All You Need is Love

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Lectionary Reading: Matthew 22:34-46 (NRSV)

"All You Need is Love" was a single released by the Beatles in the summer of 1967 and it epitomized the peace movement in the sixties.  When I first heard the song, I took the lyric, "love is all you need" to be something I received.  As a child, maybe I was more of a consumer of the love of others toward me.  I was lucky to be the recipient of a lot of love.

Sometimes we're not so sure
about our neighbors.

But as I read today's scripture and reflect on the Greatest Commandment by Jesus (as Matthew records it), I recognize that love is something that only increases in our lives if we give it as much if not more so than we receive it.  

As the apostle Paul tries to keep the early church in Corinth from fracturing into separate camps, he extols the virtues of loving one another and declares that it is greater than even faith or hope for our life together.

It is interesting that the scenario in which Jesus finds himself in today's reading is not one where his opponents have an enormous amount of love for him.  It could be that the Pharisees were interested in trapping him (previous verses lead us to this conclusion).  Likely, when they ask about the greatest commandment, their focus would be on one of the purity laws that took so much of their interest.  Commentator Matthew Henry suggests that they might have been looking for a determination between the law of circumcision, the law of Sabbath or the law of sacrifices.  

Instead, Jesus reminds them of the Shema as he quotes from Deuteronomy 6:5:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

Then we see him include the love of our neighbor as supplement to the Shema.   He includes the last part of Leviticus 19:17-18 which reads:

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

As Leviticus indicates this love was originally prescribed for our kin - our people.  It was utilized to lessen tension among a people that needed to be united in order to survive in a hostile environment.  But Jesus expands this understanding of neighbor in Luke's version of the Greatest Commandment as the lawyer asks Jesus to clarify the definition of "neighbor".  Jesus does this by telling us the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Although they lived in adjacent territories, Jews and Samaritans would not have interpreted this text of Leviticus to refer to one another as "neighbors".

So Christians are stuck blessed with an expanded understanding of loving one another.  

The letters of John define God as love and further bind the tenants of the Greatest Commandment together by stating in 1 John 4:21:

The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

For United Methodists (and other Wesleyan denominations) John Wesley's General Rules, written in the first half of the 18th century, are expressions of the Greatest Commandment.  The first two, do no harm and do good, help us to love our neighbors.  The final one, attend all the ordinances of God (prayer, worship, Bible study, etc.), help us to love God with all our being.  

For the church I serve, our mission statement comes directly from the Greatest Commandment.  It is "connecting people with God and neighbor" which helps remind us of what we are really about.  For some, connection with God leads to a love of neighbor and for others, the relationships we have with our neighbors help us to further see God. 

We'll be exploring Matthew's lectionary text on Sunday.  I have faith that it will be helpful so I hope you'll join us and would love it if you would invite someone to explore it with you!

In Christ,

Sam

Photo by Vicki Lackey via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

All scripture quoted is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.