THE DUAL COMMAND
Jesus does not command us to love ‘God’ in the abstract. Teaching Jew to Jew he says: ‘You shall love the Lord your God’ – the Lord who had rescued the Jewish people from slavery. So, commanding a love which responds to an initiative of Divine Love.
Why wouldn’t one respond ‘heart, mind, strength, soul’ in gratitude for the gift of life itself, for some particular person or incident, for the beauty and grandeur of nature, for rescue from some situation which seemed to engulf us? And if the Lord God loved you in such a way, why wouldn’t you love yourself?
Then you can properly ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. There is nothing sentimental in his teaching from Leviticus 19:18 and the preceding verses. Jesus was pointing to the system of social justice which looked after the poor and which did not exploit workers. It is up to us as global citizens of the 21st century to recognise as ‘neighbours’ those beyond our borders and to love them in the practical ‘Levitical’ way.
Fulfilling the Dual Command, we guard against the extremes of religious piety or social activism and become Christian humanists loving God and neighbour.
We might pause a moment to pray in responsive gratitude to the Lord God, and to commit ourselves to loving our neighbour, hoping to hear the words of Jesus Christ: ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’
Source: Reflection by Fr Michael Tate, available at www.liturgyhelp.com