Over the past several years I have used the term “Missional” to capture what it is that I think that we should be doing. We all should be “missional” in our lives.
The word “missional” was created to be more meaningful in a modern sense to the worn out terms of “mission” or “missionary.” These terms were used to describe any number of different activities, some of them not so positive, and so people produced the word “missional” to captured a more specific and limited type of behavior. To be “missional” one was to behave in a way that was representational of the way a Christian was supposed to live. To be “missional” was to glorify God in all that one did. Then, to take a Roman meaning of “glorify” where a statue of the current Caesar was put on a cart and drawn around a area where the statue revealed the image of the person who was then Caesar. That is, the image looked like the reigning Caesar and this then brought the populace into closer contact with the Caesar because individuals now knew what Caesar looked like.
In similar fashion we are to glorify God by acting in a way that will reveal the image of our God. We take as an example of this a person, Jesus of Nazareth who was thought to glorify God better than any other person who has lived. That is, Jesus is said to have revealed the image of God to others so that individuals would have a real, concrete image of how one should live ones’ life as God would have him live his life.
But, in what way did Jesus reveal the image of God?
Well, we are told that “God is love.”
But, what does this mean? Do we have any more information about how one should live ones’ life? I mean, if God is love and we are to reveal the image of God…then we must be “love” as well. How do we become “love”…how do we reveal this image?
Perhaps our next clue comes from what we are told we are commanded to do…the “Great Commandments.” These are to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all are mind and the second is like it…it is to love our neighbor as ourselves. So the whole thing about revealing the image of God is about love…about loving God…about loving others…and in the broader sense other people and creation…and about loving ourselves. In this was we reveal what is meant by “God is love.”
How do we “love God”?
First of all we must know God…know about God. That is, we must put ourselves out and learn…gather information about God…review existing knowledge about God…and keep open and search in every way we can for more information about God.
Why do we have to put out this effort?
We have to make this effort because we cannot really love…we cannot really love God…unless we know as much as we can about the one to be loved. We have to know as much as we can because how can love the one to be loved if we don’t know who the loved one is, what the loved one does, what is best for the loved one…where the loved one is.
If we are to love the loved one we need to know where the loved one is and what will make the loved one happy and what will be the optimal things to do in relationship to the loved one. That is, to love God, we need to know where God is and what we can do to be in unity with God.
But, to be able to love God we also must be able to love ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves, how can we love anyone, anything, or whatever. We must have, at a minimum, a certain care or concern for ourselves. Again, in order for us to love ourselves we must learn about ourselves…know ourselves sufficiently so that we can act in our best interests. This does not mean to act selfishly, or greedily, or in a controlling way to get our own way. It means that we must really find out about who we are, what we need to do to really act in our best interest, and to then act in a way that will bring us into greater unity with who we really are. So, knowledge and a long term view is very necessary to love…both self and God.
The same is also true of loving our neighbor as our self. We must again gain as much information as we can about other individuals and about creation. We must make an effort to learn a sufficient amount about others and creation so that we can move to attain greater unity with others and with creation. Study, learning, knowledge…all sorts of efforts like these must go into loving the other…not trying to get our way…but to learn where they are and what is in their best interests. This is how we love our neighbor as our self.
So, this is what it means to love…to study…and to act. To learn about the one to be loved…the part of creation to be loved…and then to act in the best interest of the one that is loved.
This is what God does…we are told. This is what Jesus has revealed to us…in his life and actions. This is what we are supposed to do…this is what it means to be “missional.” We are to live a life that shows to others the example of how we think people should live…how we believe God loves.
We are told that God “created” the world…and that he saw that it was “good.” That is, God saw the world and he loved the world.
When we study physics…when we try and learn the way nature works…so that we can work with nature in a way that raises our standard of living and helps people…and then we work to build this knowledge and act in a way that is beneficial to all. This is seeing God’s creation…it is loving God’s creation…and it is revealing the image of God to others…so that others will emulate this behavior.
