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.'” "(Matthew 22:36-39 NIV)
Jesus tells us that the first commandment is to love God with all of what and who we are, that is, with our entire being. But who ARE we? This is answered with the second commandment—and the answer will help us understand the majestic romance which is the first.
I recently read an article by an eastern orthodox priest commenting on this passage. He quoted a rabbi as saying that the original reading from Leviticus 19 cannot legitimately be translated “Love your neighbor as yourself” as it is in most modern translations. These translations encourage a western preoccupation with radical individualism. One evangelical psychologist suggested “we must first love ourselves before we can really love others.” This nonsense is echoed by many others in our culture. Our western mind-set tells us that we must focus on self-esteem; the source of all our psychological problems is low self-esteem.
So, according to the rabbi, a better way to translate this passage from the Hebrew is “You will love your neighbor as he is as you.” In other words, our neighbor is fundamentally no different than you. He is you. This understanding undermines the western assumptions about our psychological problems. It is not that we need to esteem ourselves more in order to love. No. We love others more so that we might discover ourselves! That is why John writes in his first epistle that we proclaim Jesus that others might have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. This makes our joy complete. When we proclaim Christ we love others and we are drawn together in fellowship with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit… and our joy is complete. This helps us to understand the relationship between the first and the second commands. Proclaiming Christ is truly loving God AND loving others. By doing so we discover our own fulfillment. We can finally TRULY BE and LIVE. Our joy is made complete.
Pray: Lord Jesus, help us to discover that when we lose ourselves by giving away to others and to You we get back so much more.