What strikes me most about the two commandments of Jesus of Nazareth is two things. First: there are only two, so remembering them is easy. Second, that they have an order, and Jesus even says this clearly, even explicitly.

“Which is the first of all the commandments?”Jesus replied, “The first is this:Hear, O Israel!The Lord our God is Lord alone!You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,with all your soul,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 12:28-34)

I think most people today agree with the second commandment. We reflexively grant our assent to that idea. This is because that appears to be common sense, and on the surface level, appears to be the easy one, but it’s only easy in the way that we interpret it today. The second command to "love one another" is what the modern world has kept, but we have forgotten about the first commandment to "love God." But these ideas only work if done in the right order. "Love God" has to be primary to make "love one another" work at all. I’ll try to explain what I mean.

There is a chapter in my favorite novel, The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky, called "A Lady of Little Faith." In this chapter is a story of a doctor who says, "...to my amazement, the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love individual people." The doctor adds that he would visualize the great sacrifices he might make for mankind, but in reality he admitted that he couldn't stand to be with anyone for two days without coming to hate the person, "…because he eats too slowly or keeps blowing his nose." This is reminiscent of many Seinfeld episodes, as Jerry is often driven to loathe his girlfriends for minor flaws such as: “She eats her peas one at a time,” or “She’s a low-talker,” or “She has man-hands.”

You can see this happening today, where the online individual "loves" the world. It’s declared widely and openly online. We all claim to love all people, but it's a distant and sanitized "Love one another." It is not the up-close and gritty kind of love for actual humans. It is a clean, separated, pie-in-the-sky kind of love. It is imaginary love.

In the same Dostoyevsky book is a monk named Father Zosima, who gives a response to the doctor's dilemma. The monk implies that to love humanity but hate individual people is a great bait and switch we do to ourselves to feel better. The monk says, "A true act of love, unlike imaginary love, is hard and forbidding. Imaginary love yearns for an immediate, heroic act that is achieved quickly and seen by everyone...as long as the ordeal doesn't last too long."

So what is the answer? What is the difference between the Facebook kind of "love one another" and a real "love one another"? For many people, their heroic act is seen as a vote for the “right” party, or sharing a video, or clicking “like” on certain posts. The monk explains the real difference in the next line.

"A true act of love, on the other hand, requires hard work and patience, and for some, it is a whole way of life." 

And what are the consequences of that kind of love? It is harsh. It drives you into despair. There is not usually a reward. No transaction takes place. People that enter into the true acts of love get mocked, or ostracized, or called extremists. They grow quickly tired or humiliated and want to give up. They are gossiped about. This kind of true act is not typically fun, or brief, or even uplifting. A week of volunteering can cure people of the urge to love individuals, because their volunteer effort may not be recognized, rewarded, or even acknowledged. It takes labor and can usually only be carried out by someone who seems slightly crazy to the rest of the world. Dorothy Day, servant of the poor, warned volunteers: “There are two things you should know about the poor: they tend to smell, and they are ungrateful.” This is from the same woman who poured her entire existence into helping the poor. She was warning the generic lover of humanity who came to help about the reality of what they would face in individuals, and that the utopia ideas about charity, about loving humanity, could be checked with their coats at the door.

Before I say the next sentence, let me qualify this it by saying that charity done by corporations is a wonderful thing. And now let me just say it: corporate charity that have employees volunteer for a day is an attempt at the grand imaginary act, the “immediate, heroic act that is achieved quickly and seen by everyone,” as the employees get t-shirts printed and take selfies and post on social media, so that all know that they made an effort, and they claim their honor publicly. Every corporate volunteer day I’ve been involved in is more about boosting employee morale and t-shirts than it is about entering into the suffering of individuals. Often the company name is emblazoned in self-congratulations every step of the way. And we all know it’s about the company’s public image and employee morale, not the actual act of charity. Now let me again follow my insult by saying that a great deal of money and time is given by corporations and corporate employees, which is great, but to pretend that the motive is similar to the “love one another” that Jesus speaks of is to be played by sentimental advertising and marketing, which is often internal and aimed directly at employees. Anyone with a discerning eye who has worked inside a large company can feel the blast furnace of internal propaganda regarding the mission, which is always to make the world better by selling whatever it is the company is selling. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps oil companies really do love the environment (as their ads remind us).

