Reflection on the Word for the Sunday of May 15, 2022 FOR THE SAKE OF THE LOVE OF GOD – GOSPEL OF JOHN – 13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." …………………………………………………………………………… One could be astonished, that how on Earth, this commandment can be anything new, where it is written in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 29 that “ ‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. ” It is a truism, that many times we forget the second part of this immediate commandment, that it is not enough to love one neighbors, a bit, or even more than a bit, but at least as much as we love ourselves. However, there are some general issues with this, which has to be at least somewhat clarified, because love as an emotion, and as such it is not easy to be quantitized. We are not able to get a measured value of our own self-love, though it is told that the requirement to love our neighbors should aim the level how much we love ourselves. It is a complex issue, it suggest some level of reciprocity and proportionality, but it seems to be that it is left to everybody how to interpret the commandment, or it is left to the sages to figure it out. If self-love is supposed to be the measurement of the mandated love toward our neighbors, then we should clarify first the measurement of the self love. And this is the point when it gets strange. A lot of people are not only that they do not really like themselves, but some of them even hate themselves to the point of hurting themselves by leading a self-destructive life. We have the expression that some people say that they want to do the right thing every day, so they will be able to face themselves in the mirror every day. Obviously, this categorization is also kind of obscure, because what is the scientifically accurate definition of the right thing? Anyways. So the factual level of self-love we ought to love our neighbors is a subject of a subjective amount of self-love or if it goes into the negative, it is self-hate, which differs or might differ in every person. Thus, the commandment that we shall love our neighbors as ourselves does not have a solid foundation, at least as it seems to be. For the same reason the golden rule in the Gospel of Matthew, that “Do to others what you want them to do to you”, or in its negative form "Do to no one what you yourself dislike," ca not have a solid foundation in themselves, they need something more that that. Jesus warned his disciples in the Sermon of the Mount that: “ Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell—and its fall was great.” This can convey a message that the humanly love toward the neighbor must stand on something more than itself, if it wants to have a solid foundation. If the love of the neighbors is an obligation, and it depends on our self-love, then our self-love is also an obligation, and this self-love must also depend on something else, which can provide a foundation for both, the self-love and the love of the neighbor. That is why Jesus, our master and brother tied the Greatest commandment, which says the we shall love God, together with the neighborly love. Although the two commandments can be found in two separate Books in the Old Testament, Jesus bound them together. Because the neighborly love and the self love together, both depends on the Love of God, as he said that the greatest of the commandment is that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Thus, it is not an option, it is mandatory that we must love ourselves too for the sake of God, in order that to be enabled to love our neighbors as well, for the same sake of the Love of God. Because in the Great Commandment we finally get the solid foundation to measure that exactly how much love we have to exercise to love ourselves, in order to have a measurement that how much love we have to treat our neighbors with. How much love we must exercise to love ourselves, it depends on God, because we shall love ourselves not for our own selves, but because we are obliged to love ourselves for the sake of the love God, whose image is in us. That love we owe to God is described in the Fifth Book of Moses, chapter six that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” In an other wording, with everything we have got. And this is an exact measurement, even it differs in every single being, as much we are capable of, but we have to love God with everything we got. All right, but if we must owe this much love only toward God, like with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might, then is it not a blasphemy or idolatry if we pledge also our everything we have got regarding the love toward the self or to our neighbor? Jesus is right, that the love toward God and toward ourselves and consequently to our neighbors are interconnected. So, if we really love ourselves, what is the ultimate good what we can do to or for ourselves? The best thing we can do for ourselves, the ultimate egoism, which practically the total opposite of it, and that is why totally rewarding, if we love God with all of our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might. That is ultimately the best thing you can do for yourselves, if your really love, or want to love yourself as well, in order to be able to love your neighbor as well, for the sake of the love of God. So that is the measure of the love of the neighbor: Everything we have got. That is why Jesus told the disciples that “ I give you a new commandment ”. The new-ish teaching of Jesus was not that you love one another, that is so old that even other religions had taught it since time immemorial, like it is a pivotal part in Confucianism, in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism. The new-ish teaching of Jesus is that when he was saying in the Gospel of John that as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." So to speak with Jesus, it is a profound mistake, if we think that we do own our own love, because when we try to apply our own love, we may find to have almost nothing, we may find infinite weakness, helplessness and the lacking of almost all authenticity. Thus, we must learn and acknowledge, that all the life-giving and powerful love comes from God, from the source of all life and love, and we are offered to drink from it as if drinking from an infinite well, in order that we may give to drink whosoever is also thirsty. As it is written that “Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out " If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! May the Lord Be Blessed by the Holy Spirit, AMEN. https://korakowa.blogspot.com/p/sunday-sermons.html
