Please join us for service on Sunday, October 29 at 10 am.  This week we will be welcoming New Members to the congregation.  Stay after the service and have a coffee and a chat.  All are welcome!

Marlene’s Rev. Notes:

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 neighbour as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-40

There’s a lot of lovin’ going on in this passage! In replying to the question “Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?” Jesus cites part of the Shema, the creed which pious Israelites recite every day. In biblical thought, the “heart” was the centre of one’s knowledge and will, as well as one’s emotions. The “soul” and “mind” stood for one’s life force. Thus, love entailed not only feeling—but doing.

Since God is the centre of all, love of God must be “the greatest and first commandment.” But Jesus surprises us here by adding a second commandment: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” God must come first, but there can be no true love of the unseen God without love, as well as, for the neighbour who can be seen.

We cannot have one without the other. There is neither opposition nor separation between these two loves, as if one must choose one over the other.

God’s hope for the beloved community is that we will be a life force for love in the world. Matthew 22 is a summary, not only of the Law, but of the prophets too. This double commandment of love encourages us, emboldens us and leads us to participate in the very life of God, to the centre of who God is. It points us to the stars for us to follow on our journey of faith in love.