Jesus’ Ethic of Love is More than Enough
September 3, 2008
In ancient Palestine there were 613 rules, determined by the rabbis from within the Law of Moses (the first five books of the Old Testament) that were binding to the Jews; 245 of these were positive commands corresponding to the number of parts of the body, and 365 of them were negative commands corresponding to the number of days of the year. These 613 commandments governed every area of human life and interaction and were considered by the rabbis to be equal to each other and equally binding.
In Matthew 22 Jesus entered Jerusalem for the final time and even in this, the week leading to his crucifixion, the Pharisees were determined to trip Jesus up on questions centered in the law in a three-round theological smack-down.
Round One: The Pharisees tested Jesus’ loyalties to God or man by asking whether it’s was right to pay taxes to Caesar and Jesus came back by flashing a coin bearing the image of Caesar. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Jesus 1. Pharisees O.
Round Two: Next they quiz Jesus on the Levirate law that requires a man to marry his deceased brother’s wife if his brother died without a son. “If a man dies without a son and his brother marries his widow but he too dies before a son and each of the remaining five brothers in turn marry her but die before a child is born, in heaven to whom of the seven brothers will she belong?” Jesus answering by telling them their question reveals they don’t even understand the Scriptures or the power of God. “At the resurrection people won’t be married or given into marriage but will be like the angels. God is God of the living and not the dead.” Jesus 2. Pharisees 0.
Round Three: With the first two rounds going unanimously to Jesus, one of the heavy-hitters among the Pharisees decides to go after Jesus by asking him which is the most important of all the commandments in the law, or which of those 613 laws is greater than the others. While we know the motive of the questioning was to trap Jesus, the intention of the question is less certain but a possibility is the Pharisees were thinking if they could get Jesus to name one of the laws or a set of laws (ceremonial, purity, property, moral) as greater than the others, he could be seen as disparaging the rest of the Law. Not a good thing to do.
The other answer Jesus could have given would have been to give the right answer, that being that all the Law came from God and therefore every commandment of the Law was great. That would have been the traditional orthodox answer. The problem was had Jesus given the right answer, the Pharisees would have then volleyed back at him by asking him to then explain how it was, with all the Law being great and from God, that he and his disciples had on occasion broken some of the Law. What the Pharisees seems to lose sight of was that Jesus never violated the Law of God. What he was breaking in allowing his disciples to gather grain on the sabbath, or to eat without ceremonial washing of their hands or not chiding an unclean woman for touching him (Matthew 15:1-6, Luke 6:1-4, John 5:8-18,Luke 11:37-41) was the code of interpretation that had been added in layers to the law by the rabbis. Jesus violated the tradition of the elders (Pharasaic law and oral interpretation) but not the divine law of God. How often do we as Christians accuse other believers of being disobedient to the Word of God when in reality, all that’s been violated is a particular human interpretation of Scripture?
Okay. Back to how Jesus ended up answering the final question.
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.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
That’s right. Jesus 3. Pharisees O.
The answer Jesus gave was two-fold. First, he quoted a portion of the Shema found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. “Love the Lord your heart with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind,” The Shema is central to Judaism. It’s the prayer spoken every morning and evening, the first prayer children learn, and the prayer encapsulated in mezzuzot and affixed to the door frame of every Jewish home. Jesus could have chosen no more meaningful or familiar words to speak into the moment.
Before anything else, Jesus said that we must first love God with all that we are; in our full human and spiritual totality. It’s a love so deeply grounded within our spirits that we can’t separate any part of ourselves from our love for God. Love for God is embodied in emotions (heart), deeply rooted within the core of our being (soul) and woven into our intellectual thought life (mind). This all consuming devotion and love for God is the first and greatest commandment.
And then, as with the Gospels elsewhere, Jesus linked love for God with love for neighbor; neighbor being all people, ally or enemy. Jesus was asked to give one great commandment but instead he gives two that are equal and inseparable; love God and love others. The one isn’t secondary to the other but both are essential to the other because to love God is to love others, and to love others is to love God. Again, the love Jesus referred to doesn’t consist of mushy sentimentality but is a commitment to covenantal love; steadfast, committed, accountable and active. This is the quality of love we’re to hold for ourselves and extend to others, friend or foe. This is the ethic of love demonstrated in the life and teaching of Jesus earthly ministry; an ethic of love grounded in and flowing from God.
By citing love for God and love for others as the greatest commandment Jesus wasn’t suggesting that the law of love replaced or abolished the need for all the other commandments. What Jesus was proposing was that all the law was to be interpreted and applied in consideration of this ethic of love, and not only the law of God but also all the words of the Prophets. Every written word of God’s law and every spoken word of the Prophets hinged on how it held up to the Law of Love. Love is the first consideration and the final reflection. I know claiming Jesus was a radical is a worn cliché but in this case, I’m going to succumb. This is Jesus’ teaching in its most radical and pure form. This is what it was all about. His life. His purpose. His message. Love. God’s love. Love for God. Love of self and love for neighbor.
I’m not an ethicist. I’m just a person like you who wants to live ethically and morally in this world. I’m a Christian who desires that the choices I make for my life embody my faith and reflect some glimmer of the love and grace of God. Socrates said that “The truly wise man will know what is right, do what is good and therefore be happy.” There’s incredible spiritual truth in that; that when you know what’s right (what God desires) and you do it, it will lead you to happiness. Even if it comes at a price there’s contentment and inner peace in knowing you’ve done the thing that seems most right in your understanding before God. But how is it that we become, in Socrates’ words, truly wise? I think I’m becoming convinced more and more that true wisdom is ultimately found by those who hang everything on Jesus’ law of love. This love is more than able to determine everything. This love is more than enough to guide every ethical decision before us.
