Thank you for this and for posing an excellent question, what am I most afraid of losing.
Some quiet and radically honest introspection is called for, I agree.
And while I also agree with much of what you wrote, I see something different in how Jesus spoke of love and the ordering of our affections and the commandments of God.
“‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.””
Mark 12:29-30
That seems to me, at least, that there is a prioritising of loves, although not a prising apart. If we deign to treat those around us - family, friends, neighbours and enemies - without love, then that challenges the truthfulness of any assertion that we are loving God first.
Thank you for such a generous and thoughtful reply.
You are right that Jesus names a first commandment, and I would not want to deny it. My quarrel is with the way "first" gets turned into a queue, where God takes the first slot and everyone else waits their turn. I read "first" as source rather than slot: love of God comes first in the way a spring comes before the river. That is why, in the section on the great commandment, I was struck and wrote that Jesus will not stop at one: "There is none other commandment greater than these."
Your last sentence puts it better than I did. If our love of God does not show up in how we treat family, friends, neighbours and enemies, the claim to love God first rings hollow. John says much the same, rather more bluntly (1 John 4:20).
So perhaps "a prioritising of loves without a prising apart" is exactly the ordering I was reaching for. Thank you for pressing on it.
Thank you for this and for posing an excellent question, what am I most afraid of losing.
Some quiet and radically honest introspection is called for, I agree.
And while I also agree with much of what you wrote, I see something different in how Jesus spoke of love and the ordering of our affections and the commandments of God.
“‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.””
Mark 12:29-30
That seems to me, at least, that there is a prioritising of loves, although not a prising apart. If we deign to treat those around us - family, friends, neighbours and enemies - without love, then that challenges the truthfulness of any assertion that we are loving God first.
Thank you for such a generous and thoughtful reply.
You are right that Jesus names a first commandment, and I would not want to deny it. My quarrel is with the way "first" gets turned into a queue, where God takes the first slot and everyone else waits their turn. I read "first" as source rather than slot: love of God comes first in the way a spring comes before the river. That is why, in the section on the great commandment, I was struck and wrote that Jesus will not stop at one: "There is none other commandment greater than these."
Your last sentence puts it better than I did. If our love of God does not show up in how we treat family, friends, neighbours and enemies, the claim to love God first rings hollow. John says much the same, rather more bluntly (1 John 4:20).
So perhaps "a prioritising of loves without a prising apart" is exactly the ordering I was reaching for. Thank you for pressing on it.
Such a good reminder - the question- what am I afraid to lose- is a tough and necessary one to answer…
Never easy to answer for sure!