“Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”– Mark 12:29-31
My last year of seminary was challenging. It was academically demanding, to say the least. I had several classes that were going to require significant reading and writing. One class had me nervous before the semester even started. I knew the work would be hard and, on top of that, there would only be a handful of students in the class so I would have to come prepared each time.
I remember walking into the small classroom on the first day of the semester. I sat at the table with the other students. Our professor came into the room, joined us at the table, and invited us to pray. His prayer went something like this:
Lord, thank you for today
Teach us to love you more
Teach us to love our neighbors. Amen.
What a wonderful prayer. At once, my worry and fear about the difficulty of my class was set aside as I was reminded of the foundation of our faith. There are a great many things to learn about the Christian faith and our wonderful heritage, but so much of it is summed up in these two clearly stated commandments; Love God and love our neighbors.
As Christians, we are called to grow in our faith. We need to learn about God and the practices of our faith. All the knowledge and practices of our faith are built on the foundation of love. God loves us. We are called to love God and share that love with all the people in God’s world. I made it through that difficult year of seminary and learned a great many things. Still to this day, I often find myself praying this wonderfully simple prayer. Perhaps you can add this to your faith practice and be reminded of our great foundation of love.
– Rev. Keith King, Pastor of Worship
