Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.
“Looking Ahead” is a reflection on the Sunday readings, by Father Perry.
By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor
Imagine if you could live your life by simply following two or three rules. Imagine if everything could be summed up and validated by always doing just two or three things!
Well, once again, Jesus takes us by surprise, the great teacher that he was. Even more interestingly, he does so by “twisting” or “fashioning” a “more-than-was-requested” response.
Jesus was asked —
“Which is the first of all the commandments.”
Instead of giving the “one” commandment requested, he gave three wrapped in two.
‘Love God. Love neighbor. Love self.’
The real beauty in his response, however, is the intertwining of these three commands. The order is also suspect, in that one can say they love God and yet not love their neighbor or self. Jesus intended that we would make a bold discovery.
If one truly loves (and respects) self, they probably will find it relatively easy to love (and respect) others; then they probably will simply realize that they are already loving God.
At the very beginning of Jesus’ response to the scribe who asked the question, he began with the word “hear.”
In some translations, it is “listen.”
Both words are talking about more than “with your ears.”
Hearing and listening, for Jesus, happens primarily “in the heart.”
Hear > listen > understand!
This the scribe did! And Jesus notes, “you are not far from the kingdom of God.”
[Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma | Unsplash]
