Several years ago, a radio station ran a contest. Disc jockeys invited their listeners to tune in their clock radios. "Just for fun," they said, "when you wake up to the sound of FM-106, call and tell us the first words you spoke when you rolled out of bed. If you're the third caller, you'll win $106."
It didn't take long for the contest to grow in enthusiasm. The first morning, a buoyant disc jockey said, "Caller number three, what did you say when you rolled out of bed this morning?" A groggy voice said, "Do I smell coffee burning?" Another day, a sleepy clerical worker said, "Oh no, I'm late for work." Somebody else said her first words were, "Honey, did I put out the dog last night?" A muffled curse was immediately heard in the background, and then a man was heard to say, "No, you didn't." It was a funny contest and drew a considerable audience.
One morning, however, the third caller said something unusual. The station phone rang. "Good morning, this is FM-106. You're on the air. What did you say when you rolled out of bed this morning?"
A voice with a Bronx accent replied, "You want to know my first words in the morning?"
The bubbly DJ said, "Yes, sir! Tell us what you said."
The Bronx voice responded, "Shema, Israel ... Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." There was a moment of embarrassed silence. Then the radio announcer said, "Sorry, wrong number," and cut to a commercial.
Try to remember. What did you say when you rolled out of bed today? Chances are, those words set the tone for the rest of the day. For the pious Jew the first words of each morning are always the same, and they were the words spoken that morning on FM-106. They were first spoken by Moses, who said, "Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Teach them to your children and talk about them when you lie down and when you rise" (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).
Today I want to spend some time unpacking what it means for us to love God. We know something about loving our neighbors. We have developed the notion of loving ourselves into a fine art. But loving God comes first, as our greatest obligation and our primary goal. What does it mean?
I
In the passage we heard a few minutes ago, some scribe asked Jesus, "Which commandment comes first?" It was probably intended as a trick question. If Jesus picked only one of the 613 commandments, he left himself open for a barrage of criticism from those who favored another commandment. In the Gospel of Mark, there are over a dozen occasions when the scribes oppose Jesus. They mock him, dispute him, and conspire against him. Certainly they will pounce on whatever answer he offers. Yet the scribe immediately backs off when Jesus answers, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart."
It is no wonder. The primary obligation for every good Jew has always been to love God with the heart, with the center of all passion and trust. That is the primary purpose of human life. When we were baptized in the name of the Jewish Jesus and adopted into the promises of Israel, we were given the same script to follow. These words name our primary allegiance and bind us to our greatest responsibility: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart."
II
The law teaches us, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul." In Hebrew thought, the soul is the breath of life, the part of us that is the breathing part. One day, goes the story in Genesis, God scooped up some mud by the river bank, formed it into a human figure, and breathed into its nostrils. The statue became a being. The elements became a person. The breath of God blew alive a human soul.
To love God with the soul, therefore, is to love God with every breath. We affirm that the source of every breath is the God who gives it. We breathe because God has breathed life into us. We have the capacity to love God because God first loved us. By commanding us to love him with our soul and breath, God commands us to do what only God has made possible for us to do.
Back in the fourth century, some Christian monks visualized this insight in a memorable way. They talked about prayer as a breathing exercise. "As you inhale," they taught, "thank God for the gifts which are given you for today. As you exhale, tell God how you are going to use those gifts."
For example, breathe in and say, "I thank you, God, for daily bread." Breathe out and say, "God, let me find strength in daily bread to do the work you have given me." Breathe in and pray, "I thank you, Lord, for the forgiveness of my sins." Breathe out and pray, "I ask you, Lord, to make me a forgiving person." Breathe in, breathe out. The early monks said, "Let every breath be a prayer."
Our breath is always the power behind every word and song. There's a dear friend of mine who can be a difficult house guest. We love one another deeply, but he has an annoying habit. From the moment he opens his eyes in the morning, my friend Guy sings church hymns at the top of his lungs. He prefers loud Welsh hymns in minor keys, although sometimes he changes keys and does not know it.
It has been said of some singers that what they may lack in tone quality, they compensate in volume. The last time Guy stayed in our home, he woke me at 6:45 one Saturday morning by blasting out, "O God of earth and altar ...." Over a bleary-eyed cup of coffee, I put our friendship on the line by asking, "Why do you belt out a hymn when you wake up?" And he replied, "Haven't you heard it said, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul?'"
III
The commandment goes on to say, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind." We have heads to think, ideas to develop, and thoughts to express. When we wake each day we are called upon to love the Lord with our minds.
