The religious leaders asking Jesus questions knew about lots of laws. 613 statutes in the oral law, 365 things not to do to coincide with the days of the year, 245 commandments to equal the supposed number of generations of mankind. The scribes divided them into the "weighty and light" categories, and then divided them into ritual laws and ethical laws. Devout people who wanted to seriously follow God couldn’t keep track of all of them. They were confused. Please make it simple.
Thus the question to Jesus. What’s the most important? And Jesus got them back to the basic.
Do you ever have that trouble? Keeping laws can get so complicated. Child raising rules, social graces, blue laws, traffic laws, government business rules. We’ve got to watch out for so many things: Check the Halloween candy, keep the kids away from strangers, watch cholesterol, watch for spouse abuse and child abuse, get exercise, don’t smoke, don’t eat too much fat.
Will we please God if we follow the right rules? Which ones? How many? Somebody, make it simple!
Rules are handy, unless we get the feeling if we break them, we aren’t true Christians. If we’re deciding who is a good Christian based on which rules they follow, then we’ve missed the point. We’ve fallen for the same mistake the Pharisees made.
And then, Jesus brings us back to the basic. Love God with heart, soul, mind, strength and love neighbor as yourself.
I recently heard a pastor paraphrase this verse as the first law and the second. He left out the phrase about the second “like to it”. Our version said “the second is equally important”. By some other things he said it was as if the second part of the command was secondary in importance. It was as if love for God is more important than love for people. But this passage doesn’t separate the two. Both are necessary for each to happen.
I realized that his interpretation of the first was loving God meant holding the right beliefs about God and God’s plan for our behavior, and that the next part, “love your neighbor as yourself” meant trying to get your neighbor to do it the way you do about those doctrines and actions.
Following rules is not the same as love. What else is love? Love is mercy. It is giving undeserved goodness.
I read about a medical Dr. who was seeing patients one afternoon when a call came into the office. Someone was hit by a car just a few blocks away. He dropped everything, left an office full of paying customers to go the accident, then to the emergency room and for two days stayed with the accident victim. He just got a few winks of sleep in the hospital ICU area. Then the victim was stabilized and he could get back to his other patients. The victim lived because of that Dr. After the patient’s recovery, the physician was hit with a $50,000 malpractice suit because one of the guy’s fingers was stiff as a result of the accident.
What will happen when the Dr. is called to another emergency. It would be common sense to stay away. Is there a rule the Dr. should follow? It’s the basic one:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. If he follows that rule, he’ll be back there saving another victim, even if it means getting kicked again.
How do I know that’s what the basic law means? Jesus showed what it means on the cross.
It’s hard for some of us to understand loving Jesus, and doctrines and laws are easier to understand. So instead we fall for the notion that we and others are Christian because of our beliefs. But it is not that you’re a Christian if you believe this about war or death penalty or abortion or homosexuality and you’re not a Christian if you don’t believe it. That’s not what the Bible says. The Bible says you are a Christian if you accept the love of Christ. And it is not that you’re a Christian if you follow this set of rules. You’re a Christian if you accept the Love of Christ.
And then, just when we get sidetracked judging ourselves and others about secondary beliefs, Jesus comes along and brings us back to the basics. God so loved the world that he gave us his only son. That whoever believes in him will have eternal life. That’s the basic.
You need to know the difference between the core gospel and the side issues. We want to go further and know how to love God, how to act and what to believe about other things, but that is not what saves us. It’s Christ’s love, not the side issues.
In one of my former churches there was a piano teacher. She told me about how some of her students didn’t seem to want to learn. They wasted her time by not practicing. She was about to cancel them. But thinking with the mind of Christ, she saw their potential. She saw them in the future when they realized it was necessary to practice, and when they became good piano players, and she didn’t cancel them.
There’s no rule in the Bible about when to cancel piano students, but there is the basic law. And she saw through the eyes of Christ.
It’s hard to appreciate what it means to love God. That’s why it’s easy to get off on the rules. So what else is it?
Love doesn’t mean personal liking, it is not sentimental affection. It is active good will. With all of my self, all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, I want God to win, I want God’s will to happen. I want people to know God’s love inside them. I want people to have the material things and the knowledge and the spirit they need for a joyful life. Love is active good will. And not with just a fraction, but all of myself.
Jesus, bring us back to the basics. We are Christians because we have accepted the love of Christ. So what do we do? All the commands of the Bible are helpful clues, but it all gets down to the basic: “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.”