I Love You (Mostly)
Following these two commandments is the way home
I’m trapped. A very slow steady stream of cars behind me means I can’t back out of my parking spot. I give up and just put the car back in park (and why bother alerting everyone anyway?) And to think, just ten minutes earlier, we were all singing together. I should have bolted instead of attacking those donuts. But it’s too late. This isn’t just any parking lot, it’s a church parking lot.
The church parking lot is both symbolic and a reality of our world.
The reality is, we aren’t perfect. We began in a garden with clear instructions—tend to the land and oversee all that it contained. These are simple orders. But at slight suggestion from a snake, we didn’t follow our orders. I’m not passing the blame, but if not for the snake, we may still be in that glorious garden. Instead we are banned from it. (Technically, Eve chose first! Am I passing blame again?)
Outside the garden, things only got worse. Cain was jealous of his brother, Abel, and killed him. Then he dug a deeper hole for us. God asked Cain where his brother was and he said he didn’t know, marking the first moment of a child lying.
As humans multiplied, so did our poor choices. The lying and deceit proliferated generation after generation. God said, enough! The planet was flooded, cleansed and renewed. Only Noah and all those on the ark survived. God promised to remain faithful.
Of course, God knew what was going to happen. We failed again. So he gave us ten commandments to follow that we continuously messed up. Power, wealth and increasing our status was more important. Besides, who can keep track of so many rules?
So God sent Jesus and simplified the list to two. Jesus said:
You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.
The reality is—even with just two commandments—I still fail. When I’m on the road and someone cuts in front of me and then slows down, I want to zoom past them to prove a point. (Perhaps the point is I should stop driving?)
The church parking lot is symbolic of the problem I face every day.
I know what I’m supposed to do, but don’t always do it. As descendants of Adam and Eve, we’ve all been exiled from the garden, into the world. It is here where we are challenged to minimize our human wants and increase our love for God. Then we are further challenged to love one another as we love ourselves, whether in each other’s presence physically or when using technology such as social media.
Patience. Kindness. Selflessness. Love.
Following these two commandments is the way back to the Garden.
That is the path.
I glance in the car mirror—there’s an opening! A car has stopped to let me back out. I enter the church parking stream when another car begins to back out. I smile and wave them on, thinking, “I love you (mostly).”
Peace.
P.S. The New Earth series continues next week. Read last week’s exciting entry here. Catch up on the entire series here.