All the Commandments in One

I observed, "Love is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment." It is not only "the first and great" command, but all the commandments in one.

"Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," they are all comprised in this one word, love.

~John Wesley (1703-1791)

To the End

John Donne (1572-1631) was a noted preacher whose sermons were very much an extension of his poetry. Victoria ran across this quotation in a novel by Elizabeth Goudge in which an elderly preacher loses his sermon notes and preaches a John Donne sermon by heart. The preacher Donne uses one of his poetic devices to use the word "end" in two different ways, the end of life in a time-bound sense is death, but life also has an "end" in the sense of a purpose or goal. Donne uses both in the same sentence:

God...brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light. He can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no spring. Though...thou have been benighted till now, swintered and frozen...now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon, to banish all shadows; as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries. All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons....Whom God loves He loves to the end; and not only to their own end, to their death, but to his end; and His end is, that He might love them still.

The end or purpose of God is that he might love us, in life and beyond life into the life eternal. God's end is love and love does not die.

What Love Looks Like

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

—Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

I have called you friends

In tomorrow's Gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples,

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

John Kavanaugh, S. J. of Saint Louis University writes of this passage:

God’s love for us revealed in the offering of the Son for the forgiveness of our sins. It is the same love that Paul celebrates in the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians, the love from which, he writes in Romans, we can never be possibly separated.

Jesus, in the fourth Gospel, calls us to live in that love. How are we to do that? By keeping his command-ments. Ah, finally the law, finally right and wrong. And what is his command-ment? “Love one another as I have loved you.” There is no escape. Our faith in Jesus is haunted by the mystery of love.

Perhaps this mystery itself is what causes us disquiet. Love, after all, is not easily won, rarely found, and never really earned. It also leads to improbable situations like that of the prodigal son and the lost sheep and to forgiveness for dreadful sinners.

This is, of course, not the narcissistic and self-indulgent state of mind that passes for “love” in contemporary life. Nor is it the great tidal wave of emotion associated with “falling in love.” Rather it is, Paul reminds us, patience and kindness. It lets go of jealousy, conceit, and resentment. It delights in the truth. It trusts. It hopes. It endures. All of these qualities of love are attributes of God’s love for us. What is more, love’s greatest expression—to lay down one’s life for one’s friends—is what the Passion means.

None of this is new. And none of it is easy.

To have or not have rules can be easy. To keep or break commandments can be easy. We can set up our lives in such a manner that we allow no restraint or limit on our egos and desires. We can also legislate our lives so relentlessly that we delude ourselves into thinking that we have actually earned, produced, and now control the love that our scriptures speak of.

But the love revealed in Jesus, simple as it sounds, is terribly arduous. That is why the history of our faith so often reads like a history of our resistance to love.

Give us rules. Give us magic. Give us threats. Give us mighty victories in war or splendid successes in the marketplace to insure our worthiness. Give us Communion counts, converts, and the approval of the nations to guarantee our righteousness. But the mystery of love?

One of Dorothy Day’s favorite passages from world literature occurs in Dostoevski’s The Brothers Karamazov, where the old Father Zossima points out to Madame Hohlokov that her supposed crisis of faith is really a crisis of love: “For love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. . . . But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps a complete science.”

No, love is not as easy as we may think. And its challenge to us is certainly nothing new.

Tomorrow we will consider that love through which Jesus called his disciples and those of us who follow him his friends. In the meantime, here's a joke that won't be in that sermon...

A mother was preparing pancakes for her two sons, the older was five and the younger three. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson here. "If Jesus were sitting here," she said, "he would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.'" Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"

Love Is Life

Love is life. All, everything that I understand,
I understand only because I love.

—Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

More than a Feeling

In tomorrow's Gospel reading Jesus is asked to name the greatest commandment. The questioner is not wondering about the Ten Commandments alone, for Moses Law found in the first five books of the Bible lists more than those. According to most ancient scribes, the Law contained 613 separate commandments. Some teachers then divided the 613 into 365 prohibitions (one for each day of the year) and 248 positive commands (one for each bone of the body). In this vivid and charming fashion, they indicated that the Law of God should govern all our days and all our bodily movements. It requires complete devotion

It is this sort of all encompassing law the questioner is asking about, wanting to know what matters most. Jesus replies,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

This is the Cliff Notes version of the whole Bible. Jesus sums up all of the teachings of scripture saying that we fulfill God's will if we love God and love our neighbor as ourself. We need each other so much that the first thing God pronounced "not good" was loneliness (It is not good for man to be alone).

