The Kingdom Within

Michiel Peeters - “Which is the first of all the commandments?” To get a better sense of the scope of this question, let us call to mind that the Law, the commandments God had given his people, were the heart of Jewish religion. At Jesus’s time, those commandments had been elaborated in as many as 613 rules and statutes, so that sometimes one could not see the ox through the trees. Thus, scribes as well as others who were genuinely interested in the meaning of life and religion, typically discussed on the importance and ranking of those commandments.

If we would translate the scribe’s question into more contemporary terms, we could compare it to the restless inquiry of 19th-century Protestant theologians into the “essence of Christianity” or the search by 20th-century thinkers into the “nucleus of religion.” Both then and now, this led to endless, mostly entirely theoretical discussions with an equally endless array of hypothetical answers: the heart of religion is hope, peace, charity, dealing with fear, eternal life, liberation from sin, meaning to suffering, a better society, patriotism, fixed rituals… Anyway, the question is: what is the heart of religion, what is the meaning of life? That the scribe asks that pressing question to Jesus—a man of no rank or station— indicates that in His presence he recognizes something that could really help him. And Jesus answers: “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.” The goal of the Law, the goal of religion, the goal of Christ, is that we should perceive, experience, know, and love, with all our humanity, with everything we are, the Mystery, the One who makes us in this very moment, our Destiny, God. Religion’s task is to enable us to freely live the relationship with the Mystery. Christ has come to teach us that relationship, by living it with us, in front of us.

Those who have experienced it, those who have—at least once—lived freely the relationship with the Infinite, who have permitted their reason to go all the way until arriving at the “You” that is the deep implication of every impact with reality—if we do not block what it provokes in us—can tell that it is a liberation: a genuine “loving oneself.” Indeed, someone who does not make himself can only love himself by loving his Origin. Accepting ourselves, by accepting that we are made, and accepting our Maker, is the beginning of true, liberating self-love.

And this genuine self-love, enables me to realize that the person next to me has fundamentally the same problem as I have. Then I look at him with compassion. Which is the second commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” When Jesus saw that the scribe understood what he meant, he says to him: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Which certainly means: you are beginning to feel the problem of life, hence entering the depth of reality. At the same time, it is also as if Jesus is telling him: “Can it not be that you dare to ask this question to me, that this desire of yours, expressed in your question, emerges strongly in My presence, because here somehow you perceive the kingdom of God—reality lived in its truth—already realized? If so, what does this mean for your question?
The author has not revised the translation.
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