A Thought For The Week Of November 12

Thought for the week: "The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:31) The lead-in to these words of Jesus, of course, was that we are to love the Lord God. Absolute biblical literalists should take note - Jesus interpreted the Scriptures; he didn't take them absolutely literally. He took the entire law and prophets and boiled them down to a couple of sentences, pointing out that the spirit of the law and prophets was far more important than the letter! But I digress. How do we love God and neighbour? In another verse of Scripture, Jesus says that whatever we do for the least important among us we do for him. It's a radical re-organizing of society he calls for, and when we offer our love to the least lovable (or to those whom the world declares unworthy of love) among us, only then are we truly loving God by loving Jesus, who is reflected in the faces of the neediest and most desperate among us. Some people try to say that to "love the Lord your God" means absolute obedience under threat of punishment to every jot and tittle of the law (or at least to the jots and tittles we like and have no problem with.) But that doesn't seem consistent with the gospel and the message of Jesus. We love God by loving one another; we love God the most when we love those who are most difficult to love. Think of what the world would be like if we could actually live by those two commandments! If only. Well, we can't control the world, but we can control ourselves. Let's love God by loving our neighbours - all of them. Have a great week!