For six years I preached at Left Hand Church, which changed its name to Envision Community Church in its last days. Kristie Vernon and I were the co-pastors who remained when the church closed its doors on November 12. Our decision was agonizingly difficult, but we knew it was time. We both preached for the last service. I chose to speak from the same passage as my first sermon at Left Hand – Matthew 22.

I refer to the final story of that chapter as the Last Press Conference because it was the last time Jesus met with the crowds at large. After that day he retreated to work with his disciples. Until the time of his arrest, this was the last time religious authorities had access to him. In this final press conference, three questions were asked. Jesus’s answer to the final question was the culmination of one era and the beginning of another.

The first question was about paying taxes to Caesar. One religious group thought it appropriate. a competing group thought not. Jesus asked for a coin and noted that Caesar’s image was on the coin. If the people were using his monetary system, were they not gaining benefits of the Roman Empire? “Pay Caesar’s what’s Caesar’s and God what’s God’s.”

With the first question quickly dispatched, a Sadducee asked about multiple marriages and the resurrection. “Say a guy marries and dies before his wife has kids. The brother marries the wife and then he dies before they have kids. Then the next brother dies, and so on until they’ve run out of brothers.” He was referring to the Leverite Law, which was focused on nation building and encouraged exactly what the man was suggesting. But that had nothing to do with why he was asking the question. The reason for the question was to challenge the notion of a heavenly afterlife. The Sadducee asked, “After all the dead husbands, she dies. So Jesus, which guy is she married to in heaven?”

I see Jesus rolling his eyes, knowing that answering that question is like trying to explain the meaning of life to a snow crab. No matter what he says, this guy ain’t gonna get it. Jesus dismisses the question with a quick, “There is no marriage in heaven.” To which half of the audience was upset and the other half was thinking, “Hmmm, there is an end to this. Okay then…”

Then came the final question of the last press conference, asked by an honest guy looking for answers. This student of the law asked, “Which of the 613 laws is the greatest?” Jesus did not hesitate. He said the greatest were to love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as you love your own self.

There was no real surprise in his answer. They began all of their religious services quoting those laws. It was what he said next that threw the whole crowd into a frenzy. Jesus said “On these are all the law and prophets based.” Matthew tells us there was dead silence. This is a press conference, with enough questioners and questions to last a week, and there was dead silence. Matthew goes on, “From that day on, no one dared to ask him any more questions.” So, it really was that simple. Good religion was not 613 laws; it was three things – to love God, neighbor, and self. Profoundly simple, but never easy.

At Left Hand Church I always talked about these three things with exactly the same language. Regarding God, I said, “We are to love the God who burst on the scene 14 billion years ago in all of God’s mystery, complexity, and ever expansiveness, rooted in relationship, and grounded in love.”

The first part of that explanation of God is the Big Bang, which took place around 14 billion years ago, with the universe ever expanding since that moment, mysterious and complex. Rooted in relationship is a nod to the discoveries of Quantum Physics, which determined that the ultimate building blocks of the universe are not made of matter, but of a pattern of relationships between non-material entities. The core building blocks of the universe are therefore relationships. If the core building blocks of the universe are relationships, then it is not much of a stretch to say love, the greatest of relationships, is the most powerful force in the universe.

Regarding neighbor, I said, “To love your neighbor is to love anyone with whom you come in contact. The best way to bridge the divide between humans is always through proximity and narrative – to come in contact with one another and hear each other’s stories.”

I always finished with these words, “And you cannot love God or neighbor if you cannot love yourself. As my friend Mara says, we are neurobiologically wired for deep human connection. Yet our core wound is that there is something about us that makes us unworthy of deep human connection. That is the wound we all spend a lifetime trying to heal.”

Our epic journey, or quest, is to travel from the place of supposed unworthiness, through the land of the lost to the land of peace, where we find we are loved by God and worthy of deep human connection just as we are – no questions asked – no changes demanded. Only then can we love our neighbors, and the God who crafted us all.

I have always loved preaching the simplicity of that story, a simplicity on the far side of complexity. A simplicity fought for and profound, as if Jesus was saying in answer to that final question, “Everything that came before comes down to this, and everything that springs forth is born of this.” These words are the rising of a new day, the green flash of light as the sun first appears over the water’s horizon. Following Jesus means loving God, neighbor, and self.

I loved telling that story time and again. I wanted it seared on the consciousness of the folks who called Left Hand home. If we can keep our focus on those three truths, then there is hope for our species and the planet we inhabit.