The Greatest Commandment:

Sometimes, it feels like we need a new word for love—one free from the clichés of romance novels, Hollywood, and sentimental greeting cards. It would let us rediscover the disruptive and transformative love at the heart of Christianity with fresh, open hearts. The scribe in Mark 12:28-34, who interacts with Jesus about the most important commandment, affirms Jesus’ words and says that this love is “much more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Here, love is placed above piety, tradition, and religious duty. Hosea 6:6 “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me.” Our culture encourages us to think of love as a feeling. This leads us to hear Jesus’s commandment as a call to experience affection/ attraction/ fondness for God and others. Certainly, love originates in the heart. But we can place so much emphasis on love as a feeling that we forget its intensity, its rigour, its discomfort. We forget that love is an activity to be done, regardless of how we feel. In Scripture, love means vulnerability, sacrifice, and sometimes suffering. To love as God loves is to walk a demanding path, to embrace love as an active journey rather than just a sentiment. See the love of Ruth in her commitment to her mother-in-law, Naomi: “Don’t ask me to leave you! Let me go with you. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and that is where I will be buried.” (Ruth 1:16-17)