“Thou shalt love …with all thy mind”
There is something wonderfully reflective about the Scripture readings in the late part of the Trinity season that is particularly necessary in our rather unreflective age, however challenging we may find it. Here we are being told to love with the whole of our being including “with all thy mind”. Something inescapably intellectual belongs to the spiritual realities of our life in Christ.
We are presented with an imperative, something commanded, not a maybe or a might be but a must be. Here are strong words that challenge all our assumptions about what we think is love. Strong words, too, that are voiced in the context of controversy, a controversy between Jesus and the questioning scribes, one of which, at least, “answered intelligently” by recognizing the significance of the Jewish Shema, what is sometimes called the Summary of the Law, as being “better than all the burnt offerings and the sacrifices.”
But it is a curious thing. Jesus’ answer to the question “which commandment is the first of all” is to relate the Summary of the Law. Love here is about the orientation and direction of the inner activity of our being. Love is commanded. It means loving God with the whole of our being – “with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” With the exception of “all thy mind”, this is simply to quote Deuteronomy, though the addition is really only an explication of what is implicit in the Hebrew parallelism of “all thy heart” and “all thy soul.” Much has sometimes been made of the absence of “all thy mind” in Deuteronomy and its presence in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Certainly it reflects a new and important focus on the logos of God, the Word of God, as apprehended by our minds in the Christian understanding of things. And certainly, the word here for mind is the term which Plato uses as the highest form of human intellectual activity, διανοια.
But Jesus doesn’t stop with just that passage from Deuteronomy; he goes on to say that “the second is like it, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” to which he also adds “There is none other commandment greater than these.” And, at least one of the scribes responds positively recognizing that the Summary of the Law is a complete statement. It comprehends the true meaning of the Law of Israel. The Law is love. We are commanded to love.
The context is controversy. Jesus compliments the scribe for his response with the words “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” Mark, then adds, that “after that no one dared to ask him any question” before going on to relate Jesus’ teaching about a scribal controversy concerning the identity of the Christ. The scribes had said that the Christ was the son of David, meaning by that the Messiah must be literally in the line of David and, therefore, something that is only humanly considered. Jesus’ response is to quote from the Hebrew Scriptures yet again, this time from the Psalms, attributed, of course, to David, poet and king, where David spoke of his kingship as subject to the Lord. The Christ, he is saying, must also be God, for if David speaks of Christ as Lord, then how can he be his son, for he must already have existed before David himself? The logic of this seems straightforward and, indeed, “the common people heard him gladly.” It is a most provocative and important passage.
But what does it have to do with the Summary of the Law, with the imperative to love? Everything. There is more here than the mere gathering up of bits and bytes from the vast array of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures. There is more here than the addition of “all thy mind,” though it is only through our minds that we can comprehend the amazing marvel and wonder of what we are presented with here.
The way to grasp it may be to consider how what is asked about being first, in the sense of having utter priority, is answered by reference to two things which are said to be one, namely, the love of God and the love of neighbour, both of which are to be loved in the same and equal manner, that is to say, with the whole of our being, specifically, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. What does that mean and how is it possible? Because of Jesus Christ. He is himself the unity of God and man and therefore the unity of our love for God and for our neighbour. The end and the means find their unity in the one who unites heaven and earth. And here is the astounding thing, that in the true love of one another, there is the love of God, and that in the true love of God, there is the love of one another! Astounding! It is, of course, what we have already seen in the radical meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Christ is the Good Samaritan in whom the love of God and man is most fully realized.
“Love God and do what you will”, Augustine once said, because if we love God truly then what we do will always be right and true. But there’s the rub. What does it mean to love truly? Doesn’t this imperative, this commandment, confront us with what we are unable to do? How can we be commanded to do what is impossible? It must seem utterly unfair, as if we are being set up for failure. What makes it possible is Jesus Christ. He is true God and true man in the Christian understanding of things and in him there is the possibility of our loving as we should and must. Does it mean that we do? No, such is our sinfulness. It means, however, that he has accomplished and concluded all that belongs to the truth of our humanity. We must want that to be realized in us: now, in the constant struggle of our lives to be faithful and true; then, in the perfect confirmation of his grace in us, as the epistle reading puts, “that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Quite simply, the truth of our selves is found in Christ.
Why the imperative, the unconditional commandment, to love? Because it has to do with the truth and the dignity of our humanity. We are simply being commanded to become what we are, to be who we are in the sight of God. It concerns our mindfulness of the one who is mindful of us. He seeks nothing less than the perfection of our humanity and provides for us the way in which we can live that life. It is the life of Christ, his life for us and his life in us. The commandment to love is heightened because Jesus is calling us to be true to the divinely given forms of our humanity in creation, redemption and sanctification as distinct from the forms of sin and disorder which disfigure and diminish us all.
It requires constant and serious reflection upon the Word of God doctrinally understood as providing the true measure and guide in our endeavouring to think through the confusions of our times. Hence the importance of the phrase “with all thy mind”.
Love is not without reason. To love God and to love one another is the love of truth. Honouring the created order and the divine redemption of that order impels the ordering of our souls in the ways of holy and sanctified living, realizing, of course, our own sins and failures. The love that seeks to set all loves in order is the love that calls us to accountability before the truth itself, the truth to which we are subject and not the other way around. It is the hardest and yet the greatest thing. We are commanded to love God and our neighbour and it is our struggle to embrace that commandment; in short, to be what God would have us be in accord with his Word. That Word is the Lord and Saviour, the Son who is the Christ, who commands us to love “with all thy mind.”
“Thou shalt love … with all thy mind”
Fr. David Curry
Christ Church
Trinity XVIII, 2016