The monk adds that true acts of love will never be noticed, never reach the goal, and perhaps never even appear to make progress:

"...at the very moment when you see despairingly that, despite all your efforts, you have not only failed to come closer to your goal, but seem farther from it than ever - at that very moment, you will have achieved your goal and will recognize the miraculous power of our Lord, who has always loved you and has secretly guided you along."

To me, the order of Jesus’ two commandments is of the utmost importance, as I know plenty of atheists that love humanity, but simultaneously hate most individuals that they meet, especially religious people. On the flip side, I know quite a few Christians with the same problem. They love humanity as a whole, and they love individuals - but only those that love them back or agree with their worldview. I fall into this trap often, before and after I was re-converted to faith. And this is the key element of the second commandment of Jesus that goes unnoticed or ignored on purpose.

How easy it is to love a distant blob called humanity or mankind, and likewise how effortless to love someone who is a friend or lover or ally. This is not what Jesus it talking about.

To love someone who is not like you, who hates you, who disagrees with you, and has habits that you don't like, and revolts you politically or morally - this is extremely difficult. That is what Jesus is talking about. He’s not talking about loving your friends who already love you. He’s not talking about loving some distant blob of people. He’s talking about loving those near you, especially those who don’t like you.

When you attempt to love those which you loathe, you will not last long. If you must deal with a person who rubs you wrong for any extended period of time, you cannot maintain any kind of “love” without the love of God shoring up the foundations. Most people will irritate you, given enough time. Our phones and computers now provide the perfect escape for returning to the distant love of humanity, because people drive us insane. For those who enter into the gritty and thankless kind of love, I believe that the only way they can maintain it, is through the first commandment of Jesus, which is to love God. Only God can hold you fast to the idea of forgiveness and giving over of oneself to others. As we know, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and it is only through him that we can reach the kingdom of God. “You must take up your cross daily and follow me.” There is a popular phrase today which hearkens to Stoicism which states, “The only way through is through.” The problem with that is there is nothing to go “through” to reach or arrive at. But Christians know that the only way through…is indeed through, but it through the cross. The cross is where Jesus was crucified before being risen, and so must our own selves die before they can be reborn.

This is where the three rules from Word on Fire work so well in keeping us between the lines.  

* Faith: Christ must be the unwavering center of my life.

* Hope: Remember I am a sinner who needs saving.

* Charity: My life is not about me.

This neatly keeps Jesus' two commandments in the right place - and just as importantly, in the correct order. The order is critical. Love God. Love one another. I think you can "love God" without "loving one another," but I don't believe that you can truly "love one another" in the trenches of real life without loving God first. The second commandment withers and dies rather quickly if the first commandment isn’t watering and shining God’s light upon it. You can try to keep the facade of “love one another” going, but it fades, because God is the only supporting structure that can make sense of the idea. Once God is forgotten it is very easy to justify making life about yourself instead of others. You can pretend to “love mankind,” when you really don’t.

This is the struggle, and it is a struggle to keep these two rules because our instinct fights against it. Without faith, we despair in the trenches and revert back to serving the self. The answer is to fight back. That's the challenge, and following the life of Christ is the weapon. I never understood the idea of "spiritual warfare" but at the bottom, the battle is against turning back to myself, and it will never stop being a battle. To quote Dorothy Day again, she was an updated version of Dostoyevsky’s monk. And she was a real person, not imaginary, and she didn’t make t-shirts about her volunteering or take selfies and post them online. She followed the two commandments, always, and probably not perfectly, but as perfect as anyone possibly can:

“…my own sins that give me such clarity. But I cannot worry much about your sins and miseries when I have so many of my own. … My prayer from day to day is that God will so enlarge my heart that I will see you all, and live with you all, in his love.”

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