“ . . .Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Jesus had just chased the moneychangers from the temple, an act so provocative that the Jewish leaders decided to “catch Him in His own words.” One of their number, a scribe well-versed in the Bible, stepped forward with a challenging question.

"What commandment is the first of all?" he asked.

While we are aware of the Ten Commandments, the Torah actually contains 613 laws. Choosing the most important commandment was a contentious issue among the Jewish leaders, but Jesus didn’t hesitate to give His response.

"Hear, O Israel!," He paraphrased Deuteronomy, "The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."

Then, without being asked, Jesus promptly named the second most important commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Why did Jesus feel the need to add the second commandment? One clue may lie in His use of the word “neighbor.”

It’s one thing to profess steadfast love for God in Heaven. It’s another thing to love your next-door neighbor, the one who mows his lawn every Saturday morning while you are trying sleep.. The one who lets his dog use your front yard as a compost heap. The one whose gutter downspout is pointed right at your window well. The one whose kid throws raucous parties and who sunbathes on the patio while listening to a pulse-pounding boom box. The one who spreads rumors about you. The one whose skin is a different shade and who speaks in broken English. That neighbor is not so easy to love.

But love is not a choice - -  it’s a command. In quoting Deuteronomy, Jesus added the phrase "with all your mind" to emphasize that love is a conscious decision on our part, a choice to be fully human, fully alive. Love is not simply how you react when someone treats you well. It's also how you decide to react when someone rubs you wrong, belittles or ignores you. It’s what you say when the other person is mule-headed, cantankerous and irrational. It’s how you feel about praying for your enemies.  

Jesus used the word “neighbor” when facing two fractious groups, who ordinarily despised one another. On the one hand, the Pharisees and scribes were loyal Jews and strict observers of the written and oral law. On the other hand, the Herodians were loyal to Rome and believed that King Herod was the Messiah. There was no love lost between the two neighboring groups. The one thing they had in common was their opposition to Jesus, who they saw as a threat to their leadership.

Instead of pitting them against one another, Jesus told them to love their neighbor. His unexpected answer led their spokesman to concede, ‘…to love God and your  neighbor as yourself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

On hearing this response, Jesus said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

That same statement could be said of any student of the Bible. We are not far from the day when we will close our Bible for the last time and come face to face with its author. On that day, we will be asked how we loved one another, up close and personal.