Matthew 22:37-38

GOD AND MY NEIGHBOUR

‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’

Matthew 22:37

Modern love is inadequate to modern needs. Why?

I. The inspiration of true love.—The answer lies in the text. Note the order in which the commandments are given. The first, the great command, is ‘Love God,’ the second is ‘Love your neighbour.’ That order cannot be reversed. It is in the love of God men find out how to love their neighbour. Moses alone in the desert discovered a new name of God. As Moses bowed in reverence before this new revelation of God, he set himself to serve his neighbours. Isaiah in the Temple felt God as the Holy One hating iniquity; in the strength of that knowledge Isaiah turned to his neighbours and preached. Jesus came and revealed God under His last new name of ‘Love,’ and, in the strength of that knowledge, men like St. Paul and the apostles were able to give themselves for others. Why is modern love so often inadequate? The answer is, that modern men have not found God, they have not bowed in reverence before His character, His name; they have not felt His love, and so their love is neither original nor fresh. The preacher to-day is the successor of the prophet. The preacher to-day has simply to declare the presence of God in the midst of the people.

II. The hindrance to true love.—If the mass of men became conscious of God, they would love one another with another sort of love. They are not conscious of God because they are trivially-minded. It is not sin so much as triviality which hides God. Trivially-minded men go on ignorant of God, absorbed in the trifles of the day, satisfied with all that is visible and passing. They count their business, their position, their holiday, their appearance, their schemes as the important things. These absorb their thoughts. Triviality hides God, triviality is the modern equivalent word for worldliness.

—Canon Barnett.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Mazzini, alone—as he tells us in his autobiography—with the two greatest things in nature, the sky and the sea, felt the presence of God, whose will was the redemption of Italy. Mazzini, in the strength of that knowledge, gave himself to serve his neighbours; he planned a revolt, he bound together the aspirations of the young, he held aloft an honourable ideal, he encouraged, he rebuked, he restrained. Mazzini’s love, like that of his predecessor Rienzi, who took memories for hopes, was not a copy of other men’s love. He did not repeat in the nineteenth century the ways of a previous century. He came as a man with a mission. He did what he was bound to do.’

(2) ‘A woman, in one of Ibsen’s plays, has kept her dolls through her married life. She has talked of them, thought of them, cared for them, and they have absorbed her nature. Death has swept over her home, and taken her children; temptation threatens her husband; she gives no heed, she does not realise the great fact, she is so taken up with her dolls. Thus it is with the trivially-minded.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE CENTRAL COMMANDMENT

One of the most prevailing questions in all the schools, one of the favourite discussions by which each great rabbi was tested, was just this, ‘Which is the first, which is the great, which is the central commandment of the law?’ We know the answer, love to God, love to our neighbour.

I. Love the core of conduct.—Far from love being a vague, unreal, shadowy, remote thing, it is the very core and heart of conduct. It is to build up a law, and we are to ask ourselves, ‘Do I speak more truth because I love God? Am I more honest, more sincere, because I love God? Am I more thankful, more unselfish, more kindly, more pleasant, more gay, more helpful, because I love God? If I love God it must make me so at each point, in each tiny detail of my life—in the workshop, in the street, at home.

II. Love the centre of thought and worship.—And so of our thought and our worship. We think so often, of course, that loving God would excuse us from thinking very exactly about Him. We are always saying, ‘If only you love God, what does a creed matter?’ Nevertheless, our Lord to the Jews said exactly the opposite. He said, ‘If you love God you will take care how you think about Him.’

III. The pointed question.—There is one thing we ask of everybody, and that is, ‘Do you love God and love your neighbour?’ That is the sole question before men. On that hangs the whole of the law and the whole of the prophets. All the revelation of God, and all the great dispensation of Christ, all His death on the cross mean only one thing, that men should love God more and love their neighbours better.

—Canon H. Scott Holland.

Illustration

‘There are Christians who fear to bring their minds to bear upon their religion lest their hearts should lose their hold upon it. Surely there is something terrible in that. Surely it implies a terrible misgiving and distrust about their faith. They fear to think lest they should cease to love. But really it ought to be out of the heart of their thinking-power that their deepest love is born. There is a love with most imperfect knowledge. The highest love which man can ever have for God must still live in the company of a knowledge which is so partial that, looked at against the perfect lights, it will appear like darkness. But yet it still is true that the deeper is the knowledge the greater becomes the possibility of love. They always have loved God best, they are loving God best to-day, who gaze upon Him with wide-open eyes; who, conscious of their ignorance and weakness, more conscious of it the more they try to know, yet do try with all the powers He has given them, to understand all that they possibly can of Him and of His ways.’