The same thing is true of loving another person…let’s take a potential spouse…as the extreme. We date…we do things together…we talk with each other…we learn to become friends…we learn whether or not we can tolerate each other over a long period of time…we learn whether or not we can act in the other’s best interest putting aside our own interests when it is important to the relationship…we learn about each other so that we can be where they are not where we are…and this is love…and this can lead to a great marriage.
This is the foundation of “missional” behavior. If we are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves…then let us act in that way…let us be “missional” to one another. It doesn’t mean that we go overseas…or that we go into the cities…or that we make a special effort to reach out. Yes, being “missional” may include all of these…but being “missional” starts with the next person you talk with…the next person you see…the next thing you do. Being “missional” is action…right where you are…right with what you are doing at this very moment.
Being “missional” is revealing the image of what you believe to be the most important way to live.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Monday, February 2, 2009
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Being Missional
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, Paul discusses in Chapter 3, verses 21 through 31 the ‘law of faith’. He writes, “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe…. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”
I would like to examine these passages within the context of the discussions we have been having over the past several weeks. Simply put, I have been discussing the conflict between an emphasis upon ‘outcomes’ or an emphasis upon ‘processes’. By focusing on outcomes, I have argued, people emphasize the results of ‘works’. By directing their attention in this way, the ‘works’ can become idolized and become the ultimate concern of the individual. This was the problem that Paul ran into in his younger years. And, it drove him to the brink of despair.
If we focus on ‘process’, however, we take the emphasis off of specific outcomes and direct our attention to our approach to God, to ourselves, to other people, or to creation. We concern ourselves with relationships, rather than with objects. The relationships can become our ultimate concern, rather than the objects, themselves. And, for the person who stands within the Jewish/Christian tradition…what is the focus of this relationship?
Our focus is on God! Paul tells us that “the righteousness of God has been disclosed…” And, what is this righteousness that has been disclosed? That God loves us!
God loves us! Imagine…
And what does God’s love of us, mean for us? On March 28 I discussed the work of Franz Rosenzweig and quoted him on this point. He writes that we “are always in the presence of God” and, therefore, there is “essentially just one commandment, the commandment to love God.” Revelation is always ‘an event between the two.’ Thus, a ‘religious experience’ is known ‘again and again’—“For we know it only when—we do.” For God calls us to love him…and we respond “Here I am!” We do not always hear this voice saying “love me”, but it is there. The request is for us to step outside of ourselves, to enter into relationship.
Our revelation that God loves us is an offer of relationship. In loving us, God calls us to love him…to respond to him…to enter relationship. Thus, Jesus tells us that the “greatest and first commandment” is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” “And,” Jesus goes on, “the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22: 37-40)
The great teacher Hillel, in agreement with Jesus, and in agreement with Paul, tells us that beyond these two commandments, all the rest, the “law and the prophets”, is just commentary or explanation of what these two commandments mean. The crucial question here pertains to the need for the law and the prophets if we have the two “Great” commandments? Aren’t the two commandments enough?
Here we see the difference between ‘outcomes’ and ‘process’. When we have a preset idea of what love means, that which is loved becomes an ‘object’ and we then record the ‘outcome’ of applying our preconceived concept of love to that ‘object’. The problem here is that ‘love’ cannot be a ‘thing’ because if it becomes a ‘thing’ then it becomes the focus of our action…it becomes a ‘law’!
What the commandments tell us is that love is a relationship…it cannot be either a ‘thing’ or an ‘outcome’. The first commandment is “to love” and the second is like it, “you shall love” which implies that we must respond to that which is loved as unique and not as an ‘object’. Our model of this relationship is Jesus, who revealed to us “the image of God” in what he did and said. Jesus revealed to us what it means to love. And, this is why we need all ‘the law and the prophets’. This is why we need a further two thousand years of theological and philosophical reflection. We need commentary and explanation as to what it means to be in relationship with God…within ourselves…with others…and with creation. It is not easy to love because love is not an ‘outcome’ it is a ‘process’!
