IT'S NOT COMPLICATED

                                                                    

IT’S NOT COMPLICATED

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. ^b]All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Mt 22:34-40)

You can imagine the consternation of the listeners. “Over 600 laws and 19 prophets whose words we have lived by for centuries?  This is what you are saying?  All of that can summed up in two sentences?” They began walking away immediately. They had lived with complicated religious beliefs all their lives. There was no way they were ready to boil it down to two sentences. 

Every thing we say or do has to only answer one of two questions: Does what I am doing disobey God’s call to love my neighbor?  Does what I am doing deny my love of God? Can it really be that easy?  Perhaps not easy, but certainly simple.

Think of the earth below a garden.  It is a mass of tangled roots, all twisting and growing around each other, so that if you tried to identify any one plant by their root alone, it would be nearly impossible.  That is what happens when people try to control one another.  This was the thing that made Jesus so angry. (Mt 23:15-32). The Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests made numerous laws and Jesus berated them for burdening the people with those laws, while they held themselves exempt.  They betrayed their offices and made a mockery of all that they were meant to be.  The initial purpose may have been good but the more people get involved, the more personal agendas pop up, the more complicated it gets, until finally, it makes no sense at all.  It is just a mass of conflicting opinions on how things should be.

The simplicity of God’s commands baffles the human mind. In the case of the Jews, apparently 10 commandments were not enough, so they made 600 more.  And yet, neither the first nor the second Commandment requires explanation.  We know what God wants from us.  We know, in our hearts, that all the good that is possible on earth comes from us because God gave us the means to achieve it. Still we tie ourselves in knots trying to control everything as though God were not with us at all. Worse, we attempt to control one another using God as a weapon, i.e. “Because you did that, God will punish you.”

We have no right to pass such judgment. We let ourselves become moral critics when we have no mandate for it.  To love one another means to recognize God in each other.  It means to try to understand.  It means to forgive, if not for their sake, then for your own.  It means to accept the differences between us and not assume that because we are different, one of us must be wrong, and use that as an excuse to shun one another.

It simply is not that complicated.

Blessings,

Carol Lemelin, OPA