“The Great Commandment” / “To Do What’s Right”

The Acoustic Word

In this week’s appointed Gospel Jesus is asked which commandment is the greatest?   He  replies, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment.”  And then he adds, ³⁹ “A second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁴⁰

I love the phrase, “a second is like it.”  I believe it’s Jesus’ way of fleshing out and making the first commandment real, concrete, and grounded in this world.  It’s like Jesus is telling us, “If you really want to love God, do so by loving the people around you.”  It’s really quite simple and straight forward.

And I think we need that straight forward message because sometimes our love for God only exists in a very private “spiritual” sphere as something that happens in our worship life.  The prophet Amos reminds us in no uncertain terms how God feels about worship that exists apart from deeds of righteousness and justice, apart from  loving your neighbor.  “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. … Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” ( Amos  5:21, 23-24)

This week’s Gospel reminds us that true spirituality, our love of God and our connection with God, is incomplete without love for the neighbor, without the actions that help create peace and justice in our world.  True spirituality is not “out of this world,” but rather grounded deeply in this world.

“To Do What’s Right”

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St. Paul echoes these thoughts in his first letter to the Corinthians, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”  (1 Corinthians 13:1-2)

I often lament that issues of faith are rather complicated, but this week it’s actually quite simple, “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 neighbor as yourself.”   On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

Go in peace to love and to serve the Lord, Amen.

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Matthew 22:34-40

34 

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ ³⁷He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’