“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39)
In the readings of Sunday 15 September – according to our older calendar – Jesus dodges the passive-aggressive trap of the Pharisees by giving a perfect summary of the Jewish law, combining Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18.
But how is love of God "similar" to love of self and neighbour? The two are certainly not the same – loving God is primarily about receiving, while loving neighbour and self is primarily about giving – and often we can get them the wrong way round: we try to earn God’s love by our deeds (exaggerated giving to God) and depend on others or personal comfort for our self-worth (excessive receiving).
