For the Jewish people there is one great commandment found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 that stands as the core focus of their religious beliefs.

Called the Shema, this prayer is repeated by Jesus in response to a question from a Pharisee.  Here Jesus shows himself to be a faithful Jew, honoring the oneness and universality of God to whom we owe all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Yet, as we know, Jesus is never satisfied with just giving the usual expected answers. Instead of stopping there, Jesus continues: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This addition of a second commandment with its emphasis on the love of neighbor changes in a dramatic and radical way the meaning of the love of God.

In so many ways we can see the love for God as relatively easy. We can easily objectify God, place him outside of our daily lives and pay God lip service. We can also seemingly go through the religious rituals fairly routinely and even perhaps carry off a posture of piety and holiness.  Those are external matters. We can never honestly judge the relationship between any individual person and God. We all make some judgments to be sure, but clearly we all lack the knowledge of the interiority of another person.

We can say we “love God” and there really is no one out there who can challenge us on that or call us out.  Even if they can point to the many inconsistencies in our lives we can still protest our love for God.

Love of neighbor is another matter entirely. These are concrete and real people.  We encounter them each and every day of our lives. We interact with families, physical neighbors, coworkers, and fellow commuters, classmates, churchgoers, shoppers and elevator passengers. Many of us literally encounter hundreds of other people in the course of our day. Sadly most of the people we see we do not really interact with; we have no idea of from whence they came or to where they are going.  We would not even realistically have the time to do so and certainly most of us would not have the interest.

On rare occasions we connect with someone on a very random encounter. We see someone in need of some assistance and we reach out to help. The Liberty Insurance Company launched a series of television commercial spots where they depict a number of scenarios of people doing good for others. The announcer says “when people do the right thing they call it being responsible.” Ideally when people do the right thing they call it loving one’s neighbor as oneself.

Love of family, friends, coworkers and classmates can be challenging enough at times, but the love of the stranger stretches most of us beyond our reasonable limits.  Like many of you, I like to be alone and anonymous in crowds.  I prefer not to interact with anyone unless I have to.  I know also that I can be impatient with the movements of other people in crowds.  Jesus is reminding and challenging me, and all of us, to recognize the neighbor in each and every one of them, to love them as I love God.  Perhaps the message of Jesus is even a bit stronger:  I can love God no more than I love my neighbor.

That puts a very challenging perspective on the meaning of love.  Jesus connects love of God and neighbor so intimately that one naturally flows from and to the other.  They are separate but they are not really separable. 

In the Law of Moses, a short extraction from which we hear also on this Sunday, God is clear about the mandates of the treatment of the aliens and strangers in our midst.  The Israelites were to treat their neighbors justly because God is compassionate.  Jesus takes it further and challenges us to be men and women of compassion because we love God.

Dr. Garry Koch is a seminarian for the Diocese of Trenton.