The Christian church calls it the Great Commandment.
"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."
Or as the translation Michele just read from says,
"Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.
And love others as well as you love yourself" (Matt. 22. 37-38,The Message).

It's basic stuff. Love God. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

I bet more sermons have been preached on love than any other topic.

Maybe that's because loving like this is so hard.
Especially when it comes to the kind loving Jesus is talking about.
Back in the fifth chapter of Matthew
Jesus told us anyone who wants to follow him has to
love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matt. 5.44-45).

It's insane. It's beyond our ability.
And it's what Jesus tells us we have to do if we're serious about following him.

Which means that we can't start with the Great Commandment.
If we want to explore the Great Commandment,
we can't start with my love for God, or my love for my neighbor, or my love for myself.
Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.
Love others as well as you love yourself.
But the only way I can love with such a deep and powerful love is if God has loved me first.
My love for God;
my love for anyone in need - which is who Jesus means when he talks about neighbor;
my ability to love myself;
my ability even to imagine loving my enemies:
all of my loving grows out of the love I have felt from God.
Any love I have to offer is like water I draw from the well of love God has filled me with.
My ability to love is always and only a response to the love God first gives me.

A hymn that is like God's love song to us is #509 in the hymnal.
I invite you to turn to #509: "How Deep the Silence of the Soul".
This is a hymn about prayer.
And the second verse has some images of how God's love comes to us,
and what God's love coming to us feels like and looks like.
I'd like us to sing this second verse together. And hear what you sing as God's love coming to you.

Like unseen chimes on moving air, like warm and morning sun,
like gladdening, greening, growing things, like trees with blooms begun.
Such is your presence in our lives, you touch without a trace,
until we turn and find ourselves held fast in your embrace
(words by Sylvia Dunstan, c 1989 G.I.A. Publications, Inc.).

Held fast in your embrace, God. You hold us.
As a stronger one holds us when we are cold and afraid and alone, you hold us.
Held fast in your embrace, we know ourselves loved.
We feel you real, close, strong, tender, there for us.
You are no longer just a concept.
You are no longer just something we want to believe in, or something we want to trust.
Held fast in your embrace, our bodies know you are real.
We know you are there.
So we can fall into your arms whenever we need your strength, comfort, assurance, and power.
So we can speak truth to power.
So we can forgive and ask forgiveness.
So we can choose a different path than violence.
So we can love when it is hard to love.
So we can even imagine loving someone who in some way wants to hurt us.

God , we can only live out of such a place of love because we have been held fast in your embrace.
Only because you have loved us, and created that deep well of love in us,
can we love you and love others and love ourselves.
We can't make ourselves love in this way. We can't create that love in us out of nothing.

We can only draw love from that deep well of love that your love has dug in us.
Your love allows us to love. Only your love allows us to love.
Held fast in your embrace, we have received love from you so now we too can love.

Yesterday morning, I told my spiritual director Sheila about this hymn.
I told her about the image I love - being held fast in God's embrace.
Sheila smiled at me, and said, "God's handprints are all over you, Dave."
God's handprints. Evidence that I've been held fast in your embrace, God.

How is God's love real for you?
Using the image from Winnie the Pooh from last week's sermon, how are you sure of God?
How are you sure God's love is so real that when you need to fall into God's arms
for rest, for strength, for comfort and hope,
you know God will catch you and hold you fast?

The 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart says
loving God means deeply knowing that 'God and I, we are one'.
It's not like God is there, and we are here. 'God and I. . . are one. [God] acts and I become'
(quoted in Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21-28, Fortress Press, 1989, p. 78).

God acts, and I become.
God loves me. And I become love.
God loves me, and I become a lover.
God loves me, and digs a deep well of love inside me.
And I can draw from that well . . . to become a lover. To become love.

That is why Jesus can demand so much from our loving.
That is why Jesus can command us to love in ways that are so unreasonable and so impossible.
It's not us who have to create this love out of nothing.
It is not us who have to dig down inside us,
hoping we'll get lucky and find some way to come up with the love we need.