And, this, to me, is what Paul is talking about when he talks about “faith in Jesus Christ” and the “law of faith”. It is this that Paul talks about when he says that “a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” Paul is talking about faith in the two commandments…the commandments to love. This faith is not in Jesus Christ as an individual, because if we do this we make Jesus Christ into an idol. We have faith in the model that Jesus Christ showed us: the model to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is a model of relationship and, as Paul says, Jesus showed us that a person is justified in this faith in loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves by “stepping outside ourselves” and “entering into relationship”.
At this point Rosenzweig writes that we are therefore called to reveal the image of God. “Once one becomes God’s lover, however, one can no longer be completely enclosed in oneself, but one cannot escape that fate simply by returning God’s love…To return God’s love properly involves imitation dei—‘Be thou holy, for I the lord thy God am holy’…love of God cannot have a, so to speak, ‘vertical dimension’ without a ‘horizontal dimension’; ‘love of God’ without a direction out to other fellow human beings is not really love of God at all.” Furthermore, “I have to be able to love each and every human being as a human being.” Therefore, “To sum up: the whole purpose of human life is revelation, and the whole content of revelation is love.”
Jesus says, “As God sent me, so I send you.” As Jesus reveals the image of God in his actions, so are we to reveal God to others through our actions. Our relationship with Jesus becomes the imago dei, the call to act in the image of God. To love God is to love the “Other” as God loves us. But, this is the call to be missional…and it begins with those that are closest to us and then moves on out. Jesus began with his disciples and then sent them into the world. But, they were missional within their community before they became missional to the rest of the world.
In my post of February 29, I invoked the ideas of Blaise Pascal of why people enter into a community of faith. They enter a community because they want to live in a way that will bring them to belief in God. The members of that community represent the way of life, the model of being loved and loving that individuals want to experience so as to grow in faith. In terms of the Christian Church, people join the community because they want to experience the example of love exhibited by Jesus and by those that are followers of Jesus.
Thus, mission begins within the community, itself. We live in community because the models used by the community are successful and lead to a life that we would like to achieve. We live to attain that life…and we are interested in the process, not individual, current outcomes. Mission starts ‘right at home.’ It starts there because we don’t know where everyone is within the community, itself. There are the new people that have joined because they like what they see…but need to be led and re-enforced. They need people to show them the way. There are others within the church body…even long time members…that need to be supported or re-enforced or re-converted. And, all of these people need to understand that they need to be Missional as well. “Do I really believe this stuff?” “Can I say this stuff to others in the face of rejection?” We learn this within the community…within the local church.
Then we spread out into the world at large.
I would like to examine these passages within the context of the discussions we have been having over the past several weeks. Simply put, I have been discussing the conflict between an emphasis upon ‘outcomes’ or an emphasis upon ‘processes’. By focusing on outcomes, I have argued, people emphasize the results of ‘works’. By directing their attention in this way, the ‘works’ can become idolized and become the ultimate concern of the individual. This was the problem that Paul ran into in his younger years. And, it drove him to the brink of despair.
If we focus on ‘process’, however, we take the emphasis off of specific outcomes and direct our attention to our approach to God, to ourselves, to other people, or to creation. We concern ourselves with relationships, rather than with objects. The relationships can become our ultimate concern, rather than the objects, themselves. And, for the person who stands within the Jewish/Christian tradition…what is the focus of this relationship?
Our focus is on God! Paul tells us that “the righteousness of God has been disclosed…” And, what is this righteousness that has been disclosed? That God loves us!
God loves us! Imagine…
And what does God’s love of us, mean for us? On March 28 I discussed the work of Franz Rosenzweig and quoted him on this point. He writes that we “are always in the presence of God” and, therefore, there is “essentially just one commandment, the commandment to love God.” Revelation is always ‘an event between the two.’ Thus, a ‘religious experience’ is known ‘again and again’—“For we know it only when—we do.” For God calls us to love him…and we respond “Here I am!” We do not always hear this voice saying “love me”, but it is there. The request is for us to step outside of ourselves, to enter into relationship.
