The True Nature of Love
Mark 12:28-34
It has been a long journey with much teaching by Jesus on the way. Now they have entered into Jerusalem and Jesus’ last days. It is a time to prepared the disciples for what is to come and to summarize his teachings of what really is important in life. It is time to talk about the true nature of love, and the true nature of giving, and the true nature of the new life to come. The Gospel for the next three weeks in our common lectionary are about those teachings. It was important for the disciple’s as they were to face a time of great turmoil and it is important for us in the changes and chances of our life.
The True Nature of Love
In Today’s Gospel Jesus is asked by a Scribe “Which commandment is the first of all? This was a question for common debate among the rabbis. How was Jesus to answer a Scribe who had extensive knowledge of over 600 commandments? Jesus answers “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The Scribe had no choice than to say that Jesus answered wisely. In 6th chapter of Deuteronomy after listing the commandments in the previous chapter, the greatest commandment was considered to be to love God with all your heart, soul and might. The greatest of all commandments became what people uttered when they went to bed and was the first thing on their lips upon getting up in the morning. It is what they fixed to their foreheads and on The doorposts of their home. They later became the first words spoken in Synagogue worship.
If loving God was the first commandment, then loving what God loves was next. Jesus put loving God and loving neighbour together for God truly loves all people. The loving of neighbour was also imprinted in Israel’s history. There were exhortations in their literature about having compassion on the poor and weak, or loving others with a true heart. It is reiterated in the Prophets, such as Hosea speaking for God as saying, “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifices.”
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I have always been moved in reading the book Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man and Life’s Greatest Lesson (Doubleday, NY, NY 1997) by Mitch Albom a sportswriter for the Detroit Free Press. Here is something that Morrie says about love:
“Mitch you asked me about caring for people I don’t even know. But can I tell you the thing that I’m learning most with this disease?”
“What’s that?”
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.“
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think that if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act.”
He repeated it carefully, pausing for effect. ‘Love is the only rational act.’
In nodded like a good student, and he exhaled weakly. I leaned to give him a hug. And then, although it is not really like me , I kissed him on the cheek. I felt his weakened hands on my arms, the thin stubble of whiskers brushing my face.
“So you’ll come back next Tuesday?” he whispered.
(page 52)
I think that it is a life-long lesson for us all learning how to give out love, and letting it come in. It is the most significant thing to learn in our life quest. Finding the true nature of love and living it everyday is the true nature of life. The love of God and the love of what God loves, other people in our world, should be our intention first thing in the morning. and “What does love demand?” should be the central question throughout this day and every day.
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Doing what Love demands is not easy. In fact it is called by some as the “the impossible possibility”. It is always possible for love to break into our lives and also for us to be capable of great acts of love, but our human nature with it’s tendency to concentrate so much on self often makes it impossible. The kind of love that Jesus talks about it is an unconditional and unmerited type of love. We become capable of it only through the sublimation of egotism and the attainment of sacrificial passion, which allows us to transcend our self interest. That is the true nature of love.
However, not to grow, even slowly in this highest form of love, is to harden the heart that we lose the sense of our true humanity. C.S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves says:
To love at all is vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in a casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable.
To love is difficult but necessary if we are to become fully human and fully alive. It begins with developing an intimacy with God. Intimacy is often maintained by sharing things just between the two of us. One of the ways we develop true intimacy with God is by doing some loving things for other people that is only known between you and God alone. You don’t care whether any one else knows about them. This is a way of “going beyond ourselves” because we are not doing things to be seen by others but only as a result of our loving relationship with God
There are so many things that demand our loving attention and if we watch for those opportunities of service we will surely find them. Albert Schweitzer said in one of his writings:
“Open your eyes and look for some person, some work for the sake of humanity which needs a little time, a little friendship, a little sympathy, a little toil, see whether there is not some place to invest yourself”
This is where we truly begin to live out the greatest commandments to love God and love neighbour. It’s also important to remember that what we do as individuals in Godly intimacy doesn’t take away from what we do as a community because what we do as a community in loving others extends God’s activity immeasurably in the wider world. Actually, the time we spend in personal intimacy with God brings a new power, a new liveliness and a new energy to the tasks we do together.
To love God and to love neighbour as yourself, the true nature of love,was the most important teaching that Jesus was to leave with his disciples. It is also key to our lives. It is what we need to live the life worth living and it is what the world most needs at any time.
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