Of the 613 commandments
of the Jewish Law
you know the top two,
don't you?
Love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and soul
and mind and strength.
Love thy neighbour
as thou lovest yourself.
Right?
Yes?
No!
[PAUSE]
The first commandment is correct.
The second isn't,
but the difference is subtle.
It isn't,
"Love thy neighbour
as thou lovest thyself"
it's
"Love thy neighbour as thyself."
Same difference?
Just different phrasing?
It's so much deeper than that.
[PAUSE]
In this day and age,
we see ourselves
as individuals
each doing our own thing.
More and more people
are choosing to live alone
so that they can live
their life by their rules.
We see people challenging
even the most obvious
and basic facts about the world
so that they can live
how they want to live.
The temptation that we have
is that we are in control
of our identity
and no-one,
not even society,
biology,
logic
or even God
has a right to say who we are.
We define ourselves,
on our terms
based on what
we feel ourselves to be.
We are always looking
for what makes us distinct
from other people
particularly those
with whom we disagree most.
In this vision,
the human race
becomes nothing
but a collection of individuals
with no connection to each other,
no relationship of any depth
beyond the emotional,
no responsibility to each other
than just following the law.
There is no love there
apart from the feeling
of warmth and niceness
about someone.
And when that feeling ebbs away
so does love.
[PAUSE]
Love thy neighbour as thyself.
The Lord is challenging us
to look for the connection
that unites all humanity.
He invites,
not forces us
to see ourselves
in other people
that,
at the very depth of our being
we share something,
something fundamentally human.
The Lord invites us
to see that the good
that we want for ourselves
is the good that we want for others
because we share human nature
and God loves human beings.
The depths of God's love for us
is cross-shaped
- we know that so well.
But in being made man,
Christ unites each of us
in His humanity
so that we can be united
in His divinity.
If we are each united in Him
then we are each united
with each other.
The happiness we wish for ourselves
is the happiness that God wants for us,
and is the happiness that
we must wish for our neighbour
precisely because,
whether we like it or not,
we share our humanity with them.
To paraphrase Dorothy Day
our love for God
is measured by the love
we have for the one we love least.
[PAUSE]
It also means that
we are worthy of love,
just by existing.
No-one is unloved
even if we feel it,
even if we sit in the darkness
of the misery of our fallen lives.
We are loved
and that love is always
close to us in God.
Let us, then,
let that love be close to others
in our lives and relationships
with them.
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