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Love God and Your Neighbor

Love God and Your Neighbor

Last updated on: September 1, 2018 at 9:59 am by Anne Kennedy

Love God and Your Neighbor 2018-09-01T09:59:54-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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A certain podcaster to whom I have been listening for the last month, and who shall continue to go unnamed by me for the moment, regularly distills the gospel down to the following bleak formula: Love God and Love your Neighbor.

After all, Jesus said it himself in Mark 10. When asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” it was the answer he gave, only a little more elegantly, in that he himself responded with a question about goodness, and then referred to the Law, not in some sort of dismissive backhanded way, but with the searching compassion of one who knows the scriptures. And, as we know, the person inquiring about salvation, upon hearing that answer, went away sad because he had been shown that he didn’t, in fact, love God, but loved the material stuff of this life. And Jesus didn’t run after him, which would have been my inclination, or change the answer to be easier, or say ‘never mind I was kidding,’ but let him go while he himself made his unflinching way to the cross.

My breezy podcaster, or perhaps I should say Cultural Influencer, or Thought Leader, for indeed she is both, likes to begin each interview or teaching with a lot of encouragement—you’re wonderful and beautiful, and you are so precious. She mounts up praise upon praise, and then directs the listener to first of all trust this knowledge of being, in some rather vague sense, worthy of self love because of being created by God, and then, secondarily, to keep the self going in the right way by use of the “gospel” which is the aforementioned “love God and love your neighbor.” A hint of the dark trouble that plagues all humanity is nodded toward in a distant and non-committal way. Ah, you over there, abuse and misogyny, broken friendships and poverty, narrow angry bitterness—I see you, but I will overcome you because I am an overcomer.

As I’ve listened I’ve wandered around doing up the piles of filthy towels we incurred by camping for a week in a beautiful but very muddy park, throwing away everything in the fridge because someone forgot to close it all the way when we left (not me…), petting the needy cat who was shocked that we left her here with only food and water and only looked in on her every day but only for ten minutes, realizing, as I stand there while she cries and hits me in the face, gently, that I really do need to put the school room together and start school this week because time’s a wasting.

All those little domestic troubles, in fact, that comprise a very steady and staid and basically well ordered daily life. In the middle of them all, there is no tsunami of ecclesiastical abuse and I am not out of control on Twitter, nor am I so evil that I am throwing my family, my neighborhood and my church into chaos and trouble. On the contrary, by hard work and self-sacrifice, I bring tranquility into dark cupboards, I feed the hungry and clothe the naked (my children), and I obediently try to walk in the way I am meant to go.

And yet, everything is broken and no matter how hard I work I will never win against the darkness, both inside of myself and outside in the world. And it is a very great darkness.

So if the gospel is, Love God and Love your Neighbor, for that to succeed I must have some other kind of definition for Love, some lesser love that doesn’t actually fix any of the problems, because I’ve tried and I can’t.

What would it take, just to be pedantic, to really love God? Perhaps if I just sit and read the Bible for ten minutes a day, that would be at least a good place to begin to indicate an affection for God, which is some kind of love, though perhaps not the ocean of love that we know is possible. Ten minutes, just me and my bible. Without fail. I will try. On the first day I will begin fresh and eager, on time, Bible open, mug of black oolong at my elbow, unhindered, full of love. Day two I will be a hair of a second late and there will be no tea. Day three I will sit and instead of reading the text, I will listen to a child explain why it hurts her finger when you pinch her very hard. Day four I will be called away by an emergency of no milk and no butter. The fifth day I will have forgotten where I put my Bible.

It not possible, without failing, to read the Bible to for ten whole minutes every single day of the week. One person might do it, but most people can’t do it, even if they want to. Should all those people who can’t just let themselves off the hook? Because God loves them, so it’s ok if they don’t love him…as they should. Maybe you don’t actually have to have any substance to your love for God. Maybe it’s ok if you just think about God sometimes. Maybe you don’t have to orient your whole self around God, even though he made you and he takes care of you.

Anyway, it will be easier with your neighbor, which is the other tablet of the law. Now, let me see, who is my neighbor?

No wonder the young man went away sad when he discovered that following the law was the requirement for an eternal inheritance in the presence of a holy and perfect God, and that not only was he not doing it, it turned out he didn’t even want to. What a great tragedy for lovely young ordinary Americans to sit in church, or listen to an improving podcast, and come away thinking that if they just love God and their neighbor, they will have done all that God requires.

That cannot be the gospel. It cannot. Else we are all doomed. Me most of all, because I, like the young man, don’t, and most of the time, don’t even want to try. I can’t and even worse, when given the opportunity, I won’t. No matter my striving, I cannot overcome the darkness.

So the young man went away sad because he had great possessions. And I do think a lot of people go away from the church after trying really hard and then seeing that, if anything, the trouble and evil in the world is only mounting up, not dissipating, and they are still lonely, fretful, anxious, not able to experience happiness and satisfaction in any realm of life. Why bother? If God is so loving, why doesn’t he do something?

And Jesus kept on toward the cross where the something that he did was so tragically not what we wanted, so strange and terrible, that, even when we look right at it, it is very hard to understand what it means. But whatever it is, it is the gospel. It is the good news that the requirements of the law were completely and fully satisfied in his own flesh, that your failures and mine were accounted for, acknowledged for the dark, devouring, destroying works of evil that they are. Moreover, for those who repent and trust in the savior hanging there, that sin is put away as far as any ocean can cover anything. The love that you did not have and did not even want to have, for God and for other people, was poured out for you and anyone who suddenly is desperate enough to have it. You didn’t, and couldn’t, but God could, and did.

After the young man wandered away the disciples asked, wonderingly, how anyone can ever be saved. Jesus gave the full and real answer that I hope so much this podcaster will one day hear. He said, “With man, it is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.” With God, even the one who does not love God and does not love his neighbor can inherit eternal life. Which is an extraordinary relief to me this morning as I stumble out of bed and go to church.

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