You Shall Love Your Neighbor as Yourself!
Vincentians, Jesus gets to the root of our relationship with God and to sum it up in a few words. When a scribe asks Him what is the greatest commandment, he pulls his whole teaching and entire way of life into a single summary rule:
This prayer is a fundamental statement. This prayer is a moral imperative as Jesus tells us: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
No one will say this commandment is easy, but it is certainly not complicated. It demands absolute everything of us, all day every day, but the content of the demand is basic and clear. As we see in Mark’s Gospel, it is if Jesus surveyed the religious scene of His day and said to Himself: These are good people, but they are all confused. They think God wants only religious services and the strict observance of the Law. In fact, Jesus wants theirs and our hearts. He would much rather see us love one another and share what we have with one another, so that everybody has life. The people living during the time with this Gospel reading think that Jesus wants to reject the world and isolate themselves from it, when in fact, He wants them to enjoy it and give thanks for it, and to work to make it more human. They think He wants them to live in fear, fear of going wrong and fear of Him, when in fact He wants them to live in joy and freedom. They think He wants them to walk with their heads down because of all their failures, when in fact He wants them to trust like children in His forgiveness and the dependability of His love. They think they have to earn their way with Him and win a reward if they can, when in fact He wants them to accept His acceptance of them as a gift quite undeserved.
And so we find in Jesus, a man in table fellowship with neighbors. We see Him helping people out even on Sunday. We find Jesus quietly spending time to help free neighbors from their burdens, their inner demons, their diseases, their guilt, and urging others to help. Just as tirelessly, He bears witness to the truth, though He knows what happens sooner or later to neighbors who bear witness to the truth.
Today’s readings take a decidedly different approach to love and its meaning. They understand love within the context of concern. They maintain that to use the word love means to embark on a plan of action on behalf of others. They reveal that love is a precarious undertaking since it implies the obligation to demonstrate love by appropriate action. Love is never passive, never abusive and never self serving.
In Mark’s Gospel reading Jesus says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Vincentians, let us remember the Scribe who then responded to Jesus’s words: “Well said teacher, you are right in saying He is the one and there is no other than He, to love Him with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.”