Our revelation that God loves us is an offer of relationship. In loving us, God calls us to love him…to respond to him…to enter relationship. Thus, Jesus tells us that the “greatest and first commandment” is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” “And,” Jesus goes on, “the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22: 37-40)
The great teacher Hillel, in agreement with Jesus, and in agreement with Paul, tells us that beyond these two commandments, all the rest, the “law and the prophets”, is just commentary or explanation of what these two commandments mean. The crucial question here pertains to the need for the law and the prophets if we have the two “Great” commandments? Aren’t the two commandments enough?
Here we see the difference between ‘outcomes’ and ‘process’. When we have a preset idea of what love means, that which is loved becomes an ‘object’ and we then record the ‘outcome’ of applying our preconceived concept of love to that ‘object’. The problem here is that ‘love’ cannot be a ‘thing’ because if it becomes a ‘thing’ then it becomes the focus of our action…it becomes a ‘law’!
What the commandments tell us is that love is a relationship…it cannot be either a ‘thing’ or an ‘outcome’. The first commandment is “to love” and the second is like it, “you shall love” which implies that we must respond to that which is loved as unique and not as an ‘object’. Our model of this relationship is Jesus, who revealed to us “the image of God” in what he did and said. Jesus revealed to us what it means to love. And, this is why we need all ‘the law and the prophets’. This is why we need a further two thousand years of theological and philosophical reflection. We need commentary and explanation as to what it means to be in relationship with God…within ourselves…with others…and with creation. It is not easy to love because love is not an ‘outcome’ it is a ‘process’!
And, this, to me, is what Paul is talking about when he talks about “faith in Jesus Christ” and the “law of faith”. It is this that Paul talks about when he says that “a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” Paul is talking about faith in the two commandments…the commandments to love. This faith is not in Jesus Christ as an individual, because if we do this we make Jesus Christ into an idol. We have faith in the model that Jesus Christ showed us: the model to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is a model of relationship and, as Paul says, Jesus showed us that a person is justified in this faith in loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves by “stepping outside ourselves” and “entering into relationship”.
At this point Rosenzweig writes that we are therefore called to reveal the image of God. “Once one becomes God’s lover, however, one can no longer be completely enclosed in oneself, but one cannot escape that fate simply by returning God’s love…To return God’s love properly involves imitation dei—‘Be thou holy, for I the lord thy God am holy’…love of God cannot have a, so to speak, ‘vertical dimension’ without a ‘horizontal dimension’; ‘love of God’ without a direction out to other fellow human beings is not really love of God at all.” Furthermore, “I have to be able to love each and every human being as a human being.” Therefore, “To sum up: the whole purpose of human life is revelation, and the whole content of revelation is love.”
Jesus says, “As God sent me, so I send you.” As Jesus reveals the image of God in his actions, so are we to reveal God to others through our actions. Our relationship with Jesus becomes the imago dei, the call to act in the image of God. To love God is to love the “Other” as God loves us. But, this is the call to be missional…and it begins with those that are closest to us and then moves on out. Jesus began with his disciples and then sent them into the world. But, they were missional within their community before they became missional to the rest of the world.
In my post of February 29, I invoked the ideas of Blaise Pascal of why people enter into a community of faith. They enter a community because they want to live in a way that will bring them to belief in God. The members of that community represent the way of life, the model of being loved and loving that individuals want to experience so as to grow in faith. In terms of the Christian Church, people join the community because they want to experience the example of love exhibited by Jesus and by those that are followers of Jesus.
Thus, mission begins within the community, itself. We live in community because the models used by the community are successful and lead to a life that we would like to achieve. We live to attain that life…and we are interested in the process, not individual, current outcomes. Mission starts ‘right at home.’ It starts there because we don’t know where everyone is within the community, itself. There are the new people that have joined because they like what they see…but need to be led and re-enforced. They need people to show them the way. There are others within the church body…even long time members…that need to be supported or re-enforced or re-converted. And, all of these people need to understand that they need to be Missional as well. “Do I really believe this stuff?” “Can I say this stuff to others in the face of rejection?” We learn this within the community…within the local church.
Then we spread out into the world at large.
Friday, March 21, 2008
The "Classic" Christian Revelations
In the posting last week I discussed faith as warranted belief and related this to the revelations of the communities that we belong to. These revelations are divided into those that are ‘classic’ or ‘primordial’, that is the revelations that are associated with the founder or founders of the community in question and the revelations of later members of the community that are ‘repeated or re-enacted’ by individuals as a part of their present experience as members of the community.
