In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Boston Globe newspaper carries a daily column designed to answer readers’ queries. It once listed the top ten unanswerable questions that it received. Here’s one from the list.
The reader writes, “I am nine years of age and have a cat that eats regularly and needs to go on a diet. He also eats mice when he is out. How many calories in a mouse?”
That’s a good question, does anyone now?

Children seem to be full of questions as they begin to discover the world around them. Their questions may deal the natural world- why is the sky blue? or the physical appearance of another person which can be embarrassing when the question is asked in a stage whisper.
Questioning God seems to come naturally to children as well.

Stuart Hample and Eric Marshall have compiled a number of questions in their book “Children’s Letters to God”.
Here are some questions asked by inquisitive young believers;
“Dear God, How did you know you were God?”
“Dear God, Is reverend Coe a friend of yours or do you just know him through business?”
“(Dear God), Did you really mean do to others as they do to you, because if you did then I’m going to fix my brother.”

And yet questioning God is not limited to young believers. There is much that takes place in our modern, complex world that leaves the believer, or the searcher for truth, that leaves us wanting to pick a bone with God. Over the last few months we have witnessed a series of devastating natural disasters that have killed thousands of people and injured many others.
Last week I made a pastoral visit and the person with whom I was visiting asked, “Why didn’t God do something?” Now that is a really good question. It has confounded for centuries theologians, philosophers and ordinary believers like you and I.
And when we turn our attention to human behavior within our global village a whole series of questions come to mind; especially when we consider the number of things we are capable of doing to each other.
If God created all things, why did God create such unbearable people?
Why is life so hard, so unjust for so many people?
Shouldn’t a life of faith offer a few advantages?

Each of these are really good questions. And they have been asked by us and by countless generations of believers who have gone before us. To ask questions such as these and to reflect upon them indicates that we take our faith God seriously, at least in some degree. Because in asking the question we are seeking to reconcile our faith in God with the concrete reality that surrounds us. It is a natural thing to want to challenge God, to ask demanding questions.

But in any relationship the questions can be asked both ways. God can also challenge us with questions. What are you doing to make life less hard for people?
What are you doing to make life more just for people?
Even our question from v.36 of Matthew’s Gospel
“which is the greatest commandment in the Law”

Jesus responded to this question by citing two passages of scripture. The first passage was Deuteronomy 6:5- You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”. The second passage was Leviticus 19:18- You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Here Jesus says an old thing, something familiar to everyone, in order to say something suprisingly new. First he says the old thing, a phrase that every Jew would recognize as fundamental: You shall love the Lord your God…. Then he quotes Leviticus and in doing so makes a surprising addition: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Loving God and loving neighbor are as necessary as breathing in and breathing out.

But perhaps we have heard these words so many times that they have become an old thing for us; an invitation to friendly and warm feelings toward God and a charitable regard for each other. Such words can sound like a polite and harmless slogan-something we might find on a bumper sticker. After all, who would be opposed to loving God and loving one’s neighbor?

This appears to be good advice for getting through life-like buy low and sell high or brush regularly between meals.
But is that what Jesus intended? To simply give good but harmless advice? To offer words that cause no tension, no conflict?

For these words are uttered in a world that is marked by the presence of suffering, violence and sickness: In a world of earthquakes, AIDs, and war, in a world where fearful people are desperate to protect what they possess at the expense of the lives of others; in a world where our neighbor may call us in need or drive us to distraction with strange behavior.
As the old saying goes, “I love humanity but it’s the people I can’t stand.”

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next door neighbor…. the neighbor is Humanity. To love the unseen God through service to the neighbor is not a matter of advice but one of action.

This passage often focuses on the command to serve but in our passage there is an added twist. If we pay attention to the relationships that are present in Jesus’ answer to the question, we too are the neighbor. We are the needy ones even though we are often afraid to admit it. We too are acquainted with suffering and fear. We know what it is to be weak and sick. We know what it is to be frightened. We too know what it is feel alone and abandoned.

And yet this is the great mystery of faith; Christ comes to us from the heart of God’s love in response to our cry for help. Coming to us in those those times of need, in times of weakness, in suffering and fear. Christ comes to us in sensible signs- through scripture, through bread and wine, in the gathered community of bread and sisters. Christ comes to us in the words of quiet prayer, in the words of a friend or neighbor- to feed, to strengthen, to heal, to forgive and restore. For this is the one thing necessary: to love the mystery that has already grasped us in love. THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN