Authentically faithful living has never been easy. It requires dedication and commitment. It requires courage and trust. But in return it offers meaningful and abundant living. That is the message which Jesus sought to share throughout his life. And often that is the message which got him into trouble, because it brought him into conflict with people who would choose easy over faithful.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. And many of them fell into the same trap which has ensnared religious people down through the ages. They chose to understand faith in terms of rules rather than in terms of relationships. And they chose to play games with technical details rather than to practice love with God and neighbor. In the passage from Matthew’s Gospel just preceding the one which was read this morning, the Pharisee’s had tried to back Jesus into a corner with a trick question about paying taxes and honoring God. It was one of those “no win” questions, or so they thought. Jesus turned the table on them and replied with the now famous “render unto Caesar...” line, which seemed to quiet them down. But then the Sadducees tried their hand at this “trap Jesus” game. They present him with an outlandish scenario in which a woman marries each of seven brothers. Who, they ask Jesus, will she be married to when they all get to heaven? Apart from the sheer absurdity of the question, it is disingenuous because the Sadducees didn’t believe in resurrection or any life after this life. So, for them it was a purely academic exercise. But again Jesus succeeds in side-stepping the trap by approaching the whole matter from a different perspective. But now the Pharisees try to take another shot at it. This time they are playing for all the marbles. They lay before Jesus all of the laws and rules and regulations which they hold so dear and they ask him to choose the most important. And it is here that Jesus chooses to take a stand. He is through playing games and he is through letting them get away with playing games. He even breaks the rules of the game by giving two answers instead of one. And both answers he give are the exact opposite of rules. What does it take to have a meaningful life? (That is, after all, what they wanted to know, even if they wouldn’t admit it.) It isn‘t about following all the right rules and playing silly word games about paying Caesar and marriage in heaven. It is about relationships. Specifically, it is about loving God, loving your neighbor and loving yourself. Do that, Jesus says, and the rest falls into place all by itself.

It seems pretty straightforward. Not necessarily easy to do, but at least easy to understand. 2,000 years later, however, it still feels safer and more secure to play games rather than practice love. When we can define our faith in terms of fulfilling all the correct requirements and having all the right answers, then we can believe that we are in control.

Today our faith doesn’t usually center on questions such as who gets the girl when we get to heaven. And we don’t tend to spend much time contemplating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, as they did in the Middle Ages. But all too often we still find ourselves distracted by rules and regulations and divisive distinctions which get in the way of being faithfully loving people. Sometimes we expend our energy on great moral debates around issues like abortion and homosexuality. And sometimes we focus on spiritual issues like worship practices and how we express our experience of God. But whatever shape the specifics take, whenever we allow such concerns to overshadow our primary calling to love God, others and self, then we have fallen into the same trap with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We have chosen to play games rather than live faithfully.

Jesus never had much use for that kind of understanding of faith. It tends to put issues ahead of people, and Jesus always gave people top billing on his list of priorities. The rules said “No harvesting or healing on the Sabbath.” Jesus said, “People’s hunger and well-being takes precedence over the rules.” For Jesus, faith was about a relationship with God which enhances and expands the possibilities of life. Whenever faith is defined by following the rules, then possibilities are limited and relationships are stifled.

It isn’t that we should stop trying to sort out the rules by which we live our lives and the ways in which we both agree and disagree on weighty matters. There is a place for that in our lives and in the Church. But we dare not allow such things to take on more importance than the people around us or the God who fills our lives with meaning. We can keep track of rules, play games and pretend we are being faithful. Or we can give our energy to developing and maintaining positive and loving relationships with God and those with whom we share life. The choice is ours. “One of them asked him a question . . . ‘Teacher, which commandment . . . is the greatest?’ And Jesus answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (Matthew 22:35-39)