What God Desires Most
By Fr. George Smiga
Most Christians know the Great Commandment of Jesus. We find it in the Gospel of Mark when a scribe approaches Jesus and asks him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” (12:28-34). This is not a small question. Jesus’ answer will reveal who he understands God to be and how we are expected to live out our faith and hope in God.
Because both Jesus and the scribe understood the Jewish law as revealing God’s will, the scribe’s question is in fact asking what is most important in our relationship with God. What does God most desire from us? Although the scribe asks for a single commandment, Jesus answers by giving two. Both are citations of the Jewish law. Jesus first quotes the book of Deuteronomy—we are to love God with our whole heart, being, and strength (Deut 6:4-5). But then Jesus adds a citation from the book of Leviticus—we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev 19:18).
The scribe would not have been surprised by Jesus’ answer. It was common practice for Jewish rabbis to link two scriptural passages together for mutual interpretation. As a rabbi, Jesus is saying that these two commandments must be understood together. Moreover, joining these two expectations of God was no innovation by Jesus. He was clearly emphasizing a teaching that was already expressed in the Jewish Scriptures. For example, in another section of Deuteronomy (10:12-19), the command to love God with our whole being is repeated. But then the passage goes on to describe how that love is to be expressed. We are called to show our love for God by extending love to others, especially to marginalized members of our society: the widow, orphan, and resident alien.
We might name this dynamic of the Jewish Scriptures transferred love. God has loved us first, and we are expected to return God’s love. But God does not need our love, so God asks us to direct it to those who do—to express our love for God through our love for others.
This connection of love for God and love for others is at the heart of Jesus’ Great Commandment. Jesus is insisting that these two commands are one. That is why he ends his answer to the scribe by saying, “There is no other commandment greater than these”—not one or the other commandment, but both together.
The profound connection Jesus expresses in these two commandments calls for continual balance in our lives. We must balance our love for God by our love for others. We certainly love God when we turn to God in prayer and praise God in our liturgy. But religious devotion in itself is not enough. Our love for God must also be transferred to our neighbor. The First Letter of John asserts this command forcibly: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (4:20-21).
We must also balance our love for others by our love for God. As believers, our love of others is always determined by God’s love. Because God’s love is universal, ours must be as well. It is easy to love those who love us and who are like us. But precisely because the command to love our neighbor is tied to our love for God, we are called to love across racial, religious, and ethnic differences. We are called to transfer our love for God to the stranger, the imprisoned, and even our enemy.
Jesus’ Great Commandment unites love of God and love of neighbor. As Jesus’ followers, our love for God is to be expressed in our love for others, and our love for others is to imitate the universality of God’s love. This is no doubt a demanding command. But it is what God most desires from us.
.png?upscale=true&width=1200&upscale=true&name=LRC%20-%20Encountering%20the%20God%20of%20Faith%2c%20Hope%2c%20and%20Love%20(Email%20Header).png)
