Faith is known by love, and love is not a feeling but works of love. The proof of faith, proof of love, is not in the language of words but in the language of the works of love. “Christ’s love was not an intense feeling, a full heart, etc., it was rather the works of love, which is his life” (Kierkegaard,Soren Kierkegaard’s Journal and Papers, 1967). So often we say “it would have been so easy to show our faith and love if we had been contemporary with Christ”. Ah, but we are contemporary with the sick, the poor, less privileged and the suffering. Christ made it very clear that if we do works of love to the“the least of these” we do them to Him (Mat 25:31-46).
The Great commandment, the one Christ calls “the great and the first commandment” (Mat 22:37-38) says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind”. Christ did not say“You shall love God as you love yourself”. Instead, Christ pinned that phrase to the second commandment: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”. The word “shall” and the phrase “yourself”place God in the middle of every human relationship, hence love to neighbor opens the door to love to God. The little phrase “as yourself” causes us to think and struggle with what it means to love ourselves; in this struggle we learn to love ourselves in the proper way so that we can love the neighbor as ourselves.
“Love to God and love to neighbor are like two doors that open simultaneously, so that it is impossible to open one without opening the other, and it is impossible to shut one without shutting the other.” (Kierkegaard, Soren Kierkegaard’s Journal and Papers, 1967)
1 comment:
Nice to read, but impossible to do.
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