“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40

I am a rule-breaker by nature — but I think most people have a hard time following all of the rules — especially the rules of the road. It comes to us naturally — because we are human. The most well-known of G-d’s laws are the Ten Commandments that G-d gives to Moses. But, read on a little further into Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and you will find 613 commandments that comprise the whole Law of Moses. Some are commandments to do something—like when and where to celebrate Passover. Others state what not to do, like which foods to avoid or how to prepare a food item correctly.

To our twenty-first-century ears and eyes, some of these do’s and don’ts seem silly or just plain out-of-touch with life today. There are rules about when you’re not supposed to wear a garment made out of both wool and linen. Others seem to still be pretty good rules, like forgiving debts and taking good care of orphans and widows.

When Jesus begins his public ministry, he beings by standing up in the synagogue and telling the people that he has come to fulfill the law and the prophets, and to heal the sick and raise the dead. Jesus tells the people listening to him that obeying and honoring all the laws—all 613 of them—are rooted in two simple actions: love G-d with your entire heart, soul and strength, and love your neighbor with the same kind of compassion and generosity you extend to yourself. When we love G-d with our whole heart, and when we are loving our neighbors as ourselves, we spend a good portion of our time thinking about how our actions or inactions will affect them. Loving each other means that we pay attention to special requests or needs, and do what we can with what we have.

On this fourth day of Christmas, as we read and study the example of Jesus’ life and love in the scriptures, we see how to love G-d with our whole hearts, and how to love our neighbors as our selves.  Let us pray:

Guide us, Lord, to consider you and each person we interact with as we make decisions today. Help us to walk in your ways. Amen.

Pastor Dave

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

The phrase, “Love your neighbor,” may be one of the easiest to find in scripture (once in Leviticus, three times in Matthew, and one time each in Mark, Luke, Romans, Galatians, and James). While the passage is repeated often, acting on it is difficult. Loving our neighbor is one of the hardest exercises G-d asks us to practice every day, all day. In fact Jesus does not suggest we love our neighbor, Jesus says loving G-d and our neighbor sums up every commandment, every law, and every instruction every given to us by the prophets.

Loving our neighbor is important—and next to loving G-d, it is the most important thing we can do. But I confess, it is much easier to love the lovable neighbor than it is to love the cranky neighbor. But if we are to be a vessel for G-d to show love to our neighbors—then we need to pray for G-d’s strength in loving our neighbor every day.

Paul lists all the qualities of G-d’s love he can imagine: Love is patient and kind, it protects, trusts, and hopes. And Paul also lists the things that love is not: It is not boastful, envious, or resentful. With this list, we are reminded that faith, hope, and love abide. These qualities stay with us, drawing us together to the feet of Jesus. Love is the greatest of all these things—it is the root, branches, and fruit of G-d’s plan for each of us.

The real question for each of us on this third day of Christmas is, “How can we love G-d and each other better?”

Pastor Dave