Mark 12:28-34 ²⁸One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” ²⁹Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ³¹The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” ³²Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; ³³and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ —this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question

As you probably know, our governor, Asa Hutchinson,  has been holding Daily Press conferences on the state of the CoVid19 virus in Arkansas. Of course, he has had a lot of questions about trying to reopen the economy in the state of Arkansas, an unpopular move with many people.  I don’t know what is right, I can understand the arguments both ways. On one side, some noted experts like Dr. Fauci believe it’s far too soon to get back to business as usual. On the other side, one can’t deny that people are hurting as they are without work millions have lost their jobs.  Subsequently some are in danger of losing their homes and perhaps can’t even feed their families. So the ability to return to work is very critical to the well-being of our society. Our governor said that it doesn’t have to be either health and Wellness or our economy as we have to measure both. That we have to balance our sense of safety and security with our economy and financial well-being. It can’t be “either/or”, it has to be some of both in a measure response.

The “both” makes sense to me.  Maybe it’s because I like having my cake and eating too. I often don’t know which extreme to side with, but the “both” seems like a practical experiment to me.  The trouble is, we live in an increasingly divided world, a world where “either/or” reigns supreme in our thinking.  You are one or the other.  You are a conservative or a liberal.  You are either a Hatfield or a McCoy, a Capulet or a Montague, an Ali or Frazier, a Trump or a Pelosi, a democrat or republican, or a conservative or a liberal. 

“Either/or”. In this age of bipolarization with sharp dividing lines, it is becoming and either/or world. I remember having to read some of Kierkegaard’s first work, Either/Or.  Talk about some lite reading!  Kierkegaard published it with a fake name which translates “violent Hermit,” which should have been my first clue.  I got to thinking that maybe I should have put a fake name to some of my sermons, like that one where I slammed the doctrine of the Trinity.  And I wouldn’t even have to name myself violent hermit, as Stanley is a Celtic name meaning “the hermit who lives under the bridge.”  Too late I guess.  I will own up to my stuff.  Kierkegaard’s two volume book  outlines a theory of human existence, marked by the distinction between an essentially hedonistic, aesthetic mode of life and the ethical life, which is predicated upon commitment.

Either/Or portrays two life views. Each life view is written and represented by a fictional pseudonymous author, with the prose of the work reflecting and depending on the life view being discussed. For example, the aesthetic life view is written in short essay form, with poetic imagery and allusions, discussing aesthetic topics such as music, seduction, drama, and beauty. The ethical life view is written as two long letters, with a more argumentative and restrained prose, discussing moral responsibility, critical reflection, and marriage.The aesthetic is the personal, subjective realm of existence, where an individual lives and extracts pleasure from life only for his or her own sake. In this realm, one has the possibility of the highest as well as the lowest. The ethical, on the other hand, is the civic realm of existence, where one’s value and identity are judged and at times superseded by the objective world.

In simple terms, Kierkegaard surmised that one can choose either to remain oblivious to all that goes on in the world, or to become involved. More specifically, the ethic realm starts with a conscious effort to choose one’s life, with a choice to choose. Either way, however, an individual can go too far in these realms and lose sight of his or her true self. Only faith can rescue the individual from these two opposing realms. Either/Or concludes with a brief sermon hinting at the nature of the religious sphere of existence, which Kierkegaard spent most of his publishing career expounding upon. Ultimately, Kierkegaard’s challenge is for the reader to “discover a second face hidden behind the one you see”in him/herself first, and then in others.  A good point, and if I had read the end first, I would have saved myself a lot of deciphering grief.  Sadly, there was no Google in my seminary days.

The polarization of America, if not the world, is increasingly reduced to the “either/or”.  With seven billion persons on the planet, I think it ridiculous to force them all into “either/or” paradigms, but it is happening.  The haves and have nots is the oldest “either/or”, and the lines of demarcation are growing worldwide.  And it is happening in religion as well.  You are saved or not, catholic or protestant, Christian or Muslim, religious or spiritual. And maybe Kierkegaard was on to something, only faith can save us from “either/or”.

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12  Jesus says to the scribe in verse 34, “you are not far from the kingdom of God.”  Not far?  What the heck does that mean?  Aren’t you either a child of the king or one of the world?  Are you not saved or lost?  Are you not headed to heaven or headed to hell?  My whole Baptist heritage is based on either/or salvation.  Not far?  And this is not the first time Jesus has indicated degrees of righteousness.  He once told the Pharisees, the religious icons of the day who were generally good people, that Sodom and Gomorrah  would be better off in the day of judgement than them.  Better off? Not far?  He also said to the crowd, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will not see the kingdom of God.”  Exceeds?  He said to the Pharisees that tax collectors and harlots would enter the Kingdom of God before them.  Before? I am pretty sure that Jesus wasn’t an “either/or” person.  

A lot of you grew up like me, in an “either/or” culture.  At church it was simple, you are either going to heaven or hell.  That’s it, period.  And you were for us or agin’ us.   Of course, the Catholics in town had a work-around with purgatory.  But hey, we Baptists thought they were simply in the going to hell camp.  And so were the Church of Christ, simply because they believed in Baptism before being saved, and except for a little piano music were very much like us “saved” Baptist.  Now understand this:  both groups believed in Jesus and sought to serve him, both groups believed in Baptism, but because of the interpreted order of events, one was going to live in mansions on streets of gold and the other was going to be tormented in the literal fires of hell forever and ever amen. Really?  Com’ on man.  Stay in school Arkansans.  That’s “either/or” degenerating to its logical end.

I am truly afraid that “either/or” thinking will be the end of everything we hold dear.  It will run amuck in an already divided society where race and religion are its anchor points.  You are on our side or not.  You are friends or enemies.  We fail to see the foolishness of “either/or” in a pluralistic world that has in fact organically grown on diversity and multiplicity.

You see, it can’t be an “either/or” world because we live every day in the gray.   Jesus knew that, and he knew that the ultimate “either/or” people were the highly religious: Exhibit A, the scribes and Pharisees. Yet one scribe came who understood that the law of love was the most important commandment, and Jesus says, “you sir, are not far from the kingdom of God.”  Not far.

When we allow our prejudices to control our lives, we are either/or people, and friends we are far from the kingdom of God. When we fear our neighbors, the exact opposite from the greatest commandment, we are far from the kingdom of God.  When we only see things as my way or the highway, we are far from the Kingdom of God.   When we think that we have the corner on truth, and everyone else is wrong, we are far from the Kingdom of God.  When we believe that we are better than everyone else, heck better than anyone ese, we are far from the kingdom of God. When we see everything as either right or wrong, pretty or ugly, acceptable or unacceptable, or as black or white, we are far from the Kingdom of God, no matter how much Bible we know, how often we go to church, or how orthodox our doctrine may be. 

But getting close to the kingdom of God?  It’s easy and it’s in Mark’s gospel.  It’s not what we think, it’s not what we believe, you heard me, it’s not what we are passionate about, it’s not even how we behave– it is how we love God and how we love our neighbors.   Because when we authentically love the Lord God with all our heart, all our mind and all our souls and we love our neighbors as ourselves, we then, and only then, are not far from the Kingdom of God. The law of love is the most important thing to our faith, not anything else, and certainly not the myriad of things that divide us, or any of those walls we have fortified between “us “and “them”.  Love alone frees us from a world hopelessly trapped in the “either/or”.  And anytime we are liberated from our human limitations, that’s Good News, because at the end of the day there is hope for the world, and maybe we are in fact worth saving.  And the whole planet comes one notch closer to the Kingdom of God.