This sermon outline can be used as it is. However it can be changed to include personal references and thoughts.

The Common Good

Scripture reading: Matthew 22:34-40

Although you dont find the actual term, the phrase the common good is firmly rooted in the Judaeo-
Christian scriptures, and there are numerous passages suggesting that, how we have come to understand
the term today, closely reflects Gods priorities for how we should live (as the biblical writers understood
them).

If the common good is about enabling all members of a society to flourish and play a full part in their
community; about putting the good of that wider community above the good or purely selfish interest of
the individual; about cultivating our mutual dependence as human beings; about making especially sure
that those who are vulnerable or most likely to be overlooked are included then the common good is
right at the core of the Bibles teaching about how we should live as individuals and communities.

And perhaps there is no clearer expression of this than in one of the readings we had -

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38
This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your
neighbour as yourself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Loving our neighbour is right at the heart of Christs teaching just as it was at the heart of the Hebrew
Scriptures on which he was weaned (he draws on them here of course Deuteronomy 6.5 and Leviticus
19.18.) The whole law and the prophets everything else Jesus says hangs upon them.

It is one of Jesus most oft-quoted sayings, yet when we start to unpack it, it really is a very radical and
frankly challenging command.

Here are three thoughts:

(i) We must not forget that loving God comes first there can be a tendency to focus so much
on the social dimension we forget the spiritual one though really that is a false
dichotomy as the two, even though they are not to be conflated, must go together and
never be separated. One cannot love God without also wanting to love ones neighbour
and vice versa since according to I John 4.7, everyone who loves has been born of God and
knows God. The closeness of the two laws comes out more clearly in the Luke version
(10.27):

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Commitment for Life 2016.Please credit where applicable.
 You shall 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 your neighbour as yourself.

(ii) It is not about neglecting our own needs or failing to look after our own families and
children. Indeed, the implication here is that we cannot truly love our neighbour unless we
properly love ourselves first. For some this is quite difficult we need persuading to look
after ourselves. For others, we might say, all they think about is themself! But the point is,
we are also to care for our neighbours and our neighbours families and children as we do
our own families and children. We really are our sisters and brothers keepers which is
right at the heart of the common good. As Jim Wallis likes to say, the Bible calls us not to
concern ourselves with keeping up with the Joneses but with making sure the Joneses are
doing OK.

Here is a story about loving our neighbour from our partner country.........
Tell the story here of the person featured in the Commitment for Life 2015 Mini magazine that relates to
your partner country/region. The magazine stories can be found on line at
http://www.urc.org.uk/mission/commitment-for-life/partner-countries.html. If you need more copies of
the mini magazine, contact lmeadcforl@gmail.com.

(iii) Our neighbours will also include some of the hardest people to love, including even our
enemies, as Jesus himself warned us, but we are to love them as well:

You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I
say unto you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matt. 5.43-44).

Our neighbour is also the person we may feel most estranged from, maybe those who are most
despised in society. The answer to the lawyers question, and who is my neighbour (the context
for the saying above in Luke 10), was the Samaritan who helped the man in need on the road to
Jericho a person the lawyer so despised he couldnt bring himself to name him.

But this again is right at the heart of the common good not writing off anybody, however
different they may be from us in outlook, ethnicity, class, income, politics, whatever, but
acknowledging that there is something of God in them, that they may be seeking the same
thing as us but in different ways. Its about seeking their interest as much as that of others.

So we see how counter-cultural loving our neighbour really is, particularly in our own day when
so much emphasis is put on looking after Number One, when so many messages tell me to
focus on what gives me comfort and security its all about me. And when so often the

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Commitment for Life 2016.Please credit where applicable.
 dominant voices seek to divide us rather than bring us together, to denigrate sections of the
community by describing them as immigrants, skivers, fat cats and so on

Thank you for contributing to Commitment for Life over many years. As a programme of General Assembly
it is right at the heart of the mission of the whole church. Your generosity has allowed your neighbours in
the particular country you support to exceed their expectations. When we connect to our neighbours, we
learn the needs of one another and how to meet them - making our relationships not only more personal
but the world that bit better.

Loving our neighbour truly will seldom be without cost but its absolutely vital to building the common
good.

Adapted from a piece by Andrew Bradstock, Church and Society Secretary 2013-15.

permission given to reproduce this service outline on a once only basis and not for commercial use.
Commitment for Life 2016.Please credit where applicable.