Neighboring love

The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:31)

The second important command is to love our neighbor. Loving God sounds obscure but loving our neighbor is practical. Here an inquisitive question may arise as to what action follows love. It may be said that that sharing food in starving, taking care in sickness and helping in times of trouble is love.

However, the major problem is the question of practicing real love for our neighbor. The content says to love your neighbor as yourself. Such a degree of love is impossible for most of the people and not easy even for people of great discipline. In case of a neighbor who is attacked by a rare disease needs a huge amount of money. They do not have money. Then should I provide them medical fee by selling my house? If I get sick, I may sell my house.

Why did Jesus suggest this impossible command as the second most important commandment? I would divide this love into two. First, Jesus might not give us an impossible teaching. This verse has high possibility of being a religious confession that came from the early Christian community’s life. It means that the early Christians accepted loving God and neighbor as the core theme of Christian ethic. Second, it may rather refer to the limitation of human love and the need of God’s favor than an ethical norm. In other word, it signifies that human should ask God’s favor for he does not have the power to love.

A theologian, Friedrich Gogarten says, “Man can practice what God demands only when God enables him to do it.” (Der Mensch zwischen Gott und Welt, 1956, p. 426). Lord, have mercy on us and grant us the power of love!

Love the Lord your God

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' (Mark 12:30)

Here continues the word of Deuteronomy. The most important command is to love the Lord God. This love is not mere love but the love with the whole being; heart, soul, mind and strength. This love is the love that involves the entire personality of a person.

In fact, it is impossible to possess such love. We do not even know how to imitate such unfathomable love. Basically we do not know the fact to love God. We put love on equal footing with the good record of attendance in Church services, diligently serving church or taking care of neighbors. By doing such noble services, we often take pride of ourselves and are easily discouraged when such activities are not recognized by others. We cannot call such love as love.

What does it mean to love God practically? There is no way to explain it in detail. As we do not know God exactly, how can we say we love God? God reveals himself through nature and the history of the entire world. Living in this limited time and space, we cannot fully recognize God. We can only say indirectly that to love God is to keep ourselves away from what is not God. There are many things in this world that are not God. It is an idol worship to serve and love anything that is not God as their God. It may be mentioned that to love God would mean to reject idol worship.

The word says “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” It means to love God just as a man who falls into a deep dungeon would contemplate on how to escape from it. If we want to make it possible, we should have an experience of being in a situation of dire extremity.

Shema!

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. (Mark 12:29)

The word, ‘Shema’ means to hear. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:4, 5 before the question of the most important commandment. The initial word of the phrase is ‘Shema’. The word ‘Hear, O Israel’ was a word of calling to start a sacrificial ritual. Changing it into the modern term, it can be a call to worship. Every male of Israel of the contemporary of Jesus had to recite this content every morning and evening.

The word they should hear everyday was ‘the Lord Our God, the Lord is one.’ The reason for hearing this word was that it gave them life. The things in this world are not unique. Any things, thoughts and activities are not completely new and unique in this world. It may be said that every individual in this world is so unique that there is not a single person who is identical with the other. But this difference among the people is not the most essential thing. The more important meaning of ‘God is one’ is that God alone is the creator while others are mere creatures. The creator being the source and the core of creation while creatures are his handiworks teaming across the globe, God has his unique existence.

To live by reciting every morning and evening that the Lord is a unique one clearly shows a meaningful blend of God’s creativity and man’s character as a created being. By doing in this manner, man lives. Some people think it in a reverse manner. They consider that emphasizing on man’s character as being created is something disparaging. But it is not so. It is not a humiliation but an obvious fact.

The being thrown into this world is human. Therefore, because of this status of being thrown, man is rather a precious being. There are not many sounds for us to hear. In its truest sense, we have only one sound to hear and that is non other than “The Lord our God, the Lord is one”. Let us strain our ears of our souls to this sound. Shema!

The most important commandment

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?" ( Mark 12:28)

Approaching the Passover, Jesus was caught in argument after entering the Jerusalem temple. The high priest, the Scribes and the elders questioned Jesus’ authority in cleaning up the temple (11:27). In another occasion, with the intention to damage the teaching of Jesus, the Pharisees and the Herodians asked Jesus whether it was right to pay tax to Caesar or not.(12:13) The Sadducees in 12:18 tried to trap Jesus with the problem of many brothers married to a woman one after another following the death of each brother.

The three stories were the stories of anti-Jesus groups. Now the fourth story is related to a story favoring Jesus. Hearing an argument that was going between Jesus and a group of people, one of the Scribes realized that Jesus’ teaching was correct. He asked Jesus, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" As a matter of fact, this question was not a trap but an enquiry with a good intention from within. There were the Scribes who involved in the first group. They were the best Judean theologians in those days. However, the Scribe in the fourth story seems to have another standpoint different from others. He might be an open-minded person looking for the truth. There is a possibility for every individual to have different viewpoint for the truth though they belong to the same class.

According to today’s content, the Scribe wanted to hear from Jesus about the most important command. Unlike other group of the scribes and Pharisees, this scribe asked Jesus this innocent question to know the right answer so as to confirm his understanding from Jesus. The truthful and honest question from the center of the heart is the shortcut to reach the truth.

The God of the Living (4)

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken! (12:27)

The verse, ‘God is not the God of dead, but of the living’ signifies that life, true life, eternal life and resurrection life is possible in God only. We shouldn’t miss the point that resurrection, the core of Christianity faith has its meaning with God only rather than saying something independently.

In God a tree, a river, a mountain and even a rock get life. It is said that life of the earth began from DNA and God is the one who had done it possible. Then it may say the entire living being, what manner may be, get life in God.