It seems important, at this time, to present what I believe to be the ‘classic’ revelations of the community I belong to, the Christian community. Therefore, what follows is what I believe are the foundations.
The first revelation is that there is a god…that is, God exists. This revelation cannot be attributed to anyone one person or group of persons. But, it is the ‘primordial’ revelation. Also, there are no proofs or anything else to accompany the insight. The revelation is presented in the Torah, the Old Testament to the Christians, the foundational document of the Hebrew/Christian tradition and is there, right in the very first sentence of the book: “In the beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1) In my opinion, we do not need anything more than this to serve as the foundational revelation of our belief. We need no proofs, no justifications. The existence of God is the most basic, deeply held assumption that we possess.
The next two revelations are tied very closely together. Since I am a Christian I will start out with Jesus, for he is my teacher. His public ministry is dated somewhere around 25 to 27 C. E. In the scriptures we can read the following story in three of the four Gospels: Matthew 22: 34-40; Mark 12: 28-34; and Luke 10:25-28. I will quote from the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 22, verses 34-36, Jesus is asked by a lawyer: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Jesus answers: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And, the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22: 37-40) That is, everything else is interpretation.
The quotation marks inside the quotation marks are because Jesus is quoting directly from the Torah. The first quotation, relating to God, comes from Deuteronomy 6: 5; the second, relating to the neighbor, is from Leviticus 19:18. That is, Jesus is just repeating the ‘classic’ or ‘primordial’ revelation that is referenced in the older scriptures.
But, this story is not the only one that exists about the repeating of this revelation. The Jewish religious leader, Hillel, who taught in the period 30 B. C. E. to 10 C. E., emphasized the love of one’s fellow human beings as the essence of the entire Jewish tradition. It is reported that he was asked to summarize the whole of Jewish teaching (while standing on one foot) and he replied:” What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man: this is the whole Law; the rest is the explanation…” This, to Hillel was the summation of Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Of course, to Hillel, as it was to all the religious Jews, it was understood that “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Deuteronomy, 6: 4-5)
The Christian teaching of the revelation is exactly the same as the Jewish teaching; Hillel, as did Jesus, just repeated the ‘classic’ or ‘primordial’ revelation that existed in the older tradition. But, this is not what I find to be remarkable in their statements. What I find remarkable is their claim that “the rest is just explanation” or “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” What this tells me is that to ‘love God’ and ‘to love your neighbor as yourself’ is very, very difficult! It sounds so easy…’love God’…’love your neighbor’…but we have the Old Testament…we have the New Testament…we have all the law and the prophets…and we have two thousand years of additional writings…just to interpret and explain what it means to ‘love God’ and to ‘love your neighbor.’
Why is it so difficult to interpret or explain what love means? It is so difficult because the essence of the Jewish/Christian faith is relationship, not theory. That is, the law and the prophets help us to define and understand what it means to be in relationship with God and with ‘our neighbor’. The law and the prophets are not the basis of a dogmatic structure or a systematic theology. They are a way of living.
But, why do we need all the law and the prophets? Isn’t love…well…just love? The answer to this is that love is not just love. Love means a lot of things. Love is dependent upon the situation. Just look at the way Hillel expresses the second greatest commandment which is like the first: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man…” What does this mean? The only appropriate answer to this is that it means that…it depends! It depends upon what the situation is. And, this is the essence of love. How do I love you when you are doing something despicable? How do I love you when you are kind and gentle? How do I love you when you are sick and not feeling well? How do I love you in the routine of life?
This is why we need the law and the prophets to interpret or explain what it means to love God…to explain what it means to love our neighbor. This is why we need the teachings of Jesus and Hillel. Think back to the story that Jesus tells about the Good Samaritan. What is this story in response to? It is in response to a question a lawyer poses to Jesus. The lawyer asks: “And, just who is my neighbor?” Not only is it difficult to define love…we even have trouble in understanding who our neighbor is!
