Love at the heart of it all

When the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘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 neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’? “If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. Matthew 22:34-46 

This is another of those controversy stories, when Jesus has to deal with someone trying to trap him: here it’s one of the Pharisees, a lawyer, who tries to test him.  And it’s an interesting question:  what do you think is the most important rule?   After all, we live our lives surrounded by rules, laws, commandments, requirements.  There’s New Zealand law – statutes and regulations; there’s local body regulations; there’s church law, both our diocesan canons and Title D (the Canon on Ministry Standards).  There’s traffic laws and parking provisions, OSH requirements – and that’s just within New Zealand.  There’s a whole body of international law: treaties and trade agreements.  And there’s that commandment known to so many: “thou shalt not get caught.”  So what do we think is the most important?

It’s almost as if the question is, if you can’t quite manage all the commandments, which one must you be sure not to leave out?  If you keep forgetting what the speed limit is on the open road, and don’t want to close your shop on certain days of the year, if your parish statistical return is months overdue, and you tell the odd white lie – is that OK, as long as you can remember the right colours for the liturgical season and don’t cheat on your tax return?  Well – is it?  Which commandment is the greatest – because we’re not all that sure we can manage them all.

A reading like this calls into question how we feel about the commandments, the laws we find in Scripture – and, indeed, the rules and regulations we find anywhere.  To Jesus, observance of Torah, of the law in all its fullness, was a joy: the joy of freedom created by love.   He goes to the heart and centre of the law: love God and love your neighbour as yourself. 

We’re invited here to remember that the command to love God presumes God’s love of God’s people.  This is shown in the concrete and daily care that God’s people experienced right through the Bible, and that we experience today.   We know what it is to love God because of God’s love for us.  That’s where it begins.  Not with rules and regulations, with “the law,” but with the love of God for a people.  For us.

God is love: that’s the heart of it all.  We’re loved by God so that we can love God, and love others.  To love others as God loves us, to show others that same care as we ourselves have received from God.  This love of neighbour is possible because we’ve first been loved by God.  Having received that love, we’re then able to love God and, in turn, to love those around us.  And this is a love we can show to ourselves: the command about “loving our neighbour as ourselves” makes no sense if we don’t love ourselves.  Jesus assumes a proper care for ourselves. The command isn’t simply “love your neighbour”; it’s “love your neighbour as yourself.”  We’re to regard ourselves neither too highly nor too poorly, but as people whom God loves. 

How can we help each other live a life of loving God with every part of us?  And how can we help each other live a life of love and commitment to other people?

Image credit: Mohamed Marey, Unsplash

(Reflections by The Ven. Dr Deborah Broome)