Sermon Notes — March 1, 2026
Great Love
Luke 7:36-50 (CEB)
March 1, 2026
Rev. Dr. Mary Beth Bernheisel
The old joke among pastors goes that the tried and true outline for a sermon is “three points and a poem.” This morning I’m going to start with a poem, and we’ll see if we ever get to the point. This is a poem adapted from Rev. Sarah Speed and included in our resources for this worship series.
If God lived next door,
I’d drop off a loaf of bread.
I’d use Paul Hollywood’s best recipe.
I’d wrap it in parchment and ribbon
and place it on the front stoop.
If God lived next door,
I’d leave a note with my phone number.
Call anytime you need anything!
I’m always happy to help!
If God lived next door,
I’d keep sugar on the shelf,
just in case God needed a cup.
I’d put a picnic table in the front yard
and begin taking my coffee there.
Whenever God passed by with their leashes full of rescue dogs,
I could say, Want to sit for a moment? Want to rest your legs?
I’d keep a jar of dog treats and water by the mailbox
and change my doormat to one that says:
All are welcome here.
I’d invite God over for dinner.
God would bring bread and juice.
I’d host a block party,
and introduce him to everyone.
I’d start a community garden
so that the kids could run between rows of squash and tomatoes
while we adults put our hands in the dirt.
We’d share stories while we weeded,
and eat harvest meals at the end of the season.
If God lived next door,
I’d want to build something beautiful.
Then again,
who says he doesn’t?
Will you pray with me and for me?
As I was reading this week’s text from Luke I remembered that I had preached on it before, recently, and then I said a little prayer that the last time I preached on it was before I came to Bethlehem. Turns out that I preached on this same text last September as part of our At the Table worship series.
But the beauty of scripture is that we can read it so many different ways, and that the Holy Spirit can use it for fresh lessons and perspectives every time.
The good news this week is great love. Great love for God and neighbor.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke each tell a story in which a teacher of the Jewish law, or an expert in the Jewish law, depending on which gospel you read, asks Jesus some version of this question:
Of all of the laws, which is the most important? In Luke the expert in the law asks it this way: What must I do to inherit eternal life? And we’re going to come back to that one. In fact, grab a Bible and open it to Luke 10 and then bookmark it or leave it open or something.
In all three cases, the answer that Jesus gives is the same, except in Luke, where it’s not Jesus who gives the answer but the legal expert who gives the answer. And the answer is some form of this:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
This sounds familiar, right? The shorthand that we often use for this in the church is
The Greatest Commandment.
I heard someone this week use the phrase “simple but not easy,” and I think that’s the perfect way to describe the greatest commandment. Simple because it’s easy to remember and it rolls off the tongue and if you’ve been in church for a while you’ll probably be able to recall it if anyone asks what the greatest commandment is.
But very few of us would claim that it is easy. What makes it not easy is the simple fact that we are human. When it comes to loving God and putting God first in everything and remembering God in all that we do, it’s easy to take our eye off the ball. We get distracted. You know what’s easy? Getting distracted.
And then there’s the part about our neighbor. We don’t get to choose our neighbor. Everyone is our neighbor. I think a good working definition of a neighbor is the one that God puts in front of us. Whoever is in front of you at any given moment is your neighbor. Could be a family member, could be the person in front of you in line at the grocery store. Could be an unhoused guest at Room in the Inn. Could be the person who tormented you in high school. Could be a stranger. Could be a friend. Could be an enemy. Could be the guy you got cranky with in the parking lot at Target.
Whoever God puts in front of you is your neighbor, and Jesus tells us that the most important thing that we can do is to show them the same love, grace, and mercy that we would want for ourselves. In Matthew 25, Jesus reminds us that our neighbors are “the least of these.”
Not easy. But commanded.
In Luke, there is a woman of the city – and we’re left to our own imaginations as to what that means – there is a woman “of the city” who hears that Jesus is dining at the home of one of the religious leaders. His name is Simon. It’s probably a biggish party with lots of important people. I’m going to show you this picture again that I showed you before about how the guests would likely be sitting.
The host of the party, we might imagine, is feeling pretty good about himself. There’s good conversation, good food, good wine, good people. And then all of a sudden this woman comes in. She hasn’t been invited. She doesn’t belong. Her presence embarrasses Simon. She stands behind Jesus, sobbing, literally soaking his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair. When she is done with that, she anoints Jesus’ feet with oil that she pours from an alabaster jar that she has brought with her.