The love to which we are called is not merely a feeling. Love is an action and we can show loving actions to people we don't even like. Psychologist tell us though that this only works for so long as we get increasingly likely to actually like someone when we do nice things for that person (as long as they are not mean in return for the kindness). In the process, we are drawn closer to God.

Abba Dorotheos used the illustration of mankind being like a wheel. God is the hub, and people are the spokes. The closer we get to God, the closer we get to one another. But put another way, the closer we get to other people, the closer that brings us to God. Finally, there is an anonymous poem that puts it all together:
I sought my soul,
and the soul I could not see.
I sought my God and God eluded me—
I sought my neighbor and found all three.

An ounce of love

Love one another as I have loved you.
—Jesus

If I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but do not love, I am nothing.
—Saint Paul (I Corinthians 13:2b)

The soul is made of love and must ever strive
to return to love. Therefore, it can never find
rest nor happiness in other things. It must lose
itself in love. By its very nature it must seek
God, who is love....
—Mechthild of Magdenburg (1210-1285)

Let us say that a person knows much
about God and spiritual things,
even to the point of imagining
he or she knows what God is.
Without Love, this person will never be Godlike,
or share in the divinity of God.
—The Way of Jesus, anonymously written around 1350

Beware you be not swallowed up in books!
An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
—John Wesley (1703-1791)

You could be a holy prophet, get a blessing off it,
Or you could fast for fifty days,
You could shake hands with the devil,
or give your life to God on the level,
But without love you ain't nothing.
—Larry Norman, Righteous Rocker

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love.
—Mother Teresa

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin'
Selfishness got us followin' our wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema
Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality
Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found
Now ask yourself
Where is the love?
—The Black-Eyed Peas, Where Is the Love

Love and Truth

Simone Weil (1909-1943) wrote of the influence George Herbert's poem Love had on her life:

There was a young English Catholic there from whom I gained my first idea of the supernatural power of the sacraments because the truly angelic radiance with which he seemed to be clothed after going to communion. Chance—for I always prefer saying chance rather than Providence—made of him a messenger to me. For he told me of the existence of those English poets of the seventeenth century who are named metaphysical. In reading them later on, I discovered the poem of why I read you what is unfortunately a very inadequate translation. It is called "Love. I learned it by heart. Often, at the culminating point of a violent headache, I make myself say it over, concentrating all my attention upon it and clinging with all my soul to the tenderness it enshrines. I used to think I was merely reciting a beautiful poem, but without my knowing it the recitation had the virtue of a prayer.

She goes on to write of how the prayer led to the mystical experience of feeling Christ present with her through reciting the poem. George Herbert's poem love is as follows:

Love bade me welcome

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

Born in a secular Jewish household, Weil had been a standout student who therefore relied on her intellect. Looking back on coming to the Christian faith and to her experience of Jesus in prayer, she wrote:

For it seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.

Love and Faith are both verbs

Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith,
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
—Ephesians 6:23
At God's Table has an interesting word study from scripture on the word with in the verse above. Answering the question of how one can love with faith, the study says in part:

Love in Hebrew (ahav) is the full engagement of a person on behalf of someone else. It is the application of my mental, emotional and volitional abilities to assist, support, encourage—even to sacrifice—for another. It is the fulfillment of the commandment to care for my neighbor as I care for myself. If I do that, I automatically produce faith (‘emunah). How is that possible? Don’t I have to sign some creed or something? No, you don’t. You have to read Habakkuk 2:4 and Deuteronomy 32:4. You will discover that faith is nothing more, or less, than the truthfulness of God’s character and actions. When I get in alignment with those, love erupts from what I am doing – and you can’t tell the difference between the two.

The full text of the study is here: James and Paul.

"Look at the proud! They trust in themselves,
and their lives are crooked;
but the righteous will live by their faith."
—Habakkuk 2:4

"He is the Rock; his work is perfect.
Everything he does is just and fair.
He is a faithful God who does no wrong;
how just and upright he is!"
—Deuteronomy 32:4

Love of Neighbor

Never seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone,
but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
—Leviticus 19:18

If you can help your neighbor now, don't say,
"Come back tomorrow, and then I'll help you."
—Proverbs 3:28

You have heard that the law of Moses says,
"Love your neighbor" and hate your enemy.
But I say, love your enemies!
Pray for those who persecute you!
—Matthew 5:43-44

The most important commandment is this:
"Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord.
And you must love the Lord your God
with all your heart, all your soul,
all your mind, and all your strength."
The second is equally important:
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
No other commandment is greater than these.
—Mark 12:29-31