Do we need interpretation? Do we need explanation? The answer is obvious. The essence of love, it seems to me, is that we need to know enough about the one that is loved to be able to provide the loved one with what they need, and not with what we want to give them. We have to be sufficiently self-less to learn enough so that we can respond to where the loved one is. This is very, very difficult. For example, we need to know as much as we can about God in order to truly love God and respond to him as he would want us to. Likewise, we need to know as much as we can about our neighbor so that we can respond to her/him in a way that is most meaningful to them. This is what strikes me so in the stories about how Jesus healed individuals. We note that first he physically heals them. Then, in almost every case, he gives them a verbal instruction: “Don’t tell anyone about your healing”; or “Go to the synagogue and praise God.” These instructions of Jesus are very personal and must be related to the spiritual healing of the individual. Jesus knows enough about these people so that he can not only physically heal them, but provide a way for them to be healed spiritually in order to become whole human beings. Love is knowing the loved one sufficiently so that you can be where they are and not just where you are! Jesus is a model to us of this kind of love and he wants us to be a model to others of this kind of love.
The final revelation of love given to us by Jesus is captured in the story of his death and of the events leading up to his death. According to the stories we have, Jesus was a threat to a segment of the organized religion of his time. (But, not, seemingly, to the part that Hillel represented.) The leaders of this segment emphasized ‘the Law and the prophets’ in their teachings. In fact, the information provided us in the Gospel teachings indicate that these leaders made ‘the Law and the prophets’ their ultimate concern. They, in this sense, turned the teachings of Jesus and Hillel up-side-down. Jesus told these leaders over and over again, “Think in the right way! Don’t make ‘the Law and the prophets’ your ultimate concern. Make God your ultimate concern!” But this was threatening. It challenged their teaching. And, Jesus, apparently, was sufficiently successful in drawing people to him and to his teaching that they had to do something about him. As the story goes, these threatened leaders conspired to have him killed. The final lesson that Jesus gives us is the example of how he died…he stayed true to his teaching about love to his last breath, even asking for those connected in any way to his death to be forgiven. The life of Jesus shows us how one could live…and how one could die…loving God and loving neighbor.
It seems important, at this time, to present what I believe to be the ‘classic’ revelations of the community I belong to, the Christian community. Therefore, what follows is what I believe are the foundations.
The first revelation is that there is a god…that is, God exists. This revelation cannot be attributed to anyone one person or group of persons. But, it is the ‘primordial’ revelation. Also, there are no proofs or anything else to accompany the insight. The revelation is presented in the Torah, the Old Testament to the Christians, the foundational document of the Hebrew/Christian tradition and is there, right in the very first sentence of the book: “In the beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1) In my opinion, we do not need anything more than this to serve as the foundational revelation of our belief. We need no proofs, no justifications. The existence of God is the most basic, deeply held assumption that we possess.
The next two revelations are tied very closely together. Since I am a Christian I will start out with Jesus, for he is my teacher. His public ministry is dated somewhere around 25 to 27 C. E. In the scriptures we can read the following story in three of the four Gospels: Matthew 22: 34-40; Mark 12: 28-34; and Luke 10:25-28. I will quote from the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 22, verses 34-36, Jesus is asked by a lawyer: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Jesus answers: “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And, the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22: 37-40) That is, everything else is interpretation.
The quotation marks inside the quotation marks are because Jesus is quoting directly from the Torah. The first quotation, relating to God, comes from Deuteronomy 6: 5; the second, relating to the neighbor, is from Leviticus 19:18. That is, Jesus is just repeating the ‘classic’ or ‘primordial’ revelation that is referenced in the older scriptures.
