Phyllis Parthemer in United Methodist Church of the Palm Beaches

3 years ago

Matthew 24:34-40 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And 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.38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  I am sure you are familiar, as a Christian, with these two greatest commandments.  Jesus spoke them in response to the lawyers question of which is the greatest commandment.  They are a “red letter” event.  Seriously, we should highlight them in neon pink.  Jesus came to fulfill the Law and he, in essence, boiled every Law down to this beautiful relational theology.   You can then ask yourself, do you love God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind?  Sure, I love God.  But with all my heart?  Does that mean I love nothing else.  What about that loving chocolate?  Or going out to dinner with friends?  If I love God with all my heart, do I then not love going out to dinner with my friends?  There is no room here for divided affections or allegiance. As Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). If indeed there is one God who stands supremely powerful and valuable (Deuteronomy 6:4), this demands a supreme and total loyalty from you and me, a loyalty that starts with the heart.  Nothing replaces God, for then it becomes idolatry. “The second is like it” is that transition phrase/sentence.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  In other words, we love God with all our heart (and soul and mind) as well as love our neighbor (and here is the clincher for one who was the victim of abuse) as yourself.  Pretty difficult for one who was raised in an abusive and legalistic home.   I say this not to elicit pity but to share that loving ourselves is so important.  I have spent time learning how to love myself.  I would love others and hope they would show me love back.  But until I turned to God and fully accepted His Grace and Love, until I heard God call me His beloved daughter, I could not love myself.  For me that is where it starts.  God!  It starts with God.  God desires you.  God loves you.  God calls you His Masterpiece.  In that, you can love God fully, love yourself, and love your neighbor. I have this magnet on my cabinet in my room. “Don’t forget to love yourself”    Soren Kierkegaard