Looking to outsmart Jesus a scribe asks, “Which is the first of all commandments?” Jesus responds: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus continues: “The second is this: You shall your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Isn’t it strange that the scribe asked Jesus for one commandment, yet Jesus answers with two commandments? Did Jesus not hear correctly? Did Mark make a grammatical mistake? I don’t think so.
Keep in mind that the gospel writers did not have Microsoft Word where they can start writing without much thought and not have to worry about using up paper. Papyrus went for a premium in the ancient Near East, so those who were able to afford it used it with intention. So why did Jesus respond with two commandments instead of one?
#LoveIsLove….?
I think the answer is quite clear; you can’t have one without the other. Skeptics or atheists may respond by saying that they don’t believe in God, much less love him, yet they are capable of loving their neighbour. I agree, you don’t need to love God to love your neighbour. As a Catholic Christian I believe that every human person is created in the image of God. Since God is love (see 1 John) he can only create out of love; therefore, it follows that humans are created from love to love (though sin distorts authentic love).
Yet when I was an atheist I found it difficult to find an objective source for what we call love. Is love merely a feeling associated with survival that is the result of an evolutionary process. Do we love in order to survive. We know that’s not always true. Many people throughout history loved to the point of suffering and even death.
In our relativistic society some believe that love is subjective, evidenced by popular phrases as #LoveIsLove. This is an incoherent phrase because if anyone can define love to be whatever they wish. Love is…euthanizing one’s neighbour; Love is…aborting one’s neighbour; Love is…a cozy feeling towards my cat. Love can quickly be twisted into something unrecognizable if the source of love is not affirmed in our lives.
Everyone appears to have a sense of love, yet no one can point to one love that is perfect – a love that is not lacking. Yet, we all have a sense of perfect love – the sense that things can always be better. The source of this perfect love, I believe, is God, whose very essence is love.
Tapping into the Right Source
So if we acknowledge God as perfect love and ground ourselves in Him we tap into the source of authentic love and we can learn to see our neighbours a little bit more like God sees them.
We all know the saying, “You are what you eat.” I believe we also are what worship. Does this mean if we worship God we can become gods ourselves? Of course not. We can no more become a god anymore than we can become the salad we had for dinner. Like food that can effect our physical health, our object of worship affects our spiritual health, which in turn affects how we treat others around us.
The process of learning to see things as God sees them is called “theosis.” When we love God with all our heart, mind and soul it becomes impossible to not see the inherent dignity of other people, independent of their social status, personal struggles or utility.
Getting to Know Perfect Love
So if we want to love our neighbour to our fullest potential then we must tap into perfect love first. Tap into God.
Luckily, we as Christians believe that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ, so knowing God and loving him becomes a little easier. St. Paul writes that Jesus has become “the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). God is no longer an abstract concept or entity, but a person, so it can become a little easier to love him.
I can only speak for myself, but there is a major difference in how I see the people closest to me and even those who I may not like that much since becoming a Christian. Knowing Jesus allows me to know others as Jesus knows them. That changes everything.