Sunday Night Live Focus- April 14, 2002
Loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Rebecca's rough notes)

You’ve heard the verses before.   Jesus gives us only two commandments - “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind ... and your neighbor as yourself.”

But, why is Jesus  commanding us to love?  Why is he commanding us to do anything?  That wasn’t exactly up Jesus’ alley - commanding things.    He taught many things, advised many things, but commandments?   It just doesn’t sound like him.  

And anyway, should we Love God because if we dont he’ll get mad -   Love God or he will be jealous and send a hurricane your way!   Is God up there  craving love?  What’s up with that? 
Still -  Jesus commands us to LOVE GOD - why?
This just doesn’t sound like Jesus’ style - - 

Well what was his style ?

Lets look at the religious climate he was walking into 2000 years ago... 
Understand, back then there were not just the ten commandments.   There were all kinds of little commandments from Leviticus and the Pentateuch and then all the other ones that were added along the way...like don’t walk a mile on the Sabbath.   Do this with your crop rotation and land, treat your elderly parents this way and so on and so on.  In Jesus’ day the air was  literally thick with commandments.  And the poor ëperson on the street’ was either: 

a)  doing their level best to follow all these and was going under with the load - 

b) or they had just given up and decided that they couldn’t cut it.

It was a world where the religious scribes and Pharisees had a strangle hold on God and Mr Everyman just couldn’t measure up.
  
Commandment was not a happy word.   Commandments were use to control people and judge them and make them feel inferior.  And the only ones really measuring up were the guys writing the rules - because they were writing the rules!   There were 3 main groups - the  Pharisees, Scribes, and Saducees - and of course they hated each other...but none of the commandments had anything to do with not hating!  

Well when Jesus came along they thought he was actually gonna be an easy target.  They were going to have a field day with him.  Here comes this guy daring to teach about God and violating commandments right and left.  But they hadn’t really counted on his popularity with the common person.   Because of this they had to take him seriously.

It’s actually really disconcerting to me, as a student of the Bible, to see how much of Jesus’ ministry is about these confrontations with the religious ruling body.   (open up and read the gospels!)  It’s almost like everytime he gets going with some cool things to say - one of these religious dudes walks up with a trap question.  Of course he knew the scriptures well so his comebacks were pretty good.   
His answers actually endeared him to the crowds who had been oppressed by  these nit-picking religious leaders. 

Jesus was definitely a problem - - 

He did work on the Sabbath,
He touched unclean things and unclean people.  
He associated with heathens and actually befriended them.  
He spoke with women publicly. 
He drank regularly - actually made more wine for a bunch of drunks.
His comrades were all people with bad reputations.  
He befriended and praised Romans. 
He didn’t engage in the traditional ritual washings before meals.  
________________________________________
   = And all this really irritated the religious leaders.  

They had this system by which they controlled the people and maintained their power and here Jesus comes waltzing through ignoring it.     And if that wasn’t enough - he dared to teach about God.  

And that was their job.  
 
And they saw their job as  detailing the exact way to properly observe the commandments.  For example, for the commandment:
 Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy - 
They had written hundreds of examples of what was work and what was not on the Sabbath.  And they regularly made amendments to them to catch people.   That really broke the common man’s back. 

ASIDE>  The more I read of other faiths the more I see a pattern.  
There is the beauty, the core, the center of truth - in Buddhism, in Christianity, in Islam, etc... and then there is there is the “religion” that forms up around it full of details, explanations and ramifications on this core truth -  And this “System” of dogma and rules  is put together by those who feel so called to do that.  
 
And like Shannons box... (Focus piece used at the service)  often we lay people never make it to the beauty inside because the wrappings and trappings are so hard to get past. 
  
Here’s  an analogy - 
Aren’t there elements in the periodic table that are never found alone in nature?  They always come with something attached to it?

Well, It sure seems like that with spiritual truth  - - 
Where there is truth, there you also find the  gook of religion wrapped around it, strangling it.   The two seem inseparable - truth and its wrappings.  And it’s true in nearly every religion on the planet.  
There is the core beauty and then there are the outside wrappings and trappings.  And some of us can’t ever get inside because of it.  And some of us just don’t bother.  I think this is Shannon & Ariannes point tonight with their box wrapped tightly in many layers. 

Another analogy - (I figure if one doesnt work the other will?)

Remember sleeping beauty’s castle? 
 Beauty is inside sleeping while outside the castle is covered with thorns.    That’s how I picture truth...  Asleep inside a castle covered in thorns.  

And you ask me why I am going to study theology at Berkeley?  Shoot me if I come back talking about the thorns!! I mean it.   
Call me an idealist,  but I want to go in there, join the castle maintenance crew  and cut away the thorns so we can get to the beauty,  so kids can get to the beauty!- this generation... 
and my grandchildren’s generation..   for there truly  is a “Sleeping Beauty”  in the castle, behind all those thorns.