Pay all your debts, except the debt of love for others.
You can never finish paying that!
If you love your neighbor,
you will fulfill all the requirements of God's law.
—Romans 13:8

For the whole law can be summed up in this one command:
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
—Galatians 5:14


Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey
our Lord's royal command found in the Scriptures:
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
—James 2:8

God alone, who made the law, can rightly judge among us.
He alone has the power to save or to destroy.
So what right do you have to condemn your neighbor?
—James 4:12

Every individual will receive from God
the amount of indulgence he has
himself given to his neighbor.
—Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

He alone loves the Creator perfectly
who manifests a pure love for his neighbor.
—Venerable Bede (672-735)

How seldom we weigh our neighbor
in the same balance with ourselves.
—Thomas Kempis (1380-1471)

The love of our neighbor in all its fullness
simply means being able to say to him,
"What are you going through?"
—Simone Weil (1909-1943)

The capacity for getting along with our neighbor
depends to a large extent on the capacity
for getting along with ourselves.
The self-respecting individual will try
to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings
as he is of his own.”
—Eric Hoffer (1898-1983)

Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality
Instead of spreading love we're spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found
Now ask yourself,
Where is the Love?
—The Black-Eyed Peas (2003)

What does love mean?

Dear children,
let us stop just saying we love each other;
let us really show it by our actions.
—I John 3:18
“What does love mean?” This question was posed to a group of children 5-8 years old. Here are some of their answers:

Chrissy, 6: “Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”

Nikka, 6: “If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.”

Tommy, 6: “Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”

Elaine, 5: “Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”

Rebecca, 8: “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis, too. That’s love.”

Most important of all,
continue to show deep love for each other,
for love covers a multitude of sins.
—I Peter 4:8

The Wrath of God

The biblical doctrine of God’s wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates — yes, hates, and hates implacably — anything that spoils, defaces, distorts or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully, and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise.

—Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham, England quoted at A New an Unending Kind of Life

All you need is...

In this weekend's Gospel reading Jesus tells his disciples,

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

We often don't live up to Jesus words, but here are some ways others have talked about love following Jesus' command to his disciples:

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt and you hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love?
—"Where is the Love" The Black-Eyed Peas 2004

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love.
—"All You Need is Love" The Beatles 1967

Christian love, which applies to all,
even to one's enemies,
is the worst adversary of Communism.
—Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938)

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors,
and also to love our enemies;
probably because they are generally the same people.
—G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek
to be loved as to love.
—Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others.
It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy.
It has eyes to see misery and want.
It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men.
That is what love looks like.
—Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

For our religion commands us to love even our enemies,
and to pray for those who persecute us,
aiming at a perfection all its own,
and seeking in its disciples something of a higher type
than the commonplace goodness of the world.
For all love those who love them;
it is peculiar to Christians alone
to love those that hate them.
—Tertullian (d. 220-240)

I command you to love each other
in the same way that I love you.
—Jesus Christ (John 15:12)

When we love, we heal

If we haven't been healed of the wounds of our past life, there is a strong possibility that we'll pass those wounds on to others—our community, our family members, friends and so on...

An unwillingness to forgive others for the real or imaginary wrongs they have done us is a poison that can affect our health—physical, emotional and spiritual—sometimes very deeply...

Healing, praying and loving all go hand in hand. Healing is loving. When we heal, we love; when we love, we heal; when we love one another, we affirm, we nurture and we cherish that person. Sometimes in our lives we can try to solve a problem and there is time for that. But sometimes just letting ourselves love again and be loved can solve so many problems. When we let go and just soak up love from the Lord and others, we have a whole new power to go on again...

Healing does not usually take place instantly but is a process. Deep pain and resentment, which have developed over time, will usually take time and love and patient prayer to heal. Often there are layers of hurt, resentment and un-freedom that need to be uncovered in prayer. Once one layer of hurt, resentment and un-freedom has been healed, others may present themselves for healing. We know we are healed when we can recall the hurting experience without trauma.

—The Rev. Peter Hosking as quoted in Richard Carter's book In Search of the Lost.

Hosking made these remarks as he worked with the Melanesian Brotherhood in the aftermath of their peacemaking efforts putting them in situations no one should have to see or experience including the deaths of seven of their members. These remarks seem worth revisiting in this week of a nation coming to terms with a massacre. Hosking's words speak to all sorts of pain, and of a type of healing needed by many whose experiences in life have layered on hurt, resentment and un-freedom.