Reading: Mark 12:28-34 From the Gospels we see that some of the people talking to Jesus seemed to focus on commandments, on rules, on a list of laws that must be complied with.

I`ve noted four different occasions where there are stories about laws. The first is in Chapter 10 of Mark`s gospel where a rich man comes to Jesus. You know it well.

As he was setting out on a journey a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him `Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?` Jesus said to him `Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: `You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.`` He said to him `Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.` Jesus, looking at him loved him and said, `You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.` When he heard this he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Interesting that Jesus only listed five commandments - what about the other five? `Have no other gods; No graven image; Don`t take God`s name in vain; Keep the Sabbath and Don`t covet your neighbour`s things`. Those commandments weren`t needed to make the point. It isn`t about following rules, it is about turning your priorities inside-out and your world upside-down for love.

Then in Luke, chapter 10 starting at verse 25 we have the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. `Teacher` he said, `what must I do to inherit eternal life?` [the same question] He said to him what is written in the law? What do you read there?` He answered `You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.` [different answer!] And he said to him `You have given the right answer; do this and your will live.` But wanting to justify himself he asked Jesus `And who is my neighbour?`

And Jesus goes on to tell a story, and of course the answer isn`t about following rules. He doesn`t even tell the man who his neighbour is. Instead he tells a story where the hero in the caring department, the one who shows what it means to love your neighbour, is the one a self-respecting Jew wouldn`t touch with a barge pole. Again maximum discomfort for the questioner!

Another lawyer confronts Jesus in Matthew 22 from verse 34. Here Matthew puts the meeting in a section where Jesus is confronting the religious leaders so it is written as a confrontation. We read:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. `Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?` He said to him, `You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. [oops, he left out `all your strength`, but the thrust is the same] This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbour as yourself.` On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.`

If you think it sounds familiar, you`re right. It is a cut down version of today`s reading where the same occasion is presented by Mark not as a confrontation but as a meeting of minds. The first part is more or less the same, with the scribe asking the question and Jesus responding, but then, from verse 32 of Mark 12 we read:

Then the scribe said to him, `You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and besides him there is no other`; and `to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding and with all the strength,` and` to love one`s neighbour as oneself,` - this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.` When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, `You are not far from the kingdom of God.` After that no one dared to ask him any question.

Well, maybe they didn`t dare, but I`ve got a question. How? The lawyer asked `Who is my neighbour?` as a diversionary tactic, but if we really want to do as the first and second commands require we need to know how. How does our behaviour and our thinking have to change? Before I go on I must tell you the one about the man who saw a big book labeled HOW TO HUG and grabbed it - only to find it was volume 5 of the encyclopaedia!

I scanned through Mark`s gospel to see what Jesus had to say about how to love God and my neighbour. The answer is `Not a lot`! The gospel tells the story but just a few glimpses of Jesus advice about how to live.

For example Jesus says `The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.` One of the very rules Jesus listed has to be used to serve people, not the other way round. So we don`t love God or our neighbour by rigidly applying such rules.

There are healing stories but they don`t give much clue as to how to love God or our neighbour. There are lots of parables but many of those focus on spreading the good news, not how to love.

In Chapter 9 and 10 there are some sayings about children. `Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.` Don`t put a stumbling block before little ones who believe. Let the children come, the kingdom belongs to such. If you don`t receive the kingdom like a little child you`ll never enter it.

I turned to Matthew`s gospel, the sermon on the mount and I found lots of Jesus teaching on how to love my neighbour. Especially the series that goes `you have heard it said … but I say …`. Not `don`t commit murder` but `don`t be angry`. Not `don`t commit adultery` but `don`t look lustfully`. Not `don`t swear falsely` but `don`t swear at all`. Not `love your friends and hate your enemies` but `love your enemies`. Not making a show of giving, praying or fasting but keeping it private. Not storing up treasures on earth but in heaven.

It is a pretty demanding list and it certainly tells us how to go about loving our neighbour, but it doesn`t seem to tell us much about loving God. In fact looking at the gospels there isn`t much advice on how to love God. We are told to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, but not told how. It can`t be that it is not important, because Jesus called it the first and greatest commandment.

In Matthew 7 verse 12 we read `In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.` When you think about it that is just another way of saying `love your neighbour as yourself`. But Jesus is saying `this is the law and the prophets` and the law includes loving God as a prime requirement.

It seems to me that Jesus is saying if you love your neighbour as yourself, doing to others as you would have them do to you, you are loving God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

And if I needed confirmation of that I just need to turn to my absolute favourite part of the Bible, the first letter of John, chapter 4. Verse 7 reads `Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.` Then verse 16 has `God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them` and just to make it absolutely clear verse 20 reads `Those who say, `I love God` and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.`

In case you are wondering `who is my brother or sister` I refer you to Jesus answer about `who is my neighbour` and his admonition to love your enemies.

Notice too that there isn`t any intermediate state. Either you are loving your neighbour or you`re not, and if you`re not, you aren`t loving God. You don`t have to like your neighbour or what he does, but you must treat him as you would be treated.

I know I`m not good at just be-ing, I`m someone who likes to be doing. I`m not strong on the contemplative life. I acknowledge for those who find contemplation and meditation helpful there may be new dimensions to the loving of God that I may never know. But the good news for me and the other do-ers of this world is that we can show our love of God by how we love our fellow human beings. If we live in love, we live in God and God lives in us. Now that is good news!