This is precisely what I think Jesus was about.
This is precisely what I think Jesus was about.
  
Jesus isn’t about religion.  I know we think Jesus - we think religion...today.   But that wasn’t what he was about.
He’s the Prince cutting a path through the religion thorns to help the man on the street get to God.  The man on the street that had quit trying  - because it was just too difficult, too hard.   
Likewise, many people today, cant get past religion to find God.

And don’t make the mistake that what he is embattled with is Judaism - oh no.  He is embattled with Religion with a capital R and you can find the thorns of organized religion choking out sleeping beauty in every religion you encounter -  not just Judaism.   So no, don’t think this is a battle between Jesus and the Jews or you’ll miss the point entirely.  This is a battle between Jesus and Religion.   We must turn the magnifying glass on our own religion today when we read about these confrontations he had. 
 
Come on...Wouldn’t we in the church be saying: 

>But Jesus why do you drink and why do you not care about how it looks to be partying on the weekends with really messed up people?
>Jesus -  why don’t you go to church on Sunday? 
>Jesus  - why don’t you talk more about family values, you don’t spend any time with your mother?
>And do you really need to spend so much time with people with AIDS and with people who are too lazy to go out and get a job?  
>And Jesus, it really  doesn’t look so good  for your best friend to be
        a drug dealer  
>And why are you spending time with the Dalai lama - he is not even a Christian!
Oh yeah, He’d be a puzzle today.  Religion wouldn’t be able to box him in today  any better than it did then. 
 
And no wonder the common person loved him.  He was so down to earth.   His stories were stories they could “get.”   To a people that fastened up the yoke on their oxen every morning for the day’s plowing, he said:
 
Don’t be afraid to take my yoke on you and learn of me.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 
 
He also said - - I have come, (my purpose here) is that you might have life and have it so more abundantly.    

and in another place...  come  - all of you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. 

All this being said -  Why would Jesus then turn around and give us two commandments?  More thorns!  These people surely didnt need more commandments.  And how does this keep with the picture of the  prince cutting his way through the  commandment thorns to get us to the beauty that is within?

Could it be these two commandments were for us - to help us?
The way I see it, most of his teaching falls into 2 general categories:

1 - Ways to keep our heads on straight and have inner peace, and contentment in life 

2 - and the way to treat our fellow man. . 

He is caring about our maneuvering through this thing called life with success - not material, but inner success -  - with soul peace. (and isn’t that what we all are looking for anyway?)  So, I think he is saying,  here is a commandment - in fact two - 
these two commandments sum up all my advice....

This is the way to keep your head on straight and have inner peace,
and this is the way to treat your fellow man.   It’s advice for you, 
and advice for how to treat others.  But (you say)  “How is  Loving God with all my heart, soul and mind good for me?  ëSounds like it is something for God not me.”  
Notice he doesn’t just say love God a lot.  He is saying love God in these 3 specific ways:  with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

    He is talking about loving God emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.   

Loving God with your heart is emotional.   It means  God moves you, God-stuff touches you (even if you find it in Disney).   And even sensing the absence of God moves you.  You desire God, the feeling of being warmed, touched by something outside yourself.

Loving God with your soul - well, the soul is that untouchable undefinable part of the Human Being.  We don’t know where it is but we homo sapiens  have talked about it like its real since the beginning of time.  Its that mystery spot in us which is drawn to the ineffable, to the mysterious, to  God.  And its been around from Day One.  When we first crawled out of the trees and started making tools, we also built an altar.   Cuz that thing in us we call soul started speaking, yearning, growling, pulling us towards this mystery we have called God.    That is soul love.

Loving God with your mind is intellectual - my rational self should love God.  Love of God should not violate my intellect. 
Faith can ask you to believe that there is more than what you see but it should not ask you to believe that what you see is not really there.    Like fossils...
You should not have to love God without your mind!  When I love the laws of nature, or the beauty of  science, logic, reason and the integrity and interconnectedness of all things ... when that causes awe and wonder in me.. that is loving God with my mind.

ASIDE> - we hear  honk if you love Jesus, and oh how how I love Jesus,

but you know....
Jesus did not ask us to love Him, but he did say that if we love him we should keep his commandments...   and there are only two.   

I don’t walk around and say  I love Jesus... I guess I do love Jesus,  
It is Jesus that helped me to know God, explained God to me, cut through the thorns and helped me get to the beauty which is God..
but it’s like the old saying:  the fool stares at the finger pointing to the moon instead the moon. 
 