Anybody who was listening closely to the scripture lesson did not hear these words from the original commandment in Deuteronomy. The Gospel of Mark implies that Jesus added them. This gospel was written for a world that spoke Greek, in a culture with a deep respect for the human intellect and its capacity to think. If we are called upon to love God with every possible human ability, the implications are clear for the first audience of the Gospel of Mark: we are to love God with our minds.
This has always been a Jewish notion as well. A minister was getting acquainted with the newest clergyman in town, who was a rabbi at the local synagogue. Somewhat ignorant of a different religious tradition, the minister asked the rabbi how he spent his time. "I do the same things any clergy person does," he replied, "like visit the hospitals, plan programs, and deal with finances. But the most important thing my congregation pays me to do is to study."
It was a reminder to every religious leader how easy it is to get caught up in the busyness of congregational life and forget we are called to love God intelligently and intellectually. That is the business of theology. As a seminary professor once put it, "If we take seriously the notion that, in Jesus Christ, God became a human being who experienced human life, then Christians are called to think theologically about everything, from the environmental crisis to last night's sitcom." It's not enough to have a faith that feels deep feelings. We must develop a faith that thinks profound thoughts.
One of the saddest things we ever see is the person whose faith has faltered due to the malnutrition of the mind. Picture a woman in the hospital who is very sick with a lung disease. She is connected by plastic tubes to various machines. A thick clipboard is hooked to the foot of the bed. Once she had been a member of a church, but she had drifted away. A chaplain stopped to see her. Although she wasn't dying, the woman had many questions about death. As they talked, the chaplain noticed the reading material by her bed. There was a tabloid featuring a cover story on reincarnation, and a cheap magazine that told about the past lives of soap opera stars. One paper cited a recent Elvis appearance. Another made wild claims about strange visitors from another planet. Tragically, there wasn't a Bible in sight, nor any book of substance or depth. The sick woman was a prisoner to the silly whims of pop culture.
"You shall love the Lord with all your mind." If the only mental stimulation we receive comes from People magazine or Wheel of Fortune, then we do not have the capacity to know how deeply God loves us. If we're trying to handle adult life with a third-grade Sunday School education, we will not have the skills needed to negotiate the daily difficulties. As John Calvin once noted, if we are fearful, it is because we have not studied and learned the promises of God, because anxious people "do not concede the care of the world to God."1
The answer? There are a lot of answers. Go to an adult education class in your church. Visit a church library and take out a book that stretches your brain and fires up your imagination. Check out a commentary on a book from the Bible and work through it, verse by verse. Blessed is the person who seeks to love God through the labor of the human brain. As the apostle Paul described this mental work, "We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive in obedience to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). To that end, we are called to love God with the mind.
IV
To sum it up so far, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart," with the center of passion and trust. "You shall love the Lord your God with your soul," with the breath of life that God gives. "You shall love the Lord your God with your mind," with the brain that pursues truth. Finally, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your strength."
We misunderstand love if we reduce it to a sentiment of the heart, a word from the breath, or a thought from the mind. Love is also something we do. Love is a word that taps our energy and flexes our muscles.
There is a young man who didn't know that when he first got married. He had to be taught. He said to his new wife, "I love you." He felt it and believed it. But he didn't do anything about it. He dropped dirty socks on the floor and said, "Honey, I love you." He promised to cook supper, but arrived home an hour too late, apologizing with the words, "I love you." He promised to balance the checkbook, but didn't get around to it until three or four checks bounced. Then he expressed his regrets, adding, "I love you."
One day his wife said, "You must stop saying that you love me." He complained, "But I do love you. I feel it; I say it; I think it."
She said, "No, if you loved me, you would do something about it. You would keep your part of the relationship." She was right, because she knows the full shape of love.
To love God with all our strength is to keep our part of the relationship that God has established. We are called to do the tasks which God has made it possible for us to do. In this text, the kind of love called for is a love that can be commanded. Each day we wake to face some task for God's sake. If we pledge each new morning to love God with all of our strength, we pray that the work we do will be part of God's work, that we might delight in his ways and walk with his love.
What should we say when we roll out of bed? Someone paraphrases the commandment by saying, "Love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy."2 Those are good words to put on our lips. With them we announce that our lives will be directed, not wasted. Rather than stumble around each day and end up nowhere, the Great Commandment calls us to aim our hearts and minds somewhere. As we inscribe these words upon our hearts, we aim ourselves in love toward the God who first loved us.
1. William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 39.
2. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1993), p. 120. "