UCA SA - Reflection for the Week

The Greatest Commandment

By Fergus McGinley

This week in the lectionary we have the Pharisees trying once again to trap Jesus with a tricky question – “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36) – to which Jesus responds in the best possible way, by distilling all the commandments down to two, in order:

‘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 a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37–39)

Touché! I think we need to take special notice of the order, however, because in second place comes the rule we typically put first – which is widely known as the “Golden Rule”, and is far from unique to Christianity; common, in fact, to most major world religions, indigenous traditions and secular philosophies.

Second, not first: the Golden Rule. In John 13:34, Jesus does seem to put it first, when he says, “A new command I give you: Love one another”. But he quickly follows up with, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another”.

“As I have loved you” – that is, not as you love yourself. Jesus’ great mission was to teach about and incarnate divine love into the world – divine as opposed to human love – that is, selfless, unconditional, agape love. Which we can only acquire by way of a spiritual download from God themself, through the Spirit.

Human love: I commend CS Lewis’s marvellous The Four Loves to you. We humans are great lovers, naturally: affection (storge), friendship (philia), romantic love (eros), we lavish it all, generously. But unless these natural loves of ours are informed on a regular basis by selfless agape love that we can only get from God, they just as naturally morph into disaffection, hatred, jealousy and violence, when we don’t get what we want in return.

So, by all means, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But Jesus recommends, before that, first prayerfully put your whole heart, soul and mind into the task of loving God, then wait faithfully for the gift/grace/agape download that will surely come your way – and then, and only then, go about the business of loving your neighbour as yourself. Amen.