Simple, isn’t it?

Yet I am not so sure it is as simple as it seems because I’m not sure we know what "love" means. Oh, we can look it up in a dictionary and find a definition. But I am not sure our culture understands what "love" entails. At least, not the love of which Jesus spoke.

For example, sometimes our culture confuses lust with love.

There are few places better to see what is happening in our culture than in Dear Abby columns. There—in print each day—we get to glimpse into the lives of people across the nation. And one of the reoccurring glimpses we get is from "The Other Woman." You know the story, don’t you? A woman writes to Dear Abby, tells her she has been dating a married man, that the man swears he loves her, but refuses to leave his wife and children so they can be together. Inevitably, Abby has to explain that the man isn’t going to leave his wife and that what he calls "love" is nothing more than "lust."

And our culture frequently makes that mistake. In fact, it often promotes the confusion through what we see on TV and in the movies. And more than a few young people have discovered that once lust is fulfilled the "love" their partner pledged disappears.

But our culture not only confuses lust for love. It also confuses mere affection for love.

Those of us in the Tuttle household probably watch more television than we should. But we try to be discerning. The boys watch shows on Disney or ESPN. Joan and I like NYPD Blue and Law and Order. All of us watch Monk and Alias. What we don’t generally watch are the so-called "reality shows" that have become all the rage. Or at least, we hadn’t watched any until the other night. It was then that Joan just insisted on watching The Bachelor—and who was I to argue against watching six attractive women vie for the bachelor’s attention. Yet it was one quick comment from one of the women that caught my attention. She, like the rest, had spent time with the bachelor, maybe gone on a date, visited together for a while, and so on. But out of those encounters, she said she was falling in love with him. In fact, she said that never before had she felt this way about someone she had dated. Such were her feelings.

Certainly most of us understand and appreciate the feelings she called "love." Yet in reality, what she meant by "love" was "affection." It was marked by feelings of fondness, by a sense of comfort and compatibility. And there is nothing wrong with affection, but ultimately affection is rooted in feelings and feelings come and go.

One of my professors spoke of a young couple who wanted to write their own wedding vows. Instead of vowing to stay together "until death," they wanted to say, "For as long as our love shall last." As my professor noted, "Mistaking affection for love could mean they would divorce following their first real argument."

If we allow our culture’s definitions of "love" to define what Jesus meant, then surely we will miss his point. Neither lust nor affection is at the heart of the faith.

So what then did Jesus mean when he said that we are to love God and neighbor?

Scholar Douglas Hare points out that "love" in the biblical tradition is marked by concretely expressed commitment. To love is to have an unwavering commitment to another, a commitment that expresses itself tangibly. "Love," as Jesus uses it here, is a call to commit one’s self fully and concretely to both God and neighbor.

Isn’t that the essence of Jesus’ life? He loved God. Whatever feelings he may have had toward God, we know he loved God because he was faithful to him. He committed himself to God, to carrying out God’s work of preaching and teaching, healing and helping. And even though he was despised and rejected by humanity, even though he wondered on the cross if God had abandoned him, he remained committed to doing all that God asked. That is loving God with one’s heart, soul and mind.

But Jesus likewise loved his neighbors—that is, humanity.

In our 2:7 Class we have observed how often the disciples were slow to grasp what Jesus was saying and doing. Often they pursued their own agendas rather than God’s. Often they were oblivious to the world-changing ministry in which their Lord was engaged. Often they tried Jesus’ patience. Yet he loved them anyway. He was committed to them and that commitment was made concrete on the cross. It was expressed in the most real terms possible—the giving of his life for them and for all humanity.

That is love—committed and concrete. And it is that love that Jesus commended.

One of the great little stories in scripture is that of the widow at the Temple. Jesus is there praying when he looks up and sees the people giving their gifts to God. Rich men and women come and drop their gifts in the treasury, but the person who catches Jesus’ eye is a widow who has little to offer. In fact, of all the gifts hers was

by far the smallest, just two copper coins. Yet Jesus saw it as the most significant because it came as an expression of her love for God. Despite having so little, she was committed to God and God’s work and expressed it in real, concrete, even sacrificial, terms. And Jesus commended her for it.

We see Jesus make the same point in Luke’s account of our reading. There the man who tests Jesus asks, "Who is my neighbor?" And Jesus tells him the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus tells him about a hated Samaritan who finds a half-dead Jew along the side of the road, bandages up his wounds, carries him to an inn and promises to pay for his care until he can go forth on his own. He is the neighbor; he is the one who loves because his commitment to the man and his well being are tangible.

"Love" is a concrete commitment to the other.

Isn’t that what we have seen and celebrated in the sacrifices a parent makes for her children?

Isn’t that what we have seen and celebrated in the truly great marriages we have known?

Isn’t that what we have seen and celebrated in the great Christians past and present?

They loved—they were committed and they expressed that commitment in concrete ways.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all you soul and with all your mind.... And you shall love your neighbor as yourself."

These are not words that we can simply hear and affirm with a nod. They are words that invite us to take inventory, to ask ourselves if the love we have for God and neighbor is abstract or concrete, is it locked in our minds or does it burst forth in very real expressions? Is our love of God reflected in the worship we offer, the prayers we utter, the service we render? Is our love of neighbor expressed in the kindness we show, the words we speak, the hands we lend? The greatest commandment and the one like it invite us to take inventory and to love God and others with all that we are and all that we have been given. Amen.