should we be worried about?

In the time of Jesus, there were 613 Jewish laws. There were laws that dictated almost every aspect of Jewish life. And one of the primary responsibilities of the Scribes was the application of the law. If a situation in life came up, they looked to the law to find guidance. The law was seen to apply to everything. Everything the Jewish believer would face on a daily basis could be found in the law. Everything! 

In our reading this morning, we see the words, “Of all the commandments (of all the laws), which is the most important?” Since the law applied to every aspect of life, the most important law would be the most important thing. So what is it? What’s the most important thing?

We heard Jesus’ reply, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Jesus went one step further, and He gave the second most important one too, kind of a freebie, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Love – love for God, love for one another – Love is what is really important. 

About twenty-five years ago Jimmy Buffet wrote a song called, Love in Decline. The idea of the song is that real love is in decline. People are after casual sex so much that many people never find real love. The song suggests that casual sex and affairs and adultery and that sort of thing are symptoms of the love in decline. 

I suggest that it goes way beyond that. I want to suggest that much of the stress we may feel, much of the illnesses that we face, much of the crime we hear about, many of the problems that we see, are all symptoms of love in decline. Jesus said the most important thing in the world is love, and we have a really hard time truly loving. And it’s that lack of love that causes so many problems. 

What can we do? If love is what’s ultimately important, and love really is in decline, what’s the answer? Perhaps we can take three quick themes from our reading this morning…

First, we need to realize that God is number one. Most of us, even those of us who believe and serve God and even love God, still keep ourselves number one. The old mantra, Taking care of numero uno is still very much alive and well. We think that if we don’t take care of ourselves, who will? Well the answer is, God will. But we need to make sure God is number one in our life. We need to surrender ourselves to Him, we need to humble ourselves before Him, we need to make Him number one. James 4:7 & 10 tell us this, too. “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.”

If we want to be in control of our lives, God will honor that, and He will stand aside. Only by standing aside ourselves and letting God back into our lives, will He truly come. Let God come. Get off the throne of your life, and let God sit there. Submit to Him, let Him guide you, and truly experience His love.

Second, good theology (which is essentially the understanding that God is Number One, that pleasing God is the most important thing we can do) and good ethics (loving our neighbors at least as much as we love ourselves) are more important than anything else we can do. Even more important than any religious rituals we might do. Even more important than the work we do for the church. 

In Hosea 6:6, it is written, “For I desire mercy (mercy is sometimes translated as love), not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.” Psalm 51:17 reads, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Loving God and loving others is more important than anything else, even if we do them for God, if we don’t do them out of love for God, they aren’t important.

Finally, when the first two are affirmed, when we truly love God with all our heart, and all our souls, and all minds, and all our strength, then we are “not far from the kingdom of God”.   I think it means that we’re not that far from really being able to let God control our lives. It’s only when we love God and we love our neighbors, can we truly give God the control of our lives.

When these are taken care of, then the decline of love will be reversed. And when we can all live by love, our stress levels will drop dramatically, since stress levels affect our immune system, we’ll be healthier. We’ll certainly be happier. And since God is directing our steps, we’ll be more fulfilled than we could ever be when we tried to do it all ourselves. 

So be careful, there are a lot of things out there that TV will tell you that you need to worry about. There are million important things you’ll hear about. The most important is the one you probably won’t hear about. God is love. And God is important. And to really follow Him, we need to love.