Grace Giving and Truth Telling - Pt. 2

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40 ESV).

 

Equal part of grace giving and truth telling is the principle Jesus is teaching in our reading today. I find it interesting that many people today justify their ignoring the last half of this teaching while adamantly claiming to be perfect in their adherence to the first part. Truthfully, you simply cannot love God and hate others, regardless of their political values or cultural background. It ought to be obvious. In fact, this verse might seem so obvious that only a child would need to learn it. How could I love someone and then hurt them? That’s no way to treat anyone, especially someone I love. Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly got this part of the equation. Truly, “we must learn to live together as brothers, or perish tighter as fools.” It seems we are on the brink of such destruction in our country today.

 

In Psalm 119 we can tell that the writer loves God and wants to live God’s way. “I seek you with all my heart,” the psalmist writes; “do not let me stray from your commands.” If we are like this believer, we have a deep trust in God, and we know that only God’s faithful love and care can help us live by God’s law of love. Though the commandments are often stated negatively—do not worship other gods; do not kill; do not steal; and so on—the summary of them all is positive: do love the Lord your God; do love your neighbor as yourself (cf. Mark 12:29-31).

 

The commandments are not external demands; they are the framework on which love for God can grow and flourish. And without God’s love and the framework he gives us to live by, nothing will stand. Perhaps this is also at the root of Jesus’ teaching that we build our house on the “solid rock” (cf. Matthew 7:24-27). The sure foundation of our lives can only be found in our attitudes and behavior toward others. When we love God with all of our being, we also ought to love others as we love ourselves. That means we then behave in a manner worthy of the name of Jesus!