William A. Barry - An Invitation to Love: A Personal Retreat on the Great Commandment

The United States and many other countries are currently roiled by seemingly unresolvable political, racial, economic, and ecological conflicts. Given these circumstances, you may wonder why Im writing a book on the two great commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. It may seem that, like the emperor Nero, Im fiddling while our country burns to the ground. Yet I can think of nothing more important for us human beings to do in such perilous times than to love God and our neighbors. Let me explain and, in the process, give readers an idea of what they are getting into by picking up this book.

The Bible, the whole of it, is not about how to get to heaven when we die. Its about Gods dream for his good creation. God creates a world for a purpose and human beings to be Gods images in this world and thus cooperate with God in that purpose or dream. Many Jews of Jesus time, and Jesus himself, summed up what it means to be a human being with the two great commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Bible is the story of Gods efforts to get us to live as human beingsthat is, as images of God. This book is designed to help people live Gods dream and thus become part of the solution to our worlds seemingly insoluble difficulties rather than part of the problem.

Imagine a world in which everyone loved God and neighbor. It would be a world without hunger, without crime, without any fear, wouldnt it? In such a world, everyone would be cared for, so no one would need to expend undue energy or anxiety on his or her own needs. This is Gods dream for our world, as we shall see. But it will come about only if individualsand, through them, communitiesreally do love one another in an effective way. Thus, my passion for writing this retreat. We really are invited by God to help God transform this world, to help God bring about what Jesus called the kingdom of God.

All of us have heard these two commandments often. But if youre like me, you have trouble living up to their demands. Over the years I have found different ways to help myself and others move closer to being able to love God and neighbor. I would like to offer some of the ways people have found helpful in growing in their love for God and in their love for neighbor.

I intend this book not to be a theoretical study of the two commandments, still less as an effort to convince you of their merit. Rather, I presume that you already know the commandments but may find fulfilling them difficult or, in some cases, impossible. However, you want to love God and neighbor better and so may be interested in trying out ways to grow in these loves and thus become more a part of Gods solution for our world.

In all three of the Gospels that are related to one anotherMatthew, Mark, and LukeJesus is asked, Which commandment is the first of all? (Mark 12:28; Matthew 22:3440; Luke 10:2529). In Mark, the questioner is friendly; in Matthew and Luke, unfriendly. In Mark and Matthew, Jesus himself gives the answer; in Luke, Jesus turns the question on the questioner. In all three Gospels, the answer is fundamentally the samehere from Mark: The first is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these (Mark 12:2931). In this passage, the questioner commends Jesus for this answer, and Jesus, in turn, tells him, You are not far from the kingdom of God (3233).