The matter is whether we are abiding in God or not. If we see this world at the broad point of view, nothing in this world exist out of God’s hand. Whether it is evil or meaningless everything is ultimately in God’s hand. God still embraces even evil which deviates from God’s nature. It is because everything happens in God’s creation.

In order to save such evil, salvation means to get life, God chose Jesus Christ. Jesus’ cross is the victory of evil. It is the event the reality of evil is revealed. In the cross, God revealed himself as a helpless being. Jesus’ resurrection is God’s victory. It revealed God’s creative power. God was revealed as the one who had the power of life in there. God rather overcome evil by resurrection life than repay it by evil.

Now no one get loose their life in this world. We all are able to abide in God’s life. The only need to us is to believe the fact.

The God of the Living (3)

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken! (12:27)

We have to think the meaning living not at our viewpoint but God’s. Some may feel this word is too schematized one. A doubt arises in our mind how we can distinguish man’s viewpoint and God’s viewpoint. It is difficult to analyze such matter in this short writing. Leaving behind such missing point I would like to point out important one only.
Our discussing point is the relationship between God and life. It is said that we are not able to understand the life after death because we think of life in too small category. We have to bring down such preconception. Death is a clear incident that our biological life phenomenon is stopping. However, no one can decisively confirm our life itself is completely ended with death.

If you ask me to prove it I cannot do it directly. It is not the level of proof but trust. We only can trust the resurrection life that the Bible explained and promised is right however cannot prove it demonstratively. It is not right to say that the thing cannot be provable is not truth. How can the human who are living in this momentary world prove the ultimate life incident that only can be proved through the entire history of universe?

The Bible says God created the world from nothing. The nothing doesn’t mean a mere empty status but something that has not equipped with a form of existence. The God revived Jesus Christ from the dead. At this point the resurrection is a creation incident. If the first creation is demonstrated at the point of nothing then the resurrection is demonstrated out of being. Jesus is recreated from the world of being that should die to the eternal life where no death is.

The God of the Living(2)

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!"(12:27)

We are living by reducing the meaning of the word, ‘living’. We reduced its meaning at the biological level. Of course, the meaning we are living signifies the living of brain and heart. Our cell should divide and stomach should moves and by doing this our metabolic change should be done. By these life phenomena we can confirm the fact of living.

However, has it surely to be done like this? Others we can keep aside but we cannot deny the fact that our life phenomena ends in any moment. When we get sick in the mid way of our life or getting old, our life phenomena is over. The word we are living has meaning in this limitation only. We cannot regard such things as the ultimate one.
I don’t mean to say that the momentary life of today is meaningless. It is more precious for it ends vaguely. We have to live by acknowledging it preciously. We are talking not about the relative one but the absolute. It is because we can confirm the meaning of our tentative and meaningless life phenomena in the absolute life only.
Many problems can be occurred when we regard our minimized life, confirmed in this world, as the absolute one. The measuring interpretation about life is one of them. It blindly pursues high valued life phenomena only after measuring life as numerical value. Under such circumstance, the society becomes the society where the physically challenged people are regarded as the inferior people while the intelligently remarkable people are only accepted greatly.

Life is God’s creation and it cannot be measurable by human being. We cannot treat it as we please or sport with it for we are not a creator but mere creature.

Repentance and the Good News (3)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’.” (1:15)

If we follow the structure of today’s text, repentance is a prerequisite for believing the good news. Or you could say repentance must be a precondition. Then why did Jesus say, “repent and believe the good news”?

The reason is not that complicated. If we don’t have an experience of repentance that means a change toward God, we cannot accept the good news. I am afraid that you might not follow my reasoning, so I think I should refocus. People regard repentance as regretting something that they did in the past. What is worse, some people said they cried to repent that they had crept into someone’s orchard to pick out the fruits without permission. Some people are saying that after starting to go to church they repented drinking or smoking before. People! These kinds of thing are not repentance. These are just a matter of refinement in life. To repent means to pay spiritual attention to God who created this world and keeps life and make it complete. Does this sound a little abstract? A phrase like “you are a sinner, so repent” sounds more appealing? A preacher in Seoul asked the youth group who were gathering for “Arise Up Korea”, which was such a big conference. He was saying to very sensitive teenagers that watching pornography is a sin. This is a non-sense.

Repentance means to change direction of life of self-achievement, self-satisfaction, and self-motivation toward mystery of life. I am not saying that aspects of conscience are not related with repentance. But those are the result of repentance. And we should make up our mind every moment, because we are not at certain stage of ethical point. People misunderstand that having refinement means being very ethical. It is a big mistake. America has some refinement, but she does not feel any moral guiltiness even after invasion to Iraq. They have many atomic bombs, but criticize the North Korea very seriously. Ethics and refinement could be different according to the time and situation, so it is not a proof of repentance. Only the person who pays attention to God of mystery of life shows clean fruits of life as a result.
The Lord said that we should repent and then believe the good news, but on the while we just pay attention to believe. So the Gospel appears like a form of religion or expansion of religious desire. Sometimes it works as worldly desire, religious escape, or psychological self-conviction. Without any attention to God’s sovereignty they live with big religious greed, I am saying.

Do I criticize our faith too harshly? Maybe I do, but what I am saying is not untrue. Is my diagnostic view correct about being passionate for church meetings and the world mission but not for sovereignty of God? These phenomena appear through the pulpit, too. It is very regrettable that we cannot find many preachers who are very sincere and having good personality and also successful ministry, but are missing the point of God’s sovereignty in their sermons. Their attention is only towards the audience. They only like to say about blessings and revival of church. I don’t have to explain why such sermons and ministry are not related with God’s sovereignty, I think. What we should need now is that we should reduce our religious things in order to pay attention to God’s sovereignty and His revelation. That is repentance. It is very highly possible for faith without this to be another kind of idolatry.

Lord, are we really peoples who had repented?