Hear, O Israel!
We must turn outward from ourselves. We must escape the noise the surrounds us and we must hear that which comes to us from without. We cannot first reason or act. This utterly unique voice must be given full berth to speak.
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The risk of not listening, not truly hearing, is great. We've heard this before and it sounds obvious. Yet is it obvious? If God had not told us that he was meant to be the center of our lives how long would we grope in the darkness before trying to figure it out? Only the unique God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is even interested in this relationship with us. He is not indifferent to us. He desires all that we are. This is not a given, but it is truly wonderful.
The next temptation when we hear this is to get lost in the abstract. It is to convert our relationship with God to something we call love but which is in fact all in our heads and which does not affect our lives day to day.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Love fulfills the law (see Romans 13:8-13) and covers a multitude of sins (see First Peter 4:8). But we cannot claim to love God whom we cannot see if we do not love the brother we can see (see First John 4:20). Loving God means loving what he loves. If this is not happening than neither is there real love for God.
True love is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.
'to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself'
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
It is actually to true self-giving love that the entire sacrificial economy pointed. It meant the putting of the sinful self to death and offering a pure sacrifice to God. The only reason the sacrificial system was able to give way to the new and more perfect offerings of love to which we are commanded is because on the cross Jesus offered the sacrifice that was perfect, with nothing held back. He was the perfect victim, whom the Father could never reject, in whose death was infinite merit. All of our love now draws its strength from that perfect self gift.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship (see Romans 12:1).
Even as we start to discuss what the greatest of the commandments mean for us we begin to forget their context. We forget that they were offered to a nation newly learning to live in freedom. We forget that they show above all God's desire to be the in relationship with them, to be the very center around which they are formed. We must not forget these things or we will descend from the Spirit into the flesh. When we remember the love with which God first loved us we are finally able to let ourselves be transformed.
My God, my rock of refuge,
my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!
Praised be the LORD, I exclaim,
and I am safe from my enemies.
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