At this point in the gospels, the writers seemed to pull a variety of sayings and happenings together, almost as though they didn’t want to leave anything out. The sense of things happening in a chronological order is blurred, taking back seat to short teachings, stories, and parables. In the mix are the following words to live by:
“One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: ‘Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus replied, ‘What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?’ The man answered, ‘You must love the LORD (there’s that I AM, or YHWH name again.) your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And, Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ‘Right!’ Jesus told him. ‘Do this and you will live!’ The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’”
Love…the word here is Agape, the highest form of love. This kind of love is not a feeling. It is a rock solid decision, a determination to do the best possible for the object of our love; a commitment to the success of the relationship. This is gift-love, not need-love. Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is always an affair of the will.
This commandment is first found in Deuteronomy 6:5. The command to love neighbors as self is throughout the books of the Law, starting in Leviticus 18:5.
We are so preoccupied with daily life that we have little understanding of what our lives would be like if we loved God so totally. With all our heart: meaning our emotions, passions, lusts, and desires…putting all of those things before God as gifts for his use and pleasure. Withholding nothing, even the feelings we think unworthy, knowing that God will use even our weakest and most base passions for our best, if we but give them up to him.
With all our soul: our very being, our life. The thing that makes us who we are, without which we are only protoplasm arranged in human form. We can withhold nothing from God, even our individuality. When we agape him with all we are, all we are is given to him. It is only in this most fundamental giving that we will finally find ourselves.
With all our strength: Not just the strength of our body, which waxes with youth and wanes terribly with age, but with the strength of our imagination, the skills of our life, the things we produce, and the labor of our life. Our vocation is the voice of God in our work. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. The produce of our life provides us with a living, while bringing the satisfaction of significance.
With our entire mind: What does loving God with your mind look like? When I think of this I see the kind of mind that is not locked up in the dogma of orthodoxy, but is constantly working to understand God deeper and better. I know that Christians need never avoid intellectual challenge, for it is in the hard questions that our faith is made most alive. In this intellectual pursuit, even doubt becomes God’s tool. I like Beuchner’s observation: “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” We may never know all the answers, but the more we pursue God with our minds, the more we will know and enjoy him…forever.
Just think about this for a few moments: lean back in your chair and wonder; what would your life be like if you loved God so totally? What would change? What would you lose? What would you gain? What would it mean to the people who share life with you?
When I read back what I have just written I come to this wonderful realization…it is by loving God with the totality of my being that I finally become most human…the person God created in his image to live with him forever. When I lose myself in him, I find my true self. But that is not all the story. Part two is in tomorrow’s blog.
Prayer: “Great Father, I deeply desire to be a loving man. I want to love you with abandon, and lose myself in the adventure of knowing you and working to be the person you had in mind when you breathed into my body your breath of life. I know that the closer I am to you, the more alive I feel, and the more meaningful my life is. Save me Father from the smallness of my mind and make my soul open to truth. Keep me agile and supple of mind. Lead me in the way that is everlasting. In Jesus’ name, amen.”