What does it mean to love?

The Hebrew Bible has lots of rules to follow, there is the ten commandments, but also many rules in the old testament that cover what to plant, and what and when to sacrifice, and tithing and numerous other rules. Rabbis were often asked to interpret these rules. Here Jesus is asked what the most important of the rules are; and he responds:

“The most important one is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment more important than these two.” [Good News version]

He doesn’t speak of tithing, or sexuality, or what clothes to wear, or how to worship, or what structure the church should follow. He speaks about loving God and loving neighbour.

Reminds me of the song: All you need is love. it is just so simple, all you need is love, so says the Beatles classic.

“All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love,
Love is all you need”

But what do we mean by love?

These days we think of love as a romantic feeling.

I wonder what it means, to love God with all that we are, and to love our neighbour as our self. 

Loving God has to be easier than loving our neighbour, maybe we should start with the first one: Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Maybe not so easy, so we will come back to it later, and move to the second most important commandment: “love your neighbour as you love yourself” .

In Luke’s gospel we have the story of the Good Samaritan in response to a question about who is my neighbour? Our neighbour is someone who is in need, and I get that we can, and should, help such people, but love them???

We heard a few weeks ago about the rich man who went away sad- Jesus told him to sell all he had and give it to the poor – is that what loving people is about, giving them what we have worked hard for? It doesn’t sound like love.

Matthew has the story of the Sheep and Goats at the judgement, and the sheep asking when they have visited or fed or given water or clothed Jesus and the response is : “Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me.” [Matthew 25 CEV]

Love your neighbour as yourself, doesn’t sound simple either; maybe we can start with the part about yourself, loving our neighbour in the same way as we love our self.  I can remember early in my time as a Christian being told that I was at the end of the list, J O Y, Jesus first, yourself last and others in between, , there was a song about it. Yet, Jesus is saying that the second most important commandment is loving our neighbour, the person who is in need, in the same way that we love our self.  One person explained this by thinking about it like the oxygen masks on an airplane: the instructions are to ‘ “attach your mask first before assisting others.” The point is clear: If I do not take care of myself, I cannot take care of others. If I do not love myself, I cannot love others.’ [Seasons of the Spirit]

This passage then is about love, but not love that is a warm, romantic, sentimental feeling; love of neighbour = non-exploitation [Binding the Strong Man p318 Ched Myers].

I wonder what loving God and loving neighbour means in our world today.

·    In a world where people are cleaning up after the super storm Sandy [2 pictures]

·    In a world where making changes that mean a more liveable environment is thought of as strange [1 picture]

·    In a world where wanting to learn is considered dangerous [1 picture]

·    In a nation where the entire country has been removed from the migration zone

·    In a city divided by geography, wealth and education.

What does loving God and loving our neighbour as our-self mean?

Well, first of all we need to love our self, which can be difficult for many of us, because if we don’t love ourselves, how can we love others? This doesn’t mean thinking we are better than others, or that we never get anything wrong, but it does mean recognising and valuing the person that God has made you.

Loving our neighbour, living in ways that do not exploit people, in Biblical times this meant leaving grain for people to glean, which you can read more about in the Ruth story; not oppressing your workers; not discriminating against the disabled; not speaking falsely about people. Loving our neighbours seems to me to be about living in ways that offer life to all people, the fullness of life that Jesus speaks about.  

Which brings us back to the greatest commandment - Loving God with all out heart, soul, mind and strength. What might loving God look like? The scribe agrees with Jesus’ answer, and continues on that these two commandments are more important than burnt offerings and sacrifice - remember this was a time when ritual and sacrifice was considered very important, more important than how you treated people.

This is a reminder that loving God is not shown in burnt offerings, or these days we might say in an abundance of good works or giving to charity or pious living.

I have one more picture for you this morning, it was on the front page of the Leader on Thursday, this woman is recipient of the carer category of the NSW Grandparent of the Year awards; she has raised her grandchildren from the time they were quite young due to the breakdown in relationship of the children’s parents. The headline caught my eye.

All you need is love.

Maybe that is all we need, maybe the Beatles song isn’t too simplistic after all.

All we need is love

Love God with all that we are , and love our neighbour as we love our-self.

What does this mean in your life?