1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Reflection:
What does it mean to love your neighbour? Moreover, what does it mean to love your neighbour as you love yourself?
In responding to the Pharisee’s testing question about which is the greatest commandment, Jesus reveals to those listening, his knowledge of his Jewish faith. Deuteronomy 6:5 states: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Leviticus 19:18b: you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
These commandments are well known to Jewish people and would have been recited twice a day as part of their faith practices. So what Jesus said would have been the correct and appropriate answer, quite acceptable to the ears of the Pharisees. Jesus knew the law, the Torah, very well. It is interesting that Jesus then took the encounter further; he didn’t answer the Pharisees and leave the matter there. He went on to ask them questions which caused some confusion and perplexity, and of course, would have further fueled their hostility toward Jesus.
Jesus didn’t just know the law, as the Messiah, he embodied it, he was the law. The Pharisees knew that the Messiah was to come from the house of David, so would be a son of David, but they expected a human king, a powerful warrior that would free the people from oppression by foreign powers. They did not expect the Messiah to be God himself standing before them in the human person of Jesus. This did not enter their realm of thinking or understanding; they were not open to who Jesus was or to his message. As I already mentioned, Jesus embodied the law so his focus was on actions, on living God’s truth, as opposed to just words. The commandments were intended to teach people how to live life well rather than to be used for the purposes of judgement, self-promotion or to impose control on the lives of others. Jesus had not come to oppose the law of the prophets but to uphold and fulfil them, to interpret them in ways that make them meaningful based on God’s truth not human world views.
When we love God in the way we are commanded to, with all our heart, soul and might, we want nothing more than to worship, praise and serve God. We want to please God by living in ways that fulfill God’s call on our own lives, and are in obedience to God’s laws. Sounds idealistic and it is, because no matter how hard we try, we mess up and we do things that are against God’s laws. However, as long as we recognise our fallibility and turn to God, we are forgiven and we try again, and again. The grace of God is in that we are loved totally and tenderly just as we are, whether we deserve it or not. This love is why we receive salvation through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. This grace of God’s love and forgiveness enables and impels us to love ourselves and others. Made in God’s image, we all contain the divine. How can we do anything else but give the love that we receive?
Paul describes how he behaved towards the Thessalonians: “we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.” This loving of neighbour is a real, practical way of being and acting toward the other. The gospel is not just words, and it is more than a philosophy of truth about God; it is firmly based in actions of kindness, caring and mercy. Love of neighbour is made possible because of prior love of God. Love for God and neighbour is an imperative, not a recommendation.
Love is not merely a feeling, an emotion or a projection of well-intentioned and kind thoughts to others. Love is not just generous words or inclusive ideals. It is actions. This includes kindness, hospitality, loyalty, generosity, justice and service. All these are loving actions but Jesus challenges us with more. Love is empowering and deeply rooted in mercy and justice, and this can take us into places where loving the other can be challenging. We can be called to love the unlovable. So, to turn the other cheek when we are personally affronted, to do good works and be kind and inclusive to people we don’t necessarily like or want to be around, even to love those who we would think of as our enemies. Maybe we find it easy to be kind, welcoming and loving toward someone who is poor, a child, someone who is new to our country, someone who has lost their job or home, a young family, an older person and so on. People who we can relate to because of their context; we can relate to/imagine their situation. How easy is it when the person we are called to love is someone who has stolen from us, offended against us or others, is aggressive or under the influence of substances, someone who is threatening or has hurt someone close to us, or maybe the person is dirty, smelly and frightening in their behaviour? How do we love someone we don’t like, we don’t understand, we fear? I often ponder these questions and I don’t know about you, but I have personally felt challenged by some people I have encountered.
I’ll give you one example. Whilst I was working in prison ministry, I would visit the management units where men were locked in solitary, and I would go along past each cell and speak to whoever wanted to have a chat. On one particular occasion, I found myself speaking with a young man whom I found quite difficult. He spent the entire time abusing me verbally – attacking my role as a chaplain from the church, my faith and also me, personally. He was very angry and seemed a little irrational because he would not listen to a word I said. He accused me of a range of things that were just not true. I remember thinking very clearly that I needed to ‘turn the other cheek’ – these were words that echoed in my head. So I stayed next to the trapdoor of his slot and I listened. There were moments when I felt afraid (even though there were officers nearby), I felt it was pointless being there because I assumed he was drug affected, and I wondered why I did stay. At the same time, I could not move until he had finished. Then I said goodbye and told him I would pop back next time I was in. Chaplain colleagues told me I should have just told him goodbye and left, or said that I would speak to him when he could behave a bit better. I dreaded when I went back to that unit a week or two later. The slot was opened and he looked at me and said “oh you’re back. You know when I saw you last time, I was pretty unwell. I had a toothache and I hope I didn’t say the wrong thing. Thank you for coming to see me.” I felt very blessed that day because God used me to care for a brother. For me, this was a lesson in the power of the gospel in action, of grace at work. It is a very obvious example within a specific context, and I am sure that if you think about it there will be times where you have witnessed or directly experienced love for God and neighbour in your life. Equally, I am sure we can all think of times where opportunities have been lost or missed. This is the journey we are all on, and the reason why we gather to be re-energised, nourished and reminded that actions and service are integral to living our faith. We are loved by God so that we can do what we were created for – to love God and love God’s people as we love ourselves. Amen.