One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?" Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
According to the Shema and Jesus’ interpretation of it, the very first of the ways I am to love God is with all my heart. Yet there are some mighty dark places within my heart, places I’ve not been able to expunge through repression or denial, or even through analysis. I know how to love with my heart’s brighter qualities – courage, fortitude, responsibility, honesty – but how do I love God with the controlling and selfish parts of my heart? What love is there in that withered chamber in which pessimism has taken up residence? And what about those other dark rooms, those whose doors I’ve been too frightened to open? How do I love God with a heart so full of unlovable rooms?
Perhaps I begin by entering into a conversation with my unknown familiars, offering them, if not understanding, than at least the respect of being truly heard. My ignoring them seems to only make them nastier. And who knows? Maybe God, after all, is big enough to contain all of me – the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the love and the hate. Maybe God would like for me to be big enough too. Maybe loving God with all my heart means loving all my heart.
*Previously published in The Bible Workbench
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If you were the priest at my church when I was a bit younger and talking like this, perhaps I would still be going. Beautiful.
ReplyDelete