God has loved us. God loves us.
God has held us fast. God holds us fast.
God has dug that well inside each of us. And God has filled that well with love.
Filled us with love to overflowing.
So we cannot not love.
Because that is the reason we have been made.
To be held fast in God's embrace, and to give God's love back to God and God's world.
To be held fast in God's embrace, and to give God's love back to God and God's world.
To be held fast and to love . . . for all our days.

I've thought a lot these days about being held fast in God's embrace,
and having this well of love because God has loved me.
These days when world financial markets are crashing,
and the only things that seem to be overflowing are fear, anxiety, blame, and red ink.

I've thought a lot these days about being held fast in God's embrace,
and having this deep well of love because God has loved me.
These days when the presidential candidates seem only to talk about the middle class.
When there is so little remembering of the poor.
And when there is no call to our nation to look at our enemies
and imagine what it would mean to love them.
That doesn't make for good sound bytes.
For a candidate to inspire us to imagine ways to love our enemies would mean certain defeat.
How naive. How weak. How simple-minded. How dangerous.

And yet . . . that is the kind of love Jesus commands us to imagine and live.
That is the depth of love Jesus commands us to draw from the well God has dug in us.
That love which we do not create out of nothing.
That love which we do not will ourselves to feel or express.
That love which comes from being held fast in God's embrace.
That love which is of God. God's love, in us.
God's love, causing us to become love. God's love, causing us to become lovers.
Lovers of God. Lovers of our neighbors. Lovers of creation.
Lovers of our enemies. Lovers of ourselves.

How have you been held fast in God's embrace?
How have you felt like God has dug a well in you and filled it to overflowing with love,
so you could be absolutely sure she is madly in love with you?
Whether you've felt that way or not, let yourselves go there.
Go back over your life.
What's a time when you were held fast in God's embrace?

When I tried to think of a personal story to share about this, I tried to think of something big.
Maybe something that happened during a visit to another country.
Or one of those things I can point to that feels like it totally changed my life.

But when I sat in silence for 15 or 20 minutes, opening myself to a memory of feeling embraced by God,
what came up wasn't anything like that at all.
Which means we are held fast in God's embrace a lot more often than we probably realize.

I think I'd been a pastor at University Congregational United Church of Christ for 8 or 9 years.
I was meeting with a guy who had just started coming to the church.
He hadn't been out of college for long.
And he wanted to talk about what God was calling him to do with his life.
So we met in my office. And talked for an hour or so.
At the end of our time, I asked if he would like to pray. He said he did.
I asked him what he would like to pray together about, and he listed a few things.
So we prayed together.
At the end of the prayer, I expected him to get up. I expected we were finished.
But we weren't finished.
After I finished praying, he asked, "How can I pray for you?"
I just looked at him. Speechless.
It was the first time I'd met with someone for a pastor visit who had asked if they could pray for me.
I was deeply, deeply touched.
And after taking a few moments to regain control over my emotions,
I told him a few things I would love for him to pray for.
And he did that.

Before I finished my ministry at that church, I took him out for coffee.
And I told him what a gift he'd given me by the simple act of asking if he could pray for me.

Now I would tell him something more.
I'd tell him his prayer had given God another chance to put her handprints all over me.
I'd tell him when he prayed for me, I felt like God was holding me tight.
I'd tell him he filled me with God's love.
I'd tell him he loved me into being a better lover.

That's what we do in church.
Remember when we've been held fast in God's embrace.
Draw deeply from the well of love God has dug in each of us.
Give that love of God to people inside and outside these walls.
Make God's love so strong, so real, so forever,
that we help each other become lovers who love this world.
Overflow with this love that God has given us, we help to create a world where there's so much love,
even the poor and our enemies are drawn into its embrace.
May it be so. Amen.

The idea of God's love coming first is suggested by Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21-28, Fortress Press, 1989, p. 87.