“Vertical & Horizontal Discipleship”
Preached Sunday, October 29, 2023
Today’s Gospel lesson is one of the most foundational passages of Scripture for my Christian faith. As I seek to live out what it means to be a follower of Christ, it always comes back to this: “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.” Everything else, every other point of theology I hold, every other tenet of my faith, starts here. So today we are going to spend time here. At this basic, foundational ground of our shared Christian faith. Strengthening our foundation, so that everything that comes from it, would be stronger.
Now, “love God and love neighbor as self” is an extremely well known part of Christian theology - the two greatest commandments. And in order to talk about that - I am going to start by talking about a pretty obscure and what may seem way out there (but it’s really not and we’ll get to that) concept of United Methodist and Christian theology: Christian Perfection.
One of John Wesley’s most controversial teachings was about perfection, Christian Perfection. But it wasn’t the same as we think of perfection. Wesley believed that perfection, Christian perfection, could be achieved in this life - although he never claimed it for himself and said he maybe only met one or two people who had achieved it. But Wesley brings this back to Matthew 5:48 when Jesus says, “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” And Wesley figured, well, Jesus wouldn’t command us to do the impossible! So we must be able to achieve this.
Now, before defining Christian Perfection, I am going to take a step back and just talk for a minute about Wesleyan theology - that is, Methodist theology. It never hurts to be reminded.
Methodists believe that humans have free will. We have the ability to reject God. But God is always reaching out to us, before we even know it or are aware of it, God is trying to get our attention. God is always showering us with love and ready to forgive and welcome us. Methodists call this prevenient grace - the grace that comes before we even know there is grace to be had.
Once we accept this grace, we make the choice to live our lives in God, we experience justifying grace. We are forgiven, justified before God.
And for many Christian theologies, it ends there. We’re justified, we’re saved. Alright, time to party!
But Methodists are one of the ones who take it another step. After we have been justified, we can experience sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is the grace that the Holy Spirit extends to us to grow in our faith, grow in discipleship, and become more holy. When we have been justified, the work has only just begun.
Now, also, I am describing this all very linear but it’s not. Just because we have been justified, does not mean that we still don’t experience God’s prevenient grace. We experience all these graces throughout our lives, at the same time, at different times, and we can move back and forth between them - forward and backward movement, if you will.
But let’s go back to sanctification. Now sanctification is the process of becoming more holy. Or, phrased another way, the journey toward perfection. Now perfection here is not that worldly perfection: no zits, no mistakes, always smiling perfection. Christian perfection, defined by Methodist theologian Dr. Douglas Meeks, is a “way of being in the world that is completely shaped by love of God and love of neighbor.” Wesley himself says that the end goal of sanctification is that of letting love be “the constant temper of your soul.”
In other words, Christian perfection is:
“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.”
The two greatest commandments upon which the whole rest of the law and prophets hang. When you live your life in such a way that love for all souls is the constant temper of your soul, such a way that you love God with all of your being, and that you love your neighbor as yourself - that is Christian perfection.
The two commandments are actually interconnected, inseparable, dependent upon each other. When we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, that love of God manifests itself in, pushes us toward, love of neighbor. And love of neighbor pushes us back to know more about God. Let’s now take a closer look at both of these commandments.
The commandment to love the Lord your God closely reflects the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
This command to love the Lord your God would have been very familiar to Jesus’s initial audience.
In Judaism, the Shema is recited twice daily. It is often hung outside observant Jews homes. Orthodox Jews bind Tefillin, black boxes with the Shema inside them, onto their foreheads and arms when they pray.
Jesus was not rewriting the Law. He was drawing upon it, taking something that was familiar and important and reminding his audience of how important it was, how foundational it was. Like we are doing today. And, as anyone who has been in a committed love-filled relationship knows: Love takes work. There are things we can do, attitudes we can have, words we can say, that can help love grow, that can build love up, that can reach toward better love of God, reach toward perfection.
This is what we are calling vertical discipleship. Just like we did during the children’s moment today, I want you all to reach up, to draw a vertical line. Of course God is all around us, but we often think of God as “up.” So, if we could create a graph or image of what Christian discipleship looks like, of what it looks like to love God, a vertical axis or line could capture that. And what we call those actions, attitudes, and words that help love of God grow - we call those works of piety. And within works of piety there are two categories. First, individual acts of devotion - things we can do as individuals that help us reach out toward God, that help us reach toward perfect love of God: reading, meditating and studying the scriptures and prayer, in all of its forms. And then there are also communal acts of worship - that which we do together as a church body that help us all reach for perfect love of God together: regularly sharing in the sacraments, worship, Christian conferencing, and group Bible study. These works of piety, and they are work - we gotta do them, put in the effort, so these works of piety are individual and communal things we do to help us reach toward that perfect love of God.
So what about the other part of our foundation of faith, the second commandment, to love your neighbor as self? This was also a well-known command to Jesus’s Jewish audience. Loving neighbor is a recurring theme throughout the Hebrew scripture. We heard it in today’s reading from Leviticus: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
This is what we call horizontal discipleship. So again, just like we did during the children’s moment, reach out with your arms, draw a horizontal line through the air. And as you do, be careful of your neighbor in the pew! Just like our arms in the pews may bump our neighbors, horizontal discipleship is that act of reaching out to each other, to our neighbors. These we call works of mercy. Because again, loving our neighbor takes work. To reach that Christian perfection, to work toward perfect love of neighbor, we need to put in the work to reach out toward one another. And just as works of piety could be broken down into individual and communal acts, so can works of mercy. There are individual works of charity that we can do as individuals to reach out toward our neighbors in love: doing good works, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, giving something to drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger and all around giving generously to the needs of others. And then, there are communal acts of justice. These are things we can do collectively for the good of all our neighbors: seeking to end injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, working to end discrimination, addressing root causes of poverty, and other such works of justice. These works of mercy and they are work - we gotta do them, put in the effort, so these works of mercy are individual and communal things we do to help us reach toward that perfect love of neighbor.
So, again, I spoiled this in the children’s moment but it’s worth doing it again - we are called to love God and work toward perfect love of God - that’s the vertical discipleship - draw that line with me. And then we are called to love neighbor and work toward perfect love of neighbor - that’s the horizontal discipleship - draw that line with me. And now put them together, the vertical and horizontal lines…make up the cross.
The cross, that symbol of death and resurrection, that symbol of ultimate love. That symbol of all that we are called toward - the foundation of faith. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as self.
Friends, I pray and hope that by re-visiting the foundational aspects of our faith today, that we have been convicted and strengthened for the work ahead. We have work to do. The work of vertical and horizontal discipleship, that we would ever work to strive toward a more perfect love of God and a more perfect love of neighbor, so that we would, building off that foundation, be transformed by Love, share the God of Love, shape the world for Love, and let love be the constant temper of our souls.
May it be so. Amen.
One of John Wesley’s most controversial teachings was about perfection, Christian Perfection. But it wasn’t the same as we think of perfection. Wesley believed that perfection, Christian perfection, could be achieved in this life - although he never claimed it for himself and said he maybe only met one or two people who had achieved it. But Wesley brings this back to Matthew 5:48 when Jesus says, “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” And Wesley figured, well, Jesus wouldn’t command us to do the impossible! So we must be able to achieve this.
Now, before defining Christian Perfection, I am going to take a step back and just talk for a minute about Wesleyan theology - that is, Methodist theology. It never hurts to be reminded.
Methodists believe that humans have free will. We have the ability to reject God. But God is always reaching out to us, before we even know it or are aware of it, God is trying to get our attention. God is always showering us with love and ready to forgive and welcome us. Methodists call this prevenient grace - the grace that comes before we even know there is grace to be had.
Once we accept this grace, we make the choice to live our lives in God, we experience justifying grace. We are forgiven, justified before God.
And for many Christian theologies, it ends there. We’re justified, we’re saved. Alright, time to party!
But Methodists are one of the ones who take it another step. After we have been justified, we can experience sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace is the grace that the Holy Spirit extends to us to grow in our faith, grow in discipleship, and become more holy. When we have been justified, the work has only just begun.
Now, also, I am describing this all very linear but it’s not. Just because we have been justified, does not mean that we still don’t experience God’s prevenient grace. We experience all these graces throughout our lives, at the same time, at different times, and we can move back and forth between them - forward and backward movement, if you will.
But let’s go back to sanctification. Now sanctification is the process of becoming more holy. Or, phrased another way, the journey toward perfection. Now perfection here is not that worldly perfection: no zits, no mistakes, always smiling perfection. Christian perfection, defined by Methodist theologian Dr. Douglas Meeks, is a “way of being in the world that is completely shaped by love of God and love of neighbor.” Wesley himself says that the end goal of sanctification is that of letting love be “the constant temper of your soul.”
