Deuteronomy 34.1-12 Psalm 90.1-6; 13-17 1 Thessalonians 2.1-13 Matthew 22.34-46
We hear the two great commandments every week in our worship but do we really ‘take them to heart’ or just give them lip service. How hard is it to love God ‘with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind’. Quite frankly, it is easy to say, but not so easy to do. It requires a whole new ‘life focus’ which is not easy in our modern world. For Jesus, this type of love was risky, it was demanding, it caused him to enter debates and conflicts with his whole self. Love like this led him into situations that were more than uncomfortable, they were dangerous, and it eventually got him killed.
The thing is, ‘Love your neighbour’ is an easy statement to make but do you actually ‘know’ your neighbours. In a society which ‘keeps self to yourself’, it is not uncommon for people to not even know the names of their neighbours. They may recognise them in the street or shopping centre, but they do not talk with them, they do not interact with them, they do not ‘know’ them. So how can you ‘love’ someone you do not even know. Jesus asks us to love our neighbour ‘as we love ourselves’, and that can be difficult if we do not even know them. And that is only the neighbours we are physically near to, and we know that Jesus’ reference to ‘neighbour’ extends a lot further than that, it means love ‘all peoples’ as you love yourself. Love God and love your neighbour. These two are linked, they cannot be separated. To do one, implies doing the other. Because if you do not love your neighbour, you are not loving God. And when you love God, you will instinctively love your neighbour.
It is interesting that, at this point in the Jesus story, when crucifixion is ‘just round the corner’, Jesus’ answer to this question about what matters most in a life of faith, is simply to say ‘love’. Love God, Love your neighbour. Christianity boiled down to a single word. Love.
So how do we do it. And we need to be careful here not to fall into our default use/misuse/overuse of the word love. We are not talking about the feelings we have for our celebrities, or chocolate, or a great book, or even our favourite holiday destination. As I often tell couples when I am preparing them for marriage, love is not an emotion, it is an action. Love is a verb, a ‘doing word’, it requires us to ‘do something’ so that others may know or see or feel ‘cared for, cared about, respected, noticed’, and I could go on. It does not reflect how we feel, it is visible through what we do. And biblical love requires us to be vulnerable. And many of us actively resist becoming vulnerable. Love requires trust; it asks us to move outside our ‘safe boundaries’; it takes time, effort, discipline and transformation. So what would it take for us to be able to take Jesus’ version of love seriously? What would it take for us to practice and cultivate a depth of compassion that is ‘gut-wrenching’; to train ourselves into a hunger for justice that is so urgent, and so fierce, that we willingly rearrange our lives to go after it; for us to pray for the kind of empathy that causes hearts to break?
If we were honest, most of us would not volunteer for this lifestyle; we like our boundaries, we prefer to choose our circle of friends. Charity may be easy to do; but cultivating my heart, preparing and pruning it to love, to become vulnerable in authentic ways to the pain of the world; those things are difficult, they are hard and they are costly.
But this is the call Jesus is making. Which means we have a God who, first and foremost, wants our love, and wants every one of God’s children to be loved…. By us. And it is not accidental that Jesus links loving God with loving our neighbour. Because they reinforce, reinterpret and revive each other. It is not possible for us to love God without loving what God loves. And our love has to be robust, hands-on, muscular and intimate. Reaching into skin and bone and blood and tears.
And it is also not possible for us to love ourselves, or our neighbours, in any meaningful way if our love is not rooted in and replenished in an abiding love for God. God’s love does not end, but if we sever our pipeline to God’s compassion, we will very soon run dry. Love of God makes it possible for us to love our neighbour and loving our neighbour puts flesh and bones on our love for God.
If we think of love as just an emotion – loving God with all my heart, mind, and soul seems nearly impossible because how do I have those emotions for something as remote and mysterious and disembodied as the concept of God. In the same vein, loving my neighbour is difficult if it is just a passive response to the person next to me; how can I look into the face of the enemy and feel unqualified love. But biblical love is not passive, it is not something that occurs to us without our control or will. It is something we do.
We are called to follow in the footsteps of the one who stood in the presence of his accusers and enemies and declared love to be the ‘be-all’ and ‘end-all’. We are called to weep with those who weep; to laugh with those who laugh; to touch the untouchable; feed the hungry; welcome the children; release captives; forgive sinners; confront oppressors; comfort the oppressed; wash each other’s feet; hold each other close and tell each other the truth. We are called to guide each other home.
I found this blessing in my travels this week and I would like to share it with you.
The world now is too dangerous and too beautiful for anything but love.
May your eyes be so blessed you see God in everyone.
Your ears, so you hear the cry of the poor.
May your hands be so blessed that everything you touch is a sacrament.
Your lips, so you speak nothing but the truth with love.
May your feet be so blessed you run to those who need you.
And may your heart be so opened, so set on fire, that your love, your love, changes everything.
And may the blessing of the God who created you, loves you, and sustains you, be with you now and always.
May it be so.