But, this story is not the only one that exists about the repeating of this revelation. The Jewish religious leader, Hillel, who taught in the period 30 B. C. E. to 10 C. E., emphasized the love of one’s fellow human beings as the essence of the entire Jewish tradition. It is reported that he was asked to summarize the whole of Jewish teaching (while standing on one foot) and he replied:” What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man: this is the whole Law; the rest is the explanation…” This, to Hillel was the summation of Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Of course, to Hillel, as it was to all the religious Jews, it was understood that “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Deuteronomy, 6: 4-5)
The Christian teaching of the revelation is exactly the same as the Jewish teaching; Hillel, as did Jesus, just repeated the ‘classic’ or ‘primordial’ revelation that existed in the older tradition. But, this is not what I find to be remarkable in their statements. What I find remarkable is their claim that “the rest is just explanation” or “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” What this tells me is that to ‘love God’ and ‘to love your neighbor as yourself’ is very, very difficult! It sounds so easy…’love God’…’love your neighbor’…but we have the Old Testament…we have the New Testament…we have all the law and the prophets…and we have two thousand years of additional writings…just to interpret and explain what it means to ‘love God’ and to ‘love your neighbor.’
Why is it so difficult to interpret or explain what love means? It is so difficult because the essence of the Jewish/Christian faith is relationship, not theory. That is, the law and the prophets help us to define and understand what it means to be in relationship with God and with ‘our neighbor’. The law and the prophets are not the basis of a dogmatic structure or a systematic theology. They are a way of living.
But, why do we need all the law and the prophets? Isn’t love…well…just love? The answer to this is that love is not just love. Love means a lot of things. Love is dependent upon the situation. Just look at the way Hillel expresses the second greatest commandment which is like the first: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man…” What does this mean? The only appropriate answer to this is that it means that…it depends! It depends upon what the situation is. And, this is the essence of love. How do I love you when you are doing something despicable? How do I love you when you are kind and gentle? How do I love you when you are sick and not feeling well? How do I love you in the routine of life?
This is why we need the law and the prophets to interpret or explain what it means to love God…to explain what it means to love our neighbor. This is why we need the teachings of Jesus and Hillel. Think back to the story that Jesus tells about the Good Samaritan. What is this story in response to? It is in response to a question a lawyer poses to Jesus. The lawyer asks: “And, just who is my neighbor?” Not only is it difficult to define love…we even have trouble in understanding who our neighbor is!
Do we need interpretation? Do we need explanation? The answer is obvious. The essence of love, it seems to me, is that we need to know enough about the one that is loved to be able to provide the loved one with what they need, and not with what we want to give them. We have to be sufficiently self-less to learn enough so that we can respond to where the loved one is. This is very, very difficult. For example, we need to know as much as we can about God in order to truly love God and respond to him as he would want us to. Likewise, we need to know as much as we can about our neighbor so that we can respond to her/him in a way that is most meaningful to them. This is what strikes me so in the stories about how Jesus healed individuals. We note that first he physically heals them. Then, in almost every case, he gives them a verbal instruction: “Don’t tell anyone about your healing”; or “Go to the synagogue and praise God.” These instructions of Jesus are very personal and must be related to the spiritual healing of the individual. Jesus knows enough about these people so that he can not only physically heal them, but provide a way for them to be healed spiritually in order to become whole human beings. Love is knowing the loved one sufficiently so that you can be where they are and not just where you are! Jesus is a model to us of this kind of love and he wants us to be a model to others of this kind of love.
The final revelation of love given to us by Jesus is captured in the story of his death and of the events leading up to his death. According to the stories we have, Jesus was a threat to a segment of the organized religion of his time. (But, not, seemingly, to the part that Hillel represented.) The leaders of this segment emphasized ‘the Law and the prophets’ in their teachings. In fact, the information provided us in the Gospel teachings indicate that these leaders made ‘the Law and the prophets’ their ultimate concern. They, in this sense, turned the teachings of Jesus and Hillel up-side-down. Jesus told these leaders over and over again, “Think in the right way! Don’t make ‘the Law and the prophets’ your ultimate concern. Make God your ultimate concern!” But this was threatening. It challenged their teaching. And, Jesus, apparently, was sufficiently successful in drawing people to him and to his teaching that they had to do something about him. As the story goes, these threatened leaders conspired to have him killed. The final lesson that Jesus gives us is the example of how he died…he stayed true to his teaching about love to his last breath, even asking for those connected in any way to his death to be forgiven. The life of Jesus shows us how one could live…and how one could die…loving God and loving neighbor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)