Scripture: Luke 10:27
Jesus 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 neighbor as yourself.”
Thought for the Day: In much of Western thinking, reality has been strictly divided – a dualism between: Holy and Profane, Sacred and Secular, Spiritual and Physical, Heaven and Earth. This type of thinking is present in scripture, and in the centuries following Jesus, it became a more sophisticated philosophy known as Gnosticism. The Gnostic view developed everything into either good or evil. The ultimate goal of human reality was to escape everything that dealt with flesh and earth, for it was not of God. Gnostic Christians believed that Jesus never took on flesh, for God who is good could never touch flesh which was evil. Though Gnosticism was eventually declared a heresy, its remnant remains present in a lot of people’s theology and thinking. When Jesus spoke about loving God with heart, soul, strength and mind, many have interpreted this as a dividing of the self… but more than just two. Yet more and more scholars seem to suggest that this is not a list of parts, but simply a poetic way of suggesting how love of God cannot be divided. You either love God with your whole self or you do not – you either love your neighbor with your whole self or you do not. There is not one part of us that is inherently evil and another part inherently good. We don’t need to jettison a section of us to be able to love God. If it is love, then it doesn’t require us to be fractured. In fact, true love would require the fullness of every person. God isn’t seeking just the better parts of your being, but your whole being.
Prayer: God of all Creation, you clearly see the beauty within me, a beauty that is not confined to my spiritual-self or my heavenly-self, but to the person I am. Of course, there are parts of me that need work, but I am not a bunch of categories to be split up – some celebrated and some rejected. I am yours, O Lord. The fullness of my being belongs to you. Amen.
SUNDAY’S SERMON
Leap before You Look
