Friday of the Third Week of Lent -- April 1, 2011
Mark 12:28 – 34
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
Back in the days when I preached three sermons a week and thus looked for any "hook" possible for a sermon topic and title, I preached a sermon on this passage and titled it, “How Far to the Kingdom of God?” I don’t remember that it was a particularly good sermon; however, I still love the title.
But I digress . . .
The teacher asked Jesus for the single greatest commandment. Jesus gave him one. Then gave him another. He wasn’t intending to rank them #1 and #2. In some way, Jesus said, these two disparate commandments were one and the same.
Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The two are tied together as one.
It’s tempting to make two things out of this. Some of us, perhaps the introverts, are drawn toward love of God, to contemplation and prayer and a deeper devotional life that goes into the prayer closet and closes the door.
Others of us, maybe the more extroverted, are drawn toward people (“neighbor”), finding energy in both giving and receiving from others.
Somehow Jesus pulls together both the inward stance (love of God) and the outward movement (love of neighbor as self). The heart that loves God is the same heart that loves neighbor as self.
Several decades ago, I read something about love that has stuck with me. I think it was in a C. S. Lewis book. It said something like this:
We begin thinking that love is love, that there is one meaning to love. Usually it is a feeling, a romantic tingle.
Then at some point, if we hang around the Church long enough, we’ll hear that there are several different kinds of love, and that the Greek language had different words for each (eros = the human love of desire; phileo = sisterly/brotherly love; agape’ = the self-giving, sacrificial love with which God loves humans).
I remember the days in college when I first heard about the Greek terms for love. Our English word “love” seemed so paltry when the richly textured love-language of the Greeks was placed next to it. I spent a great many years aspiring to the so-called “highest” form of love, agape’, and parsed my life and actions according to this breakdown.
But Lewis said there comes a time, after years of living and a long gathering of spiritual wisdom, when we come again to see that there really is only one love . . . the love with which we live with God and with others and with the created world. They all have the same source, and ultimately they are all expressions of Love. Period.
When I read this passage today, I’m reminded of that. Again.
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
Back in the days when I preached three sermons a week and thus looked for any "hook" possible for a sermon topic and title, I preached a sermon on this passage and titled it, “How Far to the Kingdom of God?” I don’t remember that it was a particularly good sermon; however, I still love the title.
But I digress . . .
The teacher asked Jesus for the single greatest commandment. Jesus gave him one. Then gave him another. He wasn’t intending to rank them #1 and #2. In some way, Jesus said, these two disparate commandments were one and the same.
Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The two are tied together as one.
It’s tempting to make two things out of this. Some of us, perhaps the introverts, are drawn toward love of God, to contemplation and prayer and a deeper devotional life that goes into the prayer closet and closes the door.
Others of us, maybe the more extroverted, are drawn toward people (“neighbor”), finding energy in both giving and receiving from others.
Somehow Jesus pulls together both the inward stance (love of God) and the outward movement (love of neighbor as self). The heart that loves God is the same heart that loves neighbor as self.
Several decades ago, I read something about love that has stuck with me. I think it was in a C. S. Lewis book. It said something like this:
We begin thinking that love is love, that there is one meaning to love. Usually it is a feeling, a romantic tingle.
Then at some point, if we hang around the Church long enough, we’ll hear that there are several different kinds of love, and that the Greek language had different words for each (eros = the human love of desire; phileo = sisterly/brotherly love; agape’ = the self-giving, sacrificial love with which God loves humans).
I remember the days in college when I first heard about the Greek terms for love. Our English word “love” seemed so paltry when the richly textured love-language of the Greeks was placed next to it. I spent a great many years aspiring to the so-called “highest” form of love, agape’, and parsed my life and actions according to this breakdown.
But Lewis said there comes a time, after years of living and a long gathering of spiritual wisdom, when we come again to see that there really is only one love . . . the love with which we live with God and with others and with the created world. They all have the same source, and ultimately they are all expressions of Love. Period.
When I read this passage today, I’m reminded of that. Again.
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