Monday Morning Gospel QB:   The Great Commandment . . . LOVE
Channel: Spirit Moves 4-2-1
Date: 16/11/2020

Monday Morning Gospel QB:  Love and Do as you Will
Love and do as you will . . . My favorite Augustine quote - simple / clean / easy to remember / its direct and inclusive - the rest goes like this

Augustine- one of my favorite quotes because it's clean and simple: 
"love, and do what you will. - then it goes on, "If you hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you cry out, cry out in love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. If you spare them, spare them out of love. Let the root of love be in you: nothing can spring from it but good. …"


When Jesus calls us to the "Great Commandment" he is calling us to love . . . Love God - Self - Others . . . A trinitarian love . . . Where one blends into the next.  One fuels and feeds the other.  

If you are like me - my love of God often grew out of service and love of neighbor, especially when I was younger . . . My love of self, had its beginnings out of love from others - initially my parents but then grew out of the quiet voice that spoke from within - the voice of God that grounded me and then moved me to action.

So when the Pharisee asked, 
 The Greatest Commandment    Matthew 22: 34-40
 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,  and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

He was summarizing all 613 laws of the Torah, about how to live out the Covenant . . . Or as Augustine put it:  "Love and do as you will"

SO even though the Pharisee is trying to get Jesus to break the law . . . What he does is actually break open the law - expands the commandment to love not only God but others and ourselves . . . 

As Jesus expands the commandment to Love he creates a "Trinitarian Model"  not just how to love God with all your heart, soul and mind or body but also a Trinitarian model about how to put love in action - beyond  a private devotion or relationship . . . A dynamic that moves and is a decision that leads to action . . .    God = Self = Other . . . 

It’s a LOVE that moves Jesus to the cross . . . Not just the sacrifice of love but perhaps an idea connected to the GEOMETRY OF THE CROSSS or a theology that involves the geometry of the cross - stay with me for a minute.

I came to this idea as a combination of a couple things.  

 1. A notion the nuns harped on me as kids when we were little and they said Jesus loves you "THISSSSS MUCH" - stretching out his arms - see look on the cross . . . 
 2. When you look at the story of Jesus in the Garden, just before his arrest, you know he didn’t want this  . . . He didn’t want the cross but not as I will but as you - he did what was right, what he had to do, not necessarily what he wanted to do . . . And he could do this because of his deep and intimate relationship with God himself, God that is not only out there but in here . . . This relationship:  Heart - soul - mind -body . . .  was the reservoir, the well in which he drew from - the same model or example must hold for us as well.

Bring out the 2 sticks - the geometry . . . When we can nurture and develop and deepen our relationship with God - it grounds us - connects us with the Divine - The Vertical Beam as it were:  love of God & Self . . . This then gives us the reservoir to "Reach out to the World" 

As I suggest to my students - this is the model for Christian Leadership . . . We must nurture and deepen our Love and relationship with God and ourselves - touching the God within / the vertical beam . . . So we can reach out to others and the world in love . . . Grounded in this great commandment to "Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ . . . ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  

So - can we tend to both "Beams" this week - take time to nurture the vertical beam, the relationship with God and ourselves and can we use this relationship to reach out in love to others and the world.