31 Sunday OT B: When I truly love God, I truly love you.
Dear sisters and brothers,
What do these words mean to you? Hear, O so and so! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
“Love God” as the first commandment is familiar to us. Yet, it is not stated as simply as that. Jesus mentions four requirements: with all your heart or desire, with all your soul or being, with all your mind or understanding, and with all your strength that is everything you have. With these requirements, we are told that the love with which we are to love God must have the quality of wholeness, totality, and completeness. The measure with which we are to love God is beyond measure or immeasurable.
Anyone who has ever truly fallen in love knows that the deeper love is, the more it demands the whole self. The beloved consumes your desire, thoughts, and emotions, and even a lot of your decisions and actions begin to be influenced by your love for your beloved. You make time for your beloved. You love what he/she loves. You think of ways to delight them: flowers, chocolates, cards, whispers, etc. When love is deep, the impossible seems possible, such as one hears in Natalie Cole’s song Snowfall on the Sahara:
'Til the snow falls on the Sahara, 'Til the sun freezes over, 'Til the Mojave red turns into blue. 'Til my lungs get tired of breathing, and my heart stops beating, then I'll stop loving you.
Such is the depth that human love can reach. The reasons for loving another person as such can be many, but all of them depend on experiencing the beloved or something lovely in the beloved. Thus, getting to know them, and being with them whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually is indispensable.
What then is the reason for loving God? The reason for loving God is because God has loved us first (1 Jn 4:19). Uniquely, God has not loved us because he has experienced something lovely in us, but because whatever is lovely in us has come from the outpouring of his creative and saving love. He loved us when we were base, weak, and broken (2 Cor 5:18-20; Eph 2:16; Col 1:21, etc). Thus, our love for God is a “responsive love.” We love God in response to the unconditional love of God.
Brothers and sisters, if God has so loved us, how then can we not have time for God? How can we not think of God in our actions? How can we forget him in our desires? It can only be because we have not fully known his love for us. If that is the case, we are compelled by the first commandment to seek deeper encounters and knowledge of God. How? By recognizing daily that we owe everything to him, by contemplating signs of God’s, mercy, kindness, and compassion in our lives, by reading the scriptures, and meditating on the saving love of God in Christ Jesus, and by appreciating the love we receive from one another.
The unconditional love of God is also the foundation of Christian love of neighbor. To the first commandment, Jesus adds: “The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
In my office, there is a small plaque with these words: “God loves you, but I am his favorite.” As we recognize God’s unconditional love for us, we also recognize God’s love for our neighbor. So, first and foremost, before recognizing what is lovely in them, we love our neighbor for God’s sake.
Christian love is a cruciform love. The vertical dimension of God’s unconditional love demands from us the horizontal dimension of love of our neighbor as loved by God. Thus, loving God assimilates us to God.
For an analogy, we can look at the example of human love, especially of older couples. When you meet couples celebrating 40 or so years of marriage, one thing will amaze you – they have become so alike. Often, they will use similar phrases …complete each other’s sentences. Even a physical resemblance begins to occur. In the same way, the love of God assimilates us to God. We begin to love what and whom God loves.
The moment I realize that the God I love loves my neighbor; I will love the neighbor as well because God loves him or her. I begin to love all creatures because they are loved by God.
Thus, brothers and sisters, fulfilling the first commandment is the foundation of living out all the other commandments. If I truly know the unconditional love of God for me, I can’t but love God with my all. When I truly love God with my all, I truly love you, because God loves you.
So, may it be! May the Love of God in Christ Jesus compel us. Amen.