Homily for 4 Mar 2016

4 Mar 2016

The first commandment is to love God: “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  But, if we actually do that, there’s nothing left to love our neighbor with! 

The commandment to love God involves every last ounce of who we are.  Nothing is to be held back.  “Love God with ALL your heart, ALL your soul, ALL your mind, and ALL your strength.”  It seems like there wouldn’t be any bit of us left over to follow the second commandment: to love our neighbor.  But, of course, Christ is not asking the impossible here.

He’s not asking us to divide up our capacity to love—some for God, some for my neighbor, some for God, some for my neighbor.  Instead he’s asking us to love God first and foremost, and then let that love overflow into love of neighbor. 

St Bernard of Clairvaux used the images of a canal and a reservoir to describe how the love of God works in us.  With a canal, water (the Spirit) moves through it from one area to another.  But with a reservoir, the water builds up and then overflows into another area.  In other words, the reservoir is never empty—and is always overflowing.  And that’s something like what Jesus is saying here.

Love God with ALL of our being—be a reservoir, always open to God.  And then let God’s grace in us overflow into love of neighbor.  When you think about it, the second commandment is almost unnecessary; because if our love of God is complete enough, we’ll naturally love our neighbors as we should.

Of course, our reservoirs are a little leaky.  It’s hard to keep the grace of God from escaping through our sins.  And so, we need to be reminded of that second commandment—the commandment to intentionally share God’s mercy in us with others.

It’s always tempting, of course, to just let things be the way they are.  But as we enter into the second half of Lent, let’s put some extra attention to patching up those sinful holes in the reservoir of our souls, and see if we can’t love God even more fully—for our good, for God’s glory, and for the love of all.