"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:28-31

Jesus’ response to the teacher of the law is initially conventional. He quotes the Shemah, the declaration of faith that every pious Jew would recite daily.1 Our total being—emotions, spirit, intellect, and body—is to be employed in loving the one God. Everything we think, speak, and do is to bring pleasure to him. This is love on the vertical plane, love that ascends to the God who has created and sustained us. Then Jesus flips the direction by 180 degrees. He adds a quote from Leviticus, directing the love outward on a horizontal plane to those around us. We are commanded to show no less regard for those we live, work, and play with than we would show to ourselves.

Anyhow, to look to God first is to open up the needs of our world to the limitless wisdom and resources of the one, true God. As Paul says, ‘How great are God’s riches …All glory to him forever.’

Closing Prayer

Jesus, as I am moved to respond to people and places in need, help me to look with wisdom and anticipation to your infinite riches, and not simply to my own resources (edited from Encounter with God).