I’m not done on this topic. I want to spend more time talking about how Jesus’ law of love can lead and shape us, and how it can be helpful in the ethical decisions we make from who we sleep with to how we spend our money to whether we live green to how as queer believers we’re to respond to injustice everywhere.
I want to talk more about all this but for now I just want to be with it.
Posted in Love and Grace, Sexual Ethics
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Wow. All I can say is Wow. I too need to just be with this right now. A powerful post. Thank you !!!!!!!
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Ah, my favorite topic-love.
“I think I’m becoming convinced more and more that true wisdom is ultimately found by those who hang everything on Jesus’ law of love.”
I couldn’t agree more. I think every little thing should be tested against this one law alone. I try to test my words and actions with this one law, often finding myself falling short…….but growing beyond belief.
Thanks Anita, I love this.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I love this topic. LOVE it.
Several years ago, around the time I was first coming out to myself, I was a member of a church that is more conservative than the one I attend now. One Sunday night the pastor mentioned the book Situation Ethics by Joseph Fletcher in his sermon. He was disparaging the book, but being the quiet rebel that I am, I thought it sounded like something I might agree with. I also thought “I think I have that book at home.” Sure enough, I did have it on my shelf – one of my late grandfather’s books that my father had recommended I take and read someday. It came off the shelf and I read it cover to cover. And it’s pretty much this – the law of love above all else.
So then later, when I was working on my master’s in education and studying Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, it came up again. This level of moral development is the highest – we are not governed by rules, fear of punishment, or maintaining the social order – we are living by a higher governing principle. And as Christians, that higher principle is love. Makes sense to me – sounds just like what Jesus said!
The troublesome part to me is this, though – Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are closely tied to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. And, as a teacher, I know that many people never get to the highest levels of cognitive reasoning, so they’re also not able to get to the highest levels of moral reasoning. Does that mean that people with less intelligence are intrinsically less moral? I don’t believe that – I just don’t quite know what to think of it. You really do have to be able to think and reason in order to live morally by principles instead of following rules. You can’t just give children “guiding principles” – they need rules. And some people just never get past that — some because they’re afraid to challenge it, but others really don’t have (or have not achieved) the intellectual capacity for such reasoning. How do I live in community with people who are not going to think about morality the same way I do? How do I keep from feeling superior? And how do I explain my choices and actions to them? It’s been in the back of my brain for years – can’t quite figure it out.
September 7th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Anita, I just wanted to tell you that I have printed out this series and I may need to print another copy because I have so many notes and things written in the margins. Thank you so very much for taking the time to think this through and to write it for us. Maybe I should say, “write it for me.” Because when I read your words, I feel like we are having a private conversation. It seems you just KNOW what to write and when. Thank you agin for this space and place. I come here often to regain my sanity and to find peace.
September 7th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Kelly–> Thank you. For some reason I’ve been quite slow on getting through this series, though I realize it’s less a conversation to get through as an open-ended conversation that will continue. I think part of the slowness has been that while I have a clear sense of how my own ethics are being informed and prayerfully transformed, through Jesus’ love ethic, I struggle in articulating it for others in a way that communicates what it all means to me. I’m surprised and yet very happy to hear it seems like a private conversation to you. Thank you for sharing that as it’s a real encouragement to me.
Steph–> Thanks! Isn’t it funny how we try to so complicate everything when the foundation of everything is love? For some folks love just seems too simple of an answer, but maybe its because they’re confusing simple with easy.
Esther–> You offered such thoughtful reflections to this conversation but I would do a disservice to offer any comments to what you shared at this late hour with the amount of sleepy fuzz in my brain. I look forward to reading it again in the morning after my coffee!
September 8th, 2008 at 6:56 am
“……but maybe its because they’re confusing simple with easy.”
Amen. Wow, that’s a whole other post within itself.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Steph–>Yep. If not today, tomorrow
September 8th, 2008 at 11:28 am
If not now……when? (I couldn’t resist)
September 10th, 2008 at 5:41 am
God is love. Three words that contain all the truth of the Universe past and present but oh so difficult to wrap our hearts and heads around.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
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September 11th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Esther — regardiwng your question about less intelligent versus less moral. Interesting idea. Which brings up a question between good morals and innate goodness. I’ve always wondered because the Old Testament is so simplified like teaching little children, and as human society’s ability to conceptualize God evolves, the New Testament shares God’s love on a more critical thinking-level. Its like the difference between teaching 7th graders versus college freshmen. Its like God trusting us with a bigger piece of the picture, instead of a set of rules to follow. We can intellectualize it more, and see the reasons behind the rules better, but does that actually make humans better more moral people? I would say no. Just because someone can intellectualize something doesn’t mean they can ACTUALLY understand it better. People with down syndrom are some of the most loving people alive. To those of us who learn about things through intellectual deliberation, it might help us, but intelligence is not correlated to our ability to love. Sometimes it may even get in the way. Which ties us back to Pauls Cor 13…” even if i can comprehend all the mysteries of the universe, but have not love, it is meaningless.”
For instance, my cousins see the world in black and white: Right and wrong. Rules help in their walk of faith. They both just graduated and married nice christian boys & have babies on the way. they express their devotion to God by playing out a story that culture says is God’s love story. Part of me wishes i were that simple. Part of me wants to be cynical and judge them using rhetoric gained through years of education. But are my motives any more pure? Who am i to judge someone else’s expression of faith, just because i seek God through the mist of shades of grey?