“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 first commandment and the second is like it Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:37-39 )
Jesus in the gospel of Matthew gives us the greatest commandment, and while that commandment seemingly has two parts to it, Love God and Love Neighbour. Jesus institutes it as one and the same, the second is like it, or like the first. In saying this Jesus is telling us that our love for God is revealed in our love for neighbor, to say we love God and to show no love toward neighbor is in essence a love with little or no merit, or no breadth you might say, an unrequited love. The love Jesus speaks about in the great commandment, is more than the emotion or feeling we think about when we say we love someone, or something. It is more than the immediate gratification we feel in our need to respond in a time of crisis, while all that do elicit the feeling of love, the biblical love Jesus is referring to is something more, it is internal or spiritual. It is a love that calls us to respond, to act out of commitment toward the God we are to love with all our heart, soul, and mind. That response is revealed in our love toward neighbor, mainly in our action to create change in the life, the circumstances of another. It is revealed in our own willingness to give up something, to deny self that another may benefit from our generosity, our kindness, our compassion, our care whatever it might be to make a situation better for the other. This love, while it is more often revealed in our response at a time of crisis, or when a need presents itself, this love, the love for God and neighbour that Jesus speaks about however, is ungoing, it never ends. It persists in doing good even when we feel that our efforts may sometimes go unrequited or unrecognized, or even when we feel it may be undeserved, we keep giving, doing good, knowing that what we do, we do not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of all that God created and said was good (Genesis 1) and so in response we make effort to love all that God loves, loving neighbour as ourselves. May you have a blessed week and in it find or make room to share the Love of God through the action you take in your Love toward neighbour in what you say, do, or give that makes life not only better for the other, but for yourselves as well, “for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:8). "
Blessings and Peace,
Rev. Hannah
