The Two Wings of love: God And Neighbor!

 (Homily 30^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A)

     The central message of this Sunday is condensed in the love of God and neighbor. For Christian love to be authentic, it has to be in forma crucis, vertically and horizontally (God and neighbor). The first reading of today hinges on the love of one’s neighbor, while the Gospel presents the two wings of love: love of God and love of neighbor, and it is a re-presentation of the commandments in a new way. In Jesus’ parlance the love of God and the love of neighbor are interlaced. You cannot have one authentically without the other. As a matter of fact, the love of God devoid of the love of neighbour is nothing but a mere barren emotion; and in the same vein, without the love of God, the love of neighbor is nothing but egoistic and self-centred love. In the second reading, similar to the tone of last week, St. Paul continues with the thanksgiving for the spiritual progress of the Thessalonians in the Gospel. This passage reveals the content of the major themes of St. Paul’s preaching, the abandonment of idols for the worship of the True God: “you turned from idols to serve the living and true God…”

     In today’s first reading (Ex. 22:20-26) we find ourselves in the context when the Israelites have left Egypt. They were no longer under the dictatorial laws of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. This reading presents a section of the guiding rules God gave them on how to care for the weak and the needy in their midst. So, this passage is an excerpt from the book of the covenant between God and his people, as such, the materials therein are related to legal codes of the Ancient Near East. The codes are formulated in the negative: “Do not maltreat the widow…”  But in the evangelical text St. Mathew gives us a positive formulation: “you will love the Lord your God with all your heart…” This passage comes from a section of the code on social conduct, and it hinges on the love of one’s neighbor. It gives us some clues on the activeness and genuiness of love, thus: Do not molest a stranger or oppress him. Do not maltreat the weak (orphans and widows). Do not take interest from a poor man when you lend to him. If you take your neighbour’s garment in pledge, restore it before the sun goes down. All these point to the love of neighbor.

     Reflecting on the Gospel passage (Mt 22:34-40) I think we have to thank this unknown doctor of the law for his question, “Master what is the greatest commandment of the law?” (v.36). He asked the question, not because he was desirous to know or to learn but because he  wanted to put Jesus to the test (v.35). Even though the intention was not good, Jesus profited from the occasion to give a great teaching on love. The teaching of Jesus reveals that the heart of Christian religion is Love. The essence of our being Christians is to Love. To the question on the greatest commandment, Jesus responded, offering three objects of love: God, the neighbour and oneself.

     In answering the question about the greatest commandment Jesus did not quote any of the Ten Commandments, rather he summarized them in two parts: love of God (from the first to the third commandment) and love of neighbor (from the fourth to the tenth commandment). Thus, Jesus focused on the two commandments: love of God and of neighbor. For the first, the Word of God says: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (v.37), this entails that the love of God has to be total, incomparable and without measures. And then for the second it says “and your neighbor as yourself” (v.39), because it is presumed that one ought to love himself. However, we are going to see the novelty brought by Jesus in the New Testament about the love of neighbor. In his response, Jesus used the verb in the future tense “you will love”, which indicates that it is an inconclusive act, to love is not a duty per se, but a necessity for living, for in as much as man continues to exist he is called to love. The response of Jesus could be seen as the summary of the whole bible, both the Old and the New Testaments.

     In the bid, to respond to his interlocutor, Jesus enlisted two commandments already existent in the Old law, but he unified them together, for he says that the second is like the first. In fact Jesus took his response from the book of Deuteronomy (6:4-5): “Shema O Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh. You must love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength”, that is with regards to the love of God, while the love of the neighbour alludes to Leviticus (19:18): “You will not exact vengeance on, or bear any sort of grudge against, the members of your race, but you will love your neighbor as yourself”. In the time of Jesus there were known to be 613 commandments in the Jewish Law. These two commandments were dispersed in the 613 prescriptions of the law (365 prohibitions and 248 actions to be carried out).    

