“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
There are multiple places in the Old and New Testament, (Deuteronomy, Psalms, Leviticus, each of the Gospels, 1 John, etc), that we are reminded of these two commandments. These two commandments encompass all the other commandments. If we love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind then we won’t have any other gods, we won’t use the Lord’s name in vain and we will keep holy the Sabbath. And not only will we keep holy the Sabbath but every day for us will be the Lord’s Day. If we love our neighbor as ourselves we will honor them, we won’t kill or steal or commit adultery. We won’t bear false witness against them and we won’t covet their wife or their goods.
The commandments are an expression of God’s love for us and when we obey them, we are expressing our love for God. Love leads to obedience. The more we know God, the more we love him, and the more we love him, the more we desire to serve him and to do his will. But like the Pharisees, we tend to focus on the rules and want to know how much we can bend them. Working with teenagers in our High School Ministry, they sometimes wonder how far they can “go” with their boyfriend or girlfriend before they are sinning. Rather than looking at how far we can bend the rules, we should look at why God gave us the commandments in the first place. We make up excuses for why we sin, often blaming others. I wouldn’t lose my temper if my co-workers were easier to get along with, or if my kids behaved better, or if my spouse were more considerate. I would have a pure mind if there weren’t so many sensual images in our culture. I would be more generous if we had more money. And the excuses go on and on. Making excuses is arrogant. Through pride we are trying to justify our actions and pacify our guilty conscience. It keeps us from humbling ourselves before God, repenting and seeking his forgiveness. “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.” (James 1:14-15)
As we reflect on this gospel, we need to really look at our understanding of love. Love is a gift from God. We are able to love because God loved us first. We are a gift to one another and we need to see God in each person that we encounter and show reverence for that person. Jesus tells us that the greatest sign of our discipleship is how we love one another. (John 13:35) “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whomever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) I know it is not always easy to love others. I tend to hold grudges and hold onto the pain that someone has caused me. Being a disciple of Christ is not easy. The path is narrow, the road is often paved with difficulty and often times others we are alone. But with God’s grace we are able to persevere and to love as he loves.
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