If
the thought crossed your mind that you heard today’s first and third
readings not very long ago, you were right. Very similar readings were
in last year’s cycle of readings, although last year we got Matthew’s
version of the Great Commandment and this year we got Mark’s. But is
this overkill? It might seem so, but I prefer to think that the Church
considers this teaching on the primacy of love of God and neighbor so
important that it bears regular repetition. And who could argue with
that!
The familiar passage from
Deuteronomy was bread and butter for every devout, believing Jew and the
very heart of the Torah, the Law of God. Jewish people down through the
centuries – right up to today – have repeated those words at least twice
daily: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our god, the Lord alone! Therefore
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your strength.”
A contemporary rabbi,
commenting on these words from Deuteronomy, suggests that they are a
prayer and more than a prayer. They are, he says, a ‘Pledge of
Allegiance to God.’ So important are they that Deuteronomy mandated them
to be worn on the wrist like a bracelet and even dangled from the
forehead so they could always be before one’s eyes. And they were to be
placed at the doorposts of every home – not unlike the way we place holy
water fonts and make the sign of the cross at the doors of our churches.
There’s simply no overdoing that prayer, that pledge. They are the heart
and soul of the Jewish faith.
And, of course, they are the
heart and soul of our Christian faith, too. When asked by a Scribe what
was the first of all the many commandments of the Law (and there were
many: well over 600), Jesus unhesitatingly quoted the celebrated passage
from Deuteronomy, and then added words from the Book of Leviticus, “You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.” By putting those two together –
even though he numbered them “first” and “second,” Jesus was saying that
the two commandments are really only one – that love of God and love of
neighbor cannot be separated.
The writer of the New
Testament First Letter of John makes this teaching even more explicit:
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother or sister, he is a
liar; for whoever does not love a brother or sister whom he has seen
cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the command we have from
Jesus: Whoever loves God must also love his brother or sister.”
This message is both
challenging and timely on this weekend before the election – this
nail-biter weekend. Our fears and feelings are in high gear, aren’t they
- no matter what our political persuasions. And there are our hopes,
too, and our beliefs, our principles, our convictions. We sense that
there is a great deal at stake in this election – for our nation, our
democracy, our world, and indeed there is.
And so, I think it is vitally
important that we tune out, as much as we can, all the heated, overblown
rhetoric – all the distorted narratives and baseless claims, the
distractions and the sideshows - and, instead, stick to the issues and
study them thoroughly; scrutinize the candidates carefully – their
character, their convictions, their competence; form our consciences
prayerfully, and then cast our vote.
And, then, if our candidate
or candidates win, I hope we will we have the grace to celebrate with
gratitude, without feeling the need to dance on the graves of the
defeated. On the other hand, if our candidate or candidates lose, how
will we deal with that? How will I deal with that? Will anger,
disillusion, or fear turn into open hostility, hatred, or despair? That
could be a temptation, and I worry about it. I do.
Feelings of sadness, anger,
or outrage – perhaps all three – are one thing. We wouldn’t be human if
we didn’t have feelings, after all. But if our feelings end up blinding
us to the good in others – and to the God in others – then we will have
lost not only an election, we will have lost our hold on the very heart
of our Christian faith: love for God and love for neighbor. Those must
be our anchor, our hope, our way forward.
And if that sounds
impractical or even impossible in the heat of this moment, it’s good to
be reminded that that’s the way of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus
always takes us beyond the practical and the possible. Think of the
Beatitudes; think of the passion, death, and resurrection!
Dear friends in Christ, I
can’t help but think that today’s readings about the Great Commandment
of love of God and of neighbor – the centrality and inseparability of
the two – are exactly what we need on this Sunday on the eve of an
election that has us all on the edge of our seats, an election unlike
any other in my lifetime.
As we approach the table of the
Eucharist this morning – in our encounter with the living Christ - we
have so much to pray for. Let us pray for our beloved country, let us
pray that people will make informed and unselfish choices at the ballot
box, and let us pray, too, for unity and for peace: unity in a divided
nation, peace in our hearts, peace in our world!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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