Mark 12:28-31
“28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And 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.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
I want to start out my comments by emphasizing a mission statement for our church which comes from my thoughts and reflections through the Revive seminar and book study. The new mission statement for our church is this, “Bishop Cummins Reformed Episcopal Church wants to live out a Great Commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.”
From this mission statement comes a vision for us to reach the community or people in our lives and strategies for more specific applications of this foundational statement. The mission statement gives direction as to how we will seek to apply it in the life of our congregation. Our mission should drive the activities, the outreach, the spiritual formation and discipleship within the life of this parish. For this month’s reflection, I am focusing on the Great Commandment and in next month’s newsletter I will focus on the Great Commission.
Our Lord’s words about loving God come from Deuteronomy 6:1-4. This teaches us that there is but one, true, and living God. Throughout Scripture, God is proclaimed as the only God who is all powerful, all knowing, present everywhere, and the creator of all things visible and invisible. When we take into account what both the Old and New Testament reveal concerning God, we see that there is one God, eternally existing in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is the one God that we are to worship, serve, and to Whom we owe our complete allegiance.
We are to love God with all our heart. The word heart as used in Scripture is the seat of thought, emotion, and will. It guides what we think, how we feel, and the choices that we make. There is some overlap of the terms heart, soul, mind, and strength. The mind is that part of us that seeks to think and reason through what we see and hear and take in through our other senses. While reason alone cannot be implicitly trusted, we should use our minds to think God’s thoughts after Him and to be guided by the light of divine revelation. To love with all our mind, we need to use the gift of our minds to understand the content of God’s commandments and the teaching of Scripture. We use our minds to dedicate ourselves to faithful obedience to God’s Word. To love God with all our strength means to be fully committed to the Lord, that every part of our bodies is an instrument in doing God’s will. So, we dedicate our eyes, hands, and feet to living according to God’s will. What is true of us individually is also true of us as the family of God, the local church as a part of Christ’s body. We are to gather to worship God, to praise Him in song, to pray to Him, and to hear His holy Word.
We are also called to love our neighbors as ourselves. Love of a neighbor is an expression of love for God. To love your neighbor is a test of the genuineness of your professed faith in God. Love your neighbor as one who is made in the image of God. Since all people bear the image of God, we ought to treat our fellow man with the dignity and respect which is owed to everyone since we are all image bearers of God. Another aspect of loving your neighbor is to love them with Christ-like love. A love that would lay down it’s life for another.
The teaching of the Lord Jesus includes both love for our neighbor and love for our enemies. The Good Samaritan parable was given in response to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-37). Our Lord’s point of application from this parable is that everyone is your neighbor, everyone you meet is your neighbor.
The love of neighbor applies to us individually and corporately. As the church, our motivation to love others is that all people are made in God’s image and everyone we meet is our neighbor. Bishop Cummins Reformed Episcopal Church seeks to reach out toward our community in order to share with them the transforming love of Jesus Christ in seeking to meet their spiritual, physical, and emotional needs.
Father, help us to embrace the Great Commandment to love You with all that we are and to love our neighbors as people made in your image. Give us Your love for them and a desire to see our neighbors know You. Fill their hearts with faith and a trust in You that cannot be shaken. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
