Monday, October 30, 2023 | Trey Comstock
By Rev. Emily Larsen
I recently had the privilege of sitting in on a youth Sunday school class where they were discussing the 10 commandments. Youth discussions are always my favorite because they have no filter and they aren’t afraid to ask the hard questions. The discussion of the “big top ten” naturally led to a discussion about the other 600 plus laws listed in the Old Testament. When the participants in this class were overwhelmed with the idea of trying to remember to keep this tedious list of rules, the Sunday school teacher wisely took a page from Jesus’ playbook and summed it all up. “Love God. Love People”. I imagine many people in Jesus’ time felt similarly. While the Pharisees were posing the question to trick Jesus, I’m certain many in the crowd that day were grateful for this summation of the law.
The core of the matter all filters down to “Love God, Love people.” And when we begin to look at our life through this simplified lens-and make it the motivation behind our actions- that’s when everything can begin to fall into place.
I’m reminded of the time I took a course on homesteading with an intentional Christian community. They still used traditional methods of planting, growing, and harvesting crops to sustain their collection of small family farms. This included utilizing a traditional horse-drawn plough to prepare the soil. As a new homesteader, I was overwhelmed with the complexity of it all.
The horses working in tandem (often an older, more-experienced horse was paired with a younger horse just learning the ropes)...
the equipment and how the old models of plough that have been used for hundreds of years are still the best design for the job…
the tension of the straps that needed to be held just right by the farmer…
in addition to steering the horse team in the straightest lines in order to ensure the best possible crop plantings and therefore the highest yields during the harvest seasons.
Trying to hold all of this new information and technique in my brain was dizzyingly overwhelming. Until the instructor told us to just focus on the one thing…straight ahead. Just focus on the point directly in front of you and the rest of it would fall into place. The horses would find a natural rhythm. The rows would turn out straighter. If you just stopped complicating it in your head and focused your eyes directly ahead of you.
If you began to focus on the minutiae of the job at hand, you would undoubtedly begin to veer off course, causing your rows to be uneven.
But, if you focused on a point directly in front of you, to the end of the row where you were headed, you’d be able to plough a straight line.
I think of the Pharisees in today’s passage and how they had undoubtedly veered off course in their study of the law. They had become so bogged down in the particulars of the interpretation of the law that they lost track of the reason that the laws had been created in the first place; to help us govern our relationship with God and our relationship with people. And, it turns out, what it all boils down to is actually pretty simple. Love. Love God and Love People.
If we love God, we will put God first, honor God’s name, and keep God’s sabbath. If we love our neighbor, we won’t steal, commit adultery, covet, kill, or bear false witness against them. All of the laws can be summed up in this one great commandment; to love God, and to love others.
What if we kept our eyes focused on this goal as we went about our daily lives? Maybe when we talk about walking the “straight and narrow” path in life, we could actually simplify it by evaluating our actions through this lens of love. Is what I am doing, saying, thinking, etc. loving God and loving my neighbor? Perhaps if we fix our eyes on Jesus, it makes “walking a straight line”…a life filled with and guided by love…a whole lot easier.