Simon, Jesus’s host, thinks to himself that if Jesus was really a prophet like everyone says that he is, then he would know “what kind of woman” is touching him. And if he knew “what kind of woman” she was, he would surely stop her.
Jesus tells a story, and when he is finished, he says to Simon
Her many sins are forgiven; so she has shown great love.
Agapaō–it’s the same word that Jesus uses when he answers the question that we talked about before:
What is the greatest commandment in the law?
Jesus says, You must love–agapaō–the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. You must love – agapaō – your neighbor as yourself.
She has shown great love – agapaō.
She has shown us what it looks like to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our being, and with all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. She has shown us how to fulfill the greatest commandment.
Luke tells us that Simon was a Pharisee. Now open up to Luke 10 and go to verse 25. The legal expert who questions Jesus is not a Pharisee like Simon, but both scribes and Pharisees were concerned with obedience to the law. This legal expert asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus turns the question back to him. Well, what is written in the law? And it’s the legal expert who gives the answer, not Jesus. He says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus says, “A+. Good job. Do it and live.”
The legal expert gets it right. So let’s assume for a moment that Simon, if Jesus had asked him the greatest commandment, he would have also answered correctly.
The greatest commandment in the law is to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.
We don’t have any reason to believe that Simon had any animosity towards Jesus, or that his invitation to Jesus to join him for a meal was a trick or a trap. Simon, we might say, is not far from the Kingdom of God.
And yet he can’t quite get his head around how “this woman” has managed to obey God’s law. She has shown great agapaō, exactly what the law commands. Are you telling me, Simon might be thinking, that she has fulfilled the greatest commandment in the law? Because if that’s true – if this kind of woman – if this kind of person – can do – can obey – everything that the law commands – then that means that anyone can. Anyone.
Go back to Luke 10. Jesus tells the Pharisee that he has answered correctly, but then the legal expert has a follow up question: Who is my neighbor?
And Jesus tells a story about a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was beset by robbers. Stop me if this one sounds familiar. Two religious people walked around him and the third one stopped to help. Right? And who was the third one? The Samaritan. The Samaritan would fall into the same category to the legal expert as “that woman” would for Simon. If a Samaritan – if that kind of woman – can fulfill God’s law, then we have really opened a can of worms. Because that means that anyone can obey the law to the fullest.
But at the end of the day, we’re not lying awake at night trying to figure out how to fulfill the law. What does keep us up at night, though, isn’t really much different. What keeps us up at night is how we engage people we disagree with; how we love those who are opposed to us when we don’t even like them. How do we love people who don’t care if we love them or not? What’s the good news that we’re supposed to root ourselves in today?
I am convinced the good news for today is found in the two words that Jesus says to Simon
Great love.
As disciples of Jesus we know that at the end of all things, when all is said and done, when Christ comes in final victory and all things are as they should be. Love wins. And we see that great love most clearly in the willingness of Jesus not just to die for us, but to suffer for us. To be in agony for us. To prove in the end that life conquers death, that love conquers hate, and that forgiveness covers everyone and everything.
The hard part comes in the question of what we do until then in a world divided.
Great love.
Much love. Strong love. Extravagant love.
What if we, during this coming week, approached every day and every interaction starting with the prayer, “Holy Spirit, show me how to do great love today.” Because we can’t do it by ourselves. We can’t of our own power and volition do great love. I’m not saying that we’re not nice people or good people or kind people, but we can’t do great love in the way Jesus asks us to do great love just on our own. We’re not cut out for it.
So I want us to finish this morning with a group prayer. We’ll start our week together like this, and then I invite you to pray this prayer every morning. If you have people that you have an accountability relationship with, you might text them every day and say, “I’m praying for you to do great love today.” or “Did you pray to do great love today?” But let’s start our week and every day, and every meeting, and every conversation with this prayer
Holy Spirit, show me how to do great love today.
But our prayer today is going to be a group prayer and we’re going to pray for this whole week.
Holy Spirit, show us how to do great love this week.
Now that you know what it looks like, join me in this prayer.
Holy Spirit, show us how to do great love this week.
Amen.
And now I’m going to ask Jonatas to put up on the screen this prayer so you can take a picture of it if you want to keep it easily at hand.
Holy Spirit, show me how to do great love today.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.