Do I love that finger which for me has been Jesus because he has  pointed me to the moon?  Oh yeah I do.  
But really -  it has been about loving the moon.   
I don’t walk around saying I love Jesus - and maybe I even find it easier to say I love Dave Matthews or Charles Ives, or Thoreau -
but that is because of the world I find myself in.  I’m uncomfortable with people that say that...    ( and yet I do love Jesus)  When I see a sign that says honk if you love Jesus - I am uncomfortable for everyone around me.  It’s like the people in that car belong to some exclusive group.  It’s the us and them kind of thinking.  And it never fails to exclude people.  
   
The other reason I don’t focus on my love for Jesus is because 
I think it’s about the moon, not the finger and in today’s world if I run around advertising my love for the finger that helped me see the moon -not only am I  missing the point but I am separating myself from all the other people in the world who love the moon  my ass, sexy girls in uniforms, pictures of pregnant women, milk tits, black cock enormous, pussy fingering, new cfnm gallery, teen sad legs, ethnic lesbians, pussy face sitting, electro torture bdsm electro torture, ebony teen sock domination, dad and son naked, wife gallery, gay porn dvd, dirty fighting, paparazzi celebrity gallery, amateur brunette, anal movie swap, gay twink, adult comics free, porn video clips, sex bondage, blonde shemale, virgin anal, anal nurse, creampie free creampie, female porn stars, knee high leather boots, forced family, skinny anal, ebony teen pussy, indian sexy feet, fucking machine video, great handjobs, lesbian moms, young cunt, prison gang rape, sex in the shower positions, big clit large tit, 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but have seen that moon through a different finger.  
Are you following me?

We are in exciting times right now - for Christianity, for the world.  
This is why I want to go to Berkeley .  This is why I want to be a minister in the Christian church.   We’re  either going to step back in our honk if you love Jesus club or we going to start to notice that we are staring at the same moon as the Dalia lama or Thich Nhat Hanh.

And dont get me wrong - the challenge for our times is not about merging  the fingers - or throwing out the fingers.  We need them.  But the challenge is to not miss the moonlight in your brother’s eyes because he has come by way of another finger.   If in these times we can learn to love God with all of our heart (to love the moonlight) we will move into this century in peace  and with understanding. 

My point here is - that I think we are asked to love God with all our heart, soul and mind - for us.  Not for God.  I think Jesus is saying this is the way to keep your head on straight.  If you stare at the moon (if you love moonlight, love God)...if you keep that as your focal point, you will:
not fall for love of money, materialism, 
you will not hate your brother, 
you will not be eaten away by worry and stress.  
you will not be deeply lonely, 
you will not look to meaningless things to make you happy, 
you will not get lost in a religion that makes you hate or exclude your
    brother.  
you will not get LOST PERIOD! 
You will love and know true north.  And that light will guide you  and give perspective to every other thing you encounter and do in life. 
Love God and you will keep your head on straight! 

I think it is cool that he says there are these three different ways to love God.  

To love God with your soul is to love God in that somewhat intangible mysterious way.    

Loving God with  your mind - is about loving God through an intellectual awe for truth.   
I think of Jack Brown - his love of God is much about this in his love for animals and the scientific principles of biology. 
I think of Sarah Stone  and the way she  talks about emergent properties - that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
I think about  Lucas (class of 97) who said he found faith not in church, but because of quantum physics.  
I think about Jane Goodall in her book A Reason for Hope - and her integration of the spiritual with her love for science.   
I think about  Einstien,  undeniably one of the greatest minds of our times who sustained a spiritual outlook on life, which he said he had because he was  “Constantly renewed by the wonder and humility that filled him when he gazed at the stars.”    
That too is love of God - it’s  mind-love.
  
My favorite Lover of God is Hafiz. 
I read one of his poems everyday.  Kind of like taking a daily vitamin - Because I think loving God sets me up and points me to my true north.    God doesn’t need my love,  but I need to love God
and if I love God I think I am more likely to see everything else in a different light - and it is a light I really like!

So,  Listen to the love poetry of Hafiz...  and keep in mind He is sufi - not Christian, not Methodist.  He is of the mystical branch of Islam.  He lived in the 14th century:   Listen to how he loves God.

(Refer to poetry contained in “The Gift”  - poems by Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master.  Translations by Daniel Ladinsky. (Published by the Penguin Group.)

So he commanded us to:

Love God with all our heart - that’s passion, 
with all our soul - that’s mystery, 
and with all our mind - that is an intellectual awe for everything which is true.    

And I think he asked us to do this - not for God, but for us.

If the prince had not loved sleeping beauty with all his heart and with all his soul
and with all his mind,
he could never have battled the thorns to get to her.   

And, it is our love for God - 
who is beauty, mystery and truth, 
 - that will get us through the thorns to Him too.