Love God and Love your Neighbor

Today’s gospel is one of my favorites – it is one of Jesus’ most memorable and most important teachings

In the business world I learned how to develop an elevator speech, which is a quick speech that you can give if you bump into someone and have to give them a quick sales pitch

If a stranger asked me to summarize the Bible teachings in 15 seconds, I would say that God created men and women in his image and told them what they must do be happy on earth and to live forever in heaven – and the 2 primary rules are to love God and love your neighbor. If interested, that 15 second talk could lead to a lot of questions and deeper discussion.

Today’s gospel is also short, but there is a lot here to think about.

A lawyer asked Jesus which of the commandments is the greatest. You may recall that last week scholars asked Jesus a question about paying taxes – their goal was to trap Jesus, today they are asking out of a sincere desire to know.

Rabbis state that there are 613 laws given in the Old Testament and the rabbis often debated which of these 613 is the greatest.

Jesus’ states that the most important law is to love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the Shema prayer from Deuteronomy 6:5. Devout Jewish followers say this prayer several times a day – it carries the same reverence that we have for the Our Father.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph would have said this Shema prayer together often. 

The second part of His answer – love your neighbor as yourself, is a command from Leviticus 19:18.

These 2 laws also tie back to the 10 Commandments. It is believed that the 10 Commandments were given to Moses on 2 tablets.

The first tablet contained the 3 commandments which relate to love of God– though shalt not have any Gods before me, though shalt not take the name of God in vain and though shalt keep the sabbath holy.

The second tablet had 7 commandments which relate to love of neighbor – honor thy father and mother, though shall not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, covet thy neighbor’s wife or covet thy neighbor’s goods.

As Catholics we still follow the 10 commandments – they are rules for showing we love God and neighbor. Some Christians no longer think that they are governed by the 10 commandments – they believe that faith alone is all they need – this belief is in direct conflict with Jesus’ teachings today

If we look at our other readings today, they echo the theme of loving God and neighbor

Our first reading from Exodus emphasizes love of neighbor – the Lord said that we should not oppress any foreigners or aliens. God has warned us that if we harm any foreigners, especially the poor and vulnerable, he will hear their cry and severely punish anyone that oppresses them.  God has a close relationship with the poor.  This reading is part of the foundation of Catholic social teaching.

Our Psalm “I love you, Lord, my strength”, clearly emphasizes love of God.

Our second reading from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians encourages us to love God and neighbor and to be role models. Just as Jesus was the model for Paul and Paul was the model for the Thessalonians, Paul is instructing all Christians to be role models for others. 

So these readings, and in fact the entirety of the Bible, point to love as the highest law.

So what does it really mean to love God and to love neighbor?

It does not mean that we are to only have special feelings or emotions toward them. Love in these commandments is a verb, an action.  God cannot command any of us to have the emotion of love any more than he can command us to not be sad.  He is commanding us to show we care through our actions.

To love God with all of our heart and soul means we must have a physical desire to be with God.

To love God with all of our mind means we must seek to truly know God intellectually, to read, to understand.

To love our neighbor is to act like the good Samaritan who gave generously of his time, talent and treasure to help a complete stranger, one who could not repay him and one who may not even like the person who helped him.

We should strive to love God and our neighbor as God loves us. God’s love is permanent, it does not come and go - we can fall in and out of love with people, but God cannot.  God’s love is also sacrificial, we should demonstrate our love by doing things we don’t want to do, solely for the benefit of the other

In our reading today, Jesus reminds us that - loving God is the most important thing we do, loving our neighbor is a very close second and loving ourself is a distant third. Growing up in Chicago, I was a fan of Gale Sayers who was a running back for the Bears in the 1960s.  His autobiography was called “I am Third” which was his philosophy on life.  “God is first, others are second, I am third.”   Father Jess reminded me of the acronym for JOY – Jesus, Others, You

Today’s culture encourages love of self above all – self-absorption leads only to loneliness. As Catholics, we place God and neighbor first, which leads to happiness and fulfillment.  The more we love authentically, the more fulfilled our life will become.

So today, let us take a few minutes to contemplate how we love God, how we love neighbor and how we love ourself. This is a truly challenging and all-consuming request, but it is a choice we make and all other things we do are secondary to this.

May God bless you.