I'm taking a Literary Study of the Bible class this semester, and the past couple of weeks we've been studying the Mosaic Law of the Torah. Rabbis have identified 613 mitzvot (commandments) in those first five books of the Bible. 613!! The sheer burden of it all is staggering, as are the epic failures to obey it by the "heroes" of the faith such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Solomon, Moses, and David. I think we often gloss over their faults, but in re-reading all their stories again, I have been struck by the fact that I probably wouldn't even want to be friends with these individuals if they were in my neighborhood. They had some serious, destructive character flaws: pologamy, adultery, murder, favoritism, passivity, arrogance, and cowardice, to name a few.
Then Jesus steps on the scene, and provides the most stark contrast in all of literature. If you read the Bible like a literary text, all of these Old Testament characters have been foils to the protagonist... after this crew of lying, sexually promiscuous, cowardly men, Jesus is incredibly refreshing and shockingly different. He sums up all those 613 mitzvot in just two commandments, "And 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. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
613 down to 2 seems like a seriously lightened load. But I've been thinking a lot recently about love and how intensely difficult it is. The love between two friends, the love for a stranger, love for your neighbor, love for your family, love for the suffering....the kind of love I want to have for other people. This past Sunday, my pastor talked about the absolutely urgent necessity of true, authentic, deep community in the Christian life, about how we were made to love and be loved. If we were created in the image of a triune (not isolated or singular) God, then we were formed to both be loved and to pour out other-centered love. Tim Keller describes the relationship within the Trinity, "Each voluntarily circles the other two, pouring love, delight, and adoration into them. Each person of the Trinity adores, defers to, and rejoices in the others. This creates a dynamic, pulsating dance of joy and love." Because God is triune in nature, love is not an additional quality, but a necessary, innate quality of who He is....as John says simply, "God is love."
Sometimes I am afraid that I rarely...if ever....truly love anyone more than myself. Other-centered love is difficult, and sometimes feels impossible. I am so quick to meet my own needs for approval, acceptance, affirmation, and my desire to be right often trumps my desire to affirm and encourage other people.
Funnily enough, watching the Olympics over the past couple of weeks made me one of the ways I wish I could show love. When I watched those athletes, I feel incredibly joyful and excited on their behalf. I don't feel competitive, I don't feel bitter, I don't wish that was me out on the ice and snow....I just felt thrilled and proud to see someone reach that level of excellence. I want to feel that way when my friends are successful, when they reach a milestone I have not reached, when they look beautiful, when they win an argument, when they are smarter or more witty than I could be, when they get a new job, when they get married, when they show a greater strength of character, when they are right and I am wrong....I want to rejoice in those things for them and find joy in their joy. In essence, I want (against everything that comes naturally to me) to be humble as Christ was humble.
C.S. Lewis' words keep coming back to me as a resounding reminder and challenge this week: "Christian humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." What would it look like to think of yourself less?
March 4, 2010 at 6:38 PM
What would that look like?
March 8, 2010 at 4:48 PM
March 24, 2010 at 1:57 AM