     Once again in the response of Jesus we see the third aspect of the two commandments, which calls the attention of man to love himself, “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, because one who is not capable of loving himself, cannot love others. But Jesus took this to another level, to its Christological dimension, is no longer love your neighbor as yourself, but love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 13:34: 15:12), here Jesus becomes the model and the reason of love of the neighbor. Unlike in the Old Testament (Lev. 19:18). In some other passages of the Gospel Jesus deepened the modality of loving our neighbor and broadened the concept of neighborhood. There is indeed, a new sense that Jesus brought in, he called us to love our neighbor not as oneself, but as  He (Jesus) loved us, because now everyone (especially those in need) as Jesus taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25:37) is our neighbor. Thus, there is a passage from the Old Testament restricted sense of neighborhood to Jesus universalistic and inclusive sense of neighborhood. At the basis of this, is an invitation to love our neighbor without measures. For and with Jesus the concept of neighborhood acquired a universal meaning without discrimination of race, colour, religion or territory. My neighbour therefore, is someone I have to be close to, somebody in need. We remember the words of Jesus at the episode of the last judgement “In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me” and again “In truth I tell you, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me” (Mt. 25: 40,45). This reminds us of this sacrament of love and our neighbor as a sacrament of God. He who truly loves God cannot but love his fellow man (neighbour). The neighbor in Jesus parlance is similar to God, for the neighbor bears the image of God.

     The love we are talking about originates from God, for God is the source of love. The word of God says that “God is love” (1Jn. 4:8b) and thus “everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God” (1Jn. 4:7), therefore, as human beings we are objects of God’s Love, for we experience it daily, but also we are called to be subjects of God’s love, to become channel of God’s love to our neighbors. For Jesus the love of God and the love of neighbour are like two sides of the same coin. Little wonder, tells us that: “anyone who says I love God and hates his brother is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother whom he can see cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1Jn. 4:20-21). Indeed this is the commandment we have received from him, that whoever loves God, must also love his brother”. We can see the imperative on must, there is no negotiation about it.

     Furthermore, it behooves us to affirm vehemently in this reflection, that though in the parlance of the great French Philosopher Rene Descartes man is an “res cogitas” but before becoming “res cogitas”, man was and still is “res cogitata”, that is to say that before becoming thinking beings, we were already thought of by God, and being thought of by God is a revelation of God’s love. God in deed, is the source of love.

    For Jesus these two commandments are interconnected, for love comes from God and St. John makes it glaring thus: “dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1Jn. 4:7). Love indeed, is the manifestation of the true knowledge of God. Here, when we talk about “knowledge” we don’t mean “knowledge” (gnosis) tout court, rather we are talking about epignosis, that’s real, practical and experiential knowledge, an incarnated knowledge. St. Paul links epignosis with love (cf. Phil. 1:9-11; Eph. 4:13). Give or take, the authenticity of our faith is shown when we put these two commandments into practice. Thus we can say: no love no faith in God. Little wonder St. Paul affirms that “faith works through love” (Gal. 5:6). And in the letter of St. James we read, “faith without works is dead” (Jm. 2:17), the vitality of faith is given by good works. St. John once again in his first letter brings it to a drammatic conclusion as he says: “Children our love must be not just words or mere talk, but something active and genuine” (1Jn. 4:18). So, how is our love to be active and genuine? On this, the first and the second readings gives us some guidelines.

     In the second reading (1Th 1:5-10) instead St. Paul presents the community of Thessalonica as a model for other Christian communities, because they welcomed the word of God with joy. Not only that they welcomed the word of God but they equally translated it into concrete life situations. They got converted and turned to God abandoning their idols. This no doubt points to their love of God. Likewise, for us to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, we too need to abbandon our idols, not necessarily other gods, but those things that divide and deviate our attention from God. We need to abandon our self-made idols, object-idols and person-idols.

     Above all, my beloved brothers and sisters in and of Nigeria, an approach to the second commandment about love could be by reflecting on how we love ourselves, ranging from our leaders to the led. Loving the other as oneself only becomes possible if we have, or can gain, a healthy, sane level of self-appreciation. With the state of things in our country today, we need to embark on the commitment and on the outreach of love and justice. Let us shun and do away with tribal prejudices and political divide, prejudices feed not on facts but on feelings. Today, violence and rebellion, economic disorder, famine, massacre, oppression, corruption and looting threaten every State, are these the presages of the destruction of the entity called Nigeria or the turning point that gives birth to a New Nigeria? In my outreach for love and justice I join my voice to the voices of all meaningful Nigerians who have the peace and development of this country at heart to decry for the end of clueless government, of the dehumanization of the human life, of greed, of corruption and of the politics of the winner takes it all! We need a transformation in people and in the social structures. Let love and justice lead!

     In conclusion, for Christian love to be authentic, it has to be in forma crucis, vertically and horizontally (God and neighbor). Little wonder, the cross is our sign of love and victory. That is why Jesus transformed a sign of shame to a sign of salvific love. In all, we are called to be witnesses of love: “from this all we know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn.13:35). Love no doubt, is the distinguishing Christian personality trait that enables us to be who God wants us to be! Lord Jesus inspire us to love you and to love one another! Amen!!!

(Fr. Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)