In other words, Christian perfection is:
“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.”
The two greatest commandments upon which the whole rest of the law and prophets hang. When you live your life in such a way that love for all souls is the constant temper of your soul, such a way that you love God with all of your being, and that you love your neighbor as yourself - that is Christian perfection.
The two commandments are actually interconnected, inseparable, dependent upon each other. When we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, that love of God manifests itself in, pushes us toward, love of neighbor. And love of neighbor pushes us back to know more about God. Let’s now take a closer look at both of these commandments.
The commandment to love the Lord your God closely reflects the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
This command to love the Lord your God would have been very familiar to Jesus’s initial audience.
In Judaism, the Shema is recited twice daily. It is often hung outside observant Jews homes. Orthodox Jews bind Tefillin, black boxes with the Shema inside them, onto their foreheads and arms when they pray.
Jesus was not rewriting the Law. He was drawing upon it, taking something that was familiar and important and reminding his audience of how important it was, how foundational it was. Like we are doing today. And, as anyone who has been in a committed love-filled relationship knows: Love takes work. There are things we can do, attitudes we can have, words we can say, that can help love grow, that can build love up, that can reach toward better love of God, reach toward perfection.
This is what we are calling vertical discipleship. Just like we did during the children’s moment today, I want you all to reach up, to draw a vertical line. Of course God is all around us, but we often think of God as “up.” So, if we could create a graph or image of what Christian discipleship looks like, of what it looks like to love God, a vertical axis or line could capture that. And what we call those actions, attitudes, and words that help love of God grow - we call those works of piety. And within works of piety there are two categories. First, individual acts of devotion - things we can do as individuals that help us reach out toward God, that help us reach toward perfect love of God: reading, meditating and studying the scriptures and prayer, in all of its forms. And then there are also communal acts of worship - that which we do together as a church body that help us all reach for perfect love of God together: regularly sharing in the sacraments, worship, Christian conferencing, and group Bible study. These works of piety, and they are work - we gotta do them, put in the effort, so these works of piety are individual and communal things we do to help us reach toward that perfect love of God.
So what about the other part of our foundation of faith, the second commandment, to love your neighbor as self? This was also a well-known command to Jesus’s Jewish audience. Loving neighbor is a recurring theme throughout the Hebrew scripture. We heard it in today’s reading from Leviticus: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”
This is what we call horizontal discipleship. So again, just like we did during the children’s moment, reach out with your arms, draw a horizontal line through the air. And as you do, be careful of your neighbor in the pew! Just like our arms in the pews may bump our neighbors, horizontal discipleship is that act of reaching out to each other, to our neighbors. These we call works of mercy. Because again, loving our neighbor takes work. To reach that Christian perfection, to work toward perfect love of neighbor, we need to put in the work to reach out toward one another. And just as works of piety could be broken down into individual and communal acts, so can works of mercy. There are individual works of charity that we can do as individuals to reach out toward our neighbors in love: doing good works, visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, giving something to drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger and all around giving generously to the needs of others. And then, there are communal acts of justice. These are things we can do collectively for the good of all our neighbors: seeking to end injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, working to end discrimination, addressing root causes of poverty, and other such works of justice. These works of mercy and they are work - we gotta do them, put in the effort, so these works of mercy are individual and communal things we do to help us reach toward that perfect love of neighbor.
So, again, I spoiled this in the children’s moment but it’s worth doing it again - we are called to love God and work toward perfect love of God - that’s the vertical discipleship - draw that line with me. And then we are called to love neighbor and work toward perfect love of neighbor - that’s the horizontal discipleship - draw that line with me. And now put them together, the vertical and horizontal lines…make up the cross.
The cross, that symbol of death and resurrection, that symbol of ultimate love. That symbol of all that we are called toward - the foundation of faith. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as self.
Friends, I pray and hope that by re-visiting the foundational aspects of our faith today, that we have been convicted and strengthened for the work ahead. We have work to do. The work of vertical and horizontal discipleship, that we would ever work to strive toward a more perfect love of God and a more perfect love of neighbor, so that we would, building off that foundation, be transformed by Love, share the God of Love, shape the world for Love, and let love be the constant temper of our souls.
May it be so. Amen.
