Simplified
There are times when I appreciate the simple things in life, and other times when I seek to complicate everything, like a Rube Goldberg invention.
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 'Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?' He said to him, '"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.' - Matthew 22:34-40
In today's Gospel reading, Jesus counters a challenge by offering a simple answer, yet one that encompasses all possible answers within it.
In reducing ten commandments and hundreds of laws to two, Jesus flipped the question back on them, challenging their authority and knowledge.
When need do we have for complexity, if we understand the simplicity of God's love for us?
I am sure Jesus would have understood and appreciated the humor of Rube Goldberg, the cartoonist and inventor who sketched the most outrageous contraptions to do the simplest tasks, like the famous board game, Mousetrap.
Sometimes I think we approach life that way, building rules upon rules, compounding limitations so that only one path is possible, and it is probably not the most direct one at that.
Shouldn't life be simple?
What it boils down to, I think, is a lack of trust. We don't trust ourselves to be true to our commitments towards God and toward each other, so we seek to identify every possible breach and flaw.
The second commandment Jesus gives us says it all. We can only love others as much as we love ourselves, so we can only trust others that way as well.
Since we fail to trust ourselves, we build a Rube Goldberg contraption of rules and laws to keep everyone from doing the wrong things.
How is that working for us?
We certainly should not expect people whose job it is to make laws to find ways to simplify our lives, should we?
That was what Jesus was saying to the law givers of his day. You complicate what is simple, and put everyone down.
So, now what?
Do I go out into the world trusting everyone?
That's the problem, isn't it? If only I had the faith of a mustard seed, I would.
More to come...