The first issue is that Jesus was asked this question as a test. A test. I thought about tests and examinations and trials and tribulation. Much comes to mind

The second issue that came to my attention was the relationship between loving God, loving yourself, and loving your neighbor. Two challenges-- being tested and being loving.

Interestingly enough, I am warmed, strangely comforted by the idea that Jesus was tested by others. He was tested by God as the gospel writers tell us that Jesus driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to face temptations. I believe that being tested is a fact of life – like getting cold or growing old. Being tested is one of the challenges, of being alive. We are tested precisely because we are given free will. We don’t know we are free until we are tested and found to be free people. Free to think, free to feel, free to act, thus free to love.

So although the Pharisee is trying to confuse or embarrass Jesus, and I don’t like that, I am pleased that Jesus is tested. I follow him as Lord because he has been tested as I have –because he is free to think, to feel, to act, and thus to love – and therefore I am free because his freedom has liberated me as I choose to emulate him, if I can just learn how to do that.

As an adult I have to realize that my obedience to Jesus is irrelevant if I don’t have the true freedom, the real power, to disobey. We cling to Holy Scripture and its witness in part because it’s varied author’s proclaim this great truth – that we are tested and free to sin, and free to obey, over and over again and always finding the mercy and leadership of God at the center of our story, calling forth the good from within us and admonishing us to jettison anything and everything that inhibits our freedom to love and obey.

Jesus was tested with a question that would have been predictable and commonplace in Jewish philosophical circles. All good religious types sought to simplify, to pare down the large and often burdensome mass of law to some irreducible teachings. This may have been a test but it was a great question, a worthwhile question for every generation. Which commandment ( of the 613 in the Torah you could choose from) in the law is the greatest?

Jesus actually quotes two verses from the Law, one from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all of your soul and with all of your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is, I believe and trust, what Jesus says to us when we are tested. We are free people. We can choose to obey these Love Commandments, or we can choose to ignore them. Having admitted that, though, it is essential to imagine love through the eyes and heart of Jesus. Love for Jesus is rooted in relationship with God. Any deep, meaningful love comes from God and returns to God. Yet for Jesus, love for God cannot be separated from love of others and love of self.

I think, at least at the level of the intellect and intuition, I truly understand why these verses say it all for Jesus. I don’t see how our love for God has any credibility until it is expressed in how we choose, in our freedom, to love our neighbors. As for self-love, Jesus has no new wisdom. It is an assumption. He neither condemns, approves or exaggerates the need for self-love. Jesus seems to accept it as proof of our love for our neighbor and our love for God.

He says " love your neighbor as you love yourself" – if this balance be kept we are describing a sober, thoughtful, unheroic type of love, one that fails to call much attention to itself.

At this point, I sense that Jesus is not describing love in the way that we often use the word. Jesus means more than pious stirrings of the heart or romantic sympathizing – he means respecting the dignity of each and every human being as a child of God and thereby loving God and loving self. As former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, preached very early in his ministry, "true love for God must manifest itself in love of people." He goes on to add, "this does not mean merely cordiality of affection for our personal friends; it means a zeal for the welfare for all people, whether they are congenial to us or not."

This kind of respect and forbearance for others is at the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we are free.

His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans and no shoes. This was literally his wardrobe for his entire four years of college. He is brilliant. Kind of esoteric and very, very bright. He became a Christian while attending college. Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative church. They want to develop a ministry to the students, but are not sure how to go about it. One day Bill decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. The service has already started and so Bill starts down the aisle looking for a seat. The church is completely packed and he can't find a seat. By now people are really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says anything. Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the pulpit and when he realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the floor. (Although perfectly acceptable behavior at a college fellowship, trust me, this had never happened in this church before!) By now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is thick. About this time, the minister realizes that from way at the back of the church, a deacon is slowly making his way toward Bill. Now the deacon is in his eighties, has silver-gray hair, and a three-piece suit. A godly man, very elegant, very dignified, very courtly. He walks with a cane and as he starts walking toward this boy, everyone is saying to themselves, You can't blame him for what he's going to do. How can you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor? It takes a long time for the man to reach the boy. The church is utterly silent except for the clicking of the man's cane. All eyes are focused on him. You can't even hear anyone breathing. The people are thinking. The minister can't even preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do. And now they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With great difficulty he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill and worships with him so he won't be alone.

A Bill could or might enter our midst at any time. Who was free to love in that story? Bill? The pastor? The deacon? Members of the congregation who waited for the inevitable?

Love God, and Love your neighbor as you love yourself. A wonderful and supreme test. And for that test we are equipped with freedom. True freedom – freedom to think, to feel, to act, thus to love. This is what we are called to. This is what we are made for. AMEN