love your neighbor as yourself

Beloved of God,

Many of you will have noticed that we have been spending a good bit of time in Matthew’s Gospel on Sundays. One reason I like using the Lectionary as a tool to plan out which texts to preach on is because you are encouraged to spend time moving deliberately through one book of the Bible, but you are also spending time in other books alongside it, and can reflect on them as the Spirit leads.

But this week, choosing to preach an Old Testament text forces me to miss one of the great passages in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 22:34-40), in which Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment. Jesus’ answer isn’t in any way controversial. Deut 6:5 has always been considered one of the foundational commands within Judaism. Where this gets interesting is when Jesus offers a second commandment, because nobody asked for that. Furthermore, Jesus suggests that these two commandments are of a like kind. He tells the Pharisees and us that to “love your neighbor as yourself” somehow bears the shape of the command to Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. I would suggest you could even frame it this way: you cannot truly love your neighbor if you will not love God. You cannot truly love God if you will not love your neighbor.

Knowing how to do both of these things well takes a lifetime of work, and an abundance of grace. And doing them both creates a tension between them that we never finally resolve outside of Christ. Christ who was always God before the worlds were forged became for us also a neighbor, a human being. And He alone has lived a life marked by perfect love of both God and neighbor. May we be conformed more and more into his image and learn to practice both loves like Him.

Please join me this week in praying for:

• Protection from, and an end to this pandemic
• Educators in our community during a particularly hectic season
• Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local level
• The two men standing for election to the office of President of the United States
• Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals working for our well-being
• Those who are lonely or afraid
• Those feeling a strain on their mental health
• Our oldest neighbors
• Our youngest neighbors
• Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list)
  

You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,

Marshall