With All of Your Heart, Soul, and Mind

Matthew 22: 34-46

It was one of those tense, crowded days in Jerusalem. The Pharisee’s

gathered together and an expert, a lawyer, someone who knew the

hundreds of rules, traditions, and fine print of the law, stepped forward to

test him.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

It sounded like a question about order. About priority. But it really was a

question about the heart of everything. “Love the Lord your God with all

your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Notice the word Jesus repeats: ‘all.’Not some. Not most.

Not the best bits when you feel like it. But all. This is the first challenge:

we are used to giving God a share of our lives but he asks for the whole.

We give him Sunday mornings, but sometimes keep Monday mornings for

ourselves. We give him our thanks when things go well, when things God

does what we want. We give him our opinions about faith, the rules of faith

we heard from our elders, family, but not our opinions our prejudices, not

the way we treat our bodies or our time.

Sometimes we treat God as a business partner. We have agreed to split

things fifty-fifty, but God will not be satisfied with this. He made all of us

and he wants all of us. 100%.

“With all your heart” means not just your emotions, but the center of who

you are, your desires, your choices, what you treasure most. What gives

you joy. What causes pain.“With all your soul” means life itself, your

identity, your purpose, what you live for. “With all your mind” means your

thoughts, your questions, your doubts, your reasoning. God does not want

you to keep your mind closed to him, as if faith is something you only feel

and never think.

All of this is impossible. We cannot manufacture this perfect love.

We cannot earn it. We cannot force it. And that is where the reassurance

begins: Jesus does not ask you to love him perfectly by your strength—

he asks you to let his love fill you. To let go of your own control, pride, selfreliance,

so that God’s peace, presence, strength, and character enter into

your soul.

You do not start by trying harder. You start by looking at him, reviewing

your unexpected strength, mistakes, and remind yourself that the Messiah,

is the one who came to give his whole heart, his whole soul, his whole life

for you.

When you see how much he loves you, you find you have more love to

give back. When you trust him with your whole life, you find you do not

need to hold anything back. Jesus does not reject you because your love

is weak or mixed. He receives you, as you are, and asks only that you

keep turning toward him, letting God take more of your heart, day by day.

This is also the commandment that hits too close to home because it says,

“and the second is like this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourselves.”

We cannot claim to love God whom we cannot see, if we do not love the

people we can see. Most of us are happy to agree that we should love

people, as long as we get to define who counts as our neighbor.

But this commandment has no fine print. It has no exceptions. It does not

say, love your neighbor if they are nice, or agree wtih me, look like me, or

vote like me, or go to church like me.

The challenge here is simple and hard: you do not truly love God until you

love the people you would rather avoid. It means loving the person who

hurt you. The one you disgree with fiercely, The stranger who looks

different, speaks differently, lives differently. The one you judge as lazy, or

wrong, or unworthy.

It means loving them as you love yourself—caring for their dignity, their

safety, their happiness, as deeply as you care for your own. We may think:

If only they were different, it would be easy to love them. Jesus does not

say, “love them when they deserve it.” He says, Love them as yourself.

God gives kindness—freely, no strings attached.

And there is the reassurance. You don’t have to pretend to like everyone to

love them. Love is not a feeling. It’s a choice. It is deciding to act for their

good, even when your feelings are mixed, even when you are angry, even

when you are afraid.

God does not ask you to manufacture warm affection for everyone. He

asks you to honor them, to forgive where you can, to seek their good, and

to leave the rest to God. God did not come to show us how to be good

enough on our own. He came so that when we fail, we do not have to feel

hopeless, oppressed.

The Pharisees were silenced that day because they thought they could

measure up by keeping rules. What does all of this mean: we stop splitting

our life into religious and secular. Every part of our life belongs to God.

We stop making excuses for who we will not love. We don’t have to agree

with everyone. It means we stop carrying the weight of perfection. We do

not have to get it all right.

When love feels small, God’s love is big enough for us, and for everyone

we struggle to care for. Love God completely. Love your neighbor as

yourself. Amen