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Morning Devotion for the Season of Epiphany

February 17, 2023

Invitatory

I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

How does one love God? Or, more to the point, in what ways is our love of God made manifest?

These are surely worthy questions if, in fact, loving God is the very first obligation we have; if, in fact, loving God takes absolute precedence over every other imaginable duty that life presents. Shouldn’t we be immediately clear, then, in how to answer, without any hesitation or mumbling?

It’s much easier to describe how one can love one’s neighbor. The usual replies involve some kind of care. Instead of living strictly for one’s self, love moves us to notice the needs of others and take actions on their behalf. These may be partial and incomplete; they may even be judged to be token responses. But, nonetheless, they seem directionally correct and far better than passing others by in willful blindness to their strife. And this is taken to be generally satisfactory: a task that can be periodically and reasonably met in one’s discretionary time.

The common consensus stemming from this is that it is perfectly proper to invert (and then conflate) the two great commandments. Our fundamental responsibility is just outside our door, in flesh and blood. Our neighbors are physically available to us. To love them, then, is to love God. This has become our implicit trust. This is how it’s done. This is what pleases God. And thereby the first commandment gets absorbed into the second, very comfortably. Or, if someone dares to mark a difference between the two, the first commandment takes on a very similar moral tone. Our task is to try hard to make God happy and act according to God’s will and to do what’s right (as difficult as that might be) and to fulfill the law (no matter how continuously we fail) and, as a good fallback position, live in accord with the basic teachings of the church. God, we assume, demands our striving, as he watches from a distance that can never be crossed.

This may be understood as obedience or discipleship – but is it love? 

Love certainly includes care, but it’s hardly defined by it. For what is missing here is the heart of love: devotion, adoration, and the kind of passion that forgets time, and all the obligations that time sets out, just for the opportunity to be present. Love lingers; it lingers without purpose, because love causes us to be enthralled. Is this how we love God, such that everything else falls away for a while?

Søren Kierkegaard had a particular admiration for the Biblical characters of Simeon and Anna, both of whom had only one role in Luke’s Gospel. They had passed all their time by waiting for God to come. This had been their lives. We’d consider this a waste; but Kierkegaard noted of them, in a comment of haunting beauty, that “they were both well along in years, tired of living, and yet [they were] joyous in hope.” For them, love of God kept open a radiant promise, which was no less vibrant even when everything else about life was waning and care was fading. Their love kept a different future bright. To love God is to be enthralled, waiting, for what only God can do and give, as the one who loves us infinitely.

It may be that only by truly working on the first commandment – without an eye to the second – will then show us the way that we can love our neighbors.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

     hallowed be thy Name,

     thy kingdom come,

     thy will be done,

         on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

     as we forgive those

         who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

     but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

     and the power, and the glory,

     for ever and ever. Amen.