Last week we heard St. Paul tell us to worship God with our whole life (cf. Rm 12:1-2). That’s the first commandment: love of God. Now we hear him telling us to love our neighbour: the second commandment. Actually in the three verses we read just now Paul said that three times.
This is all very simple, and exactly according to the teaching of the Lord Himself, as reported by St. Matthew, and St. Mark, and St. Luke, and St. John. Simple, but definitely not bland.
We’re now in Chapter 13 of Romans: that is, in the part devoted to moral exhortation. Just before the verses we read today, St. Paul had been saying we should be good citizens. We should obey the laws of the land, pay our taxes, not engage in any criminal or grossly immoral behaviour. Is that enough? Does that fulfil the obligations of Christian behaviour? Of course not! So now Paul moves to sum up his teaching so far: to hit us with the full implications of our faith, without pulling any punches.
He says we have a debt to pay, which is love. We owe this to God and to our neighbour, and we are bound to pay it at all times. And to do this, he says here twice, is the fulfilment or the completion of the law.
It’s a big pity that our translation obscures this point about fulfilling the law, which for Paul is fundamental. We can only understand what he is saying here by referring to the rest of Romans, and particularly to the first Chapter. There we read that no one fulfils God’s law, neither Jew nor gentile. Now Paul is saying that those who are in Christ, those who possess his Spirit, those who love, as Jesus loves - as they know Jesus first loved them - whether they are Jews or gentiles: such people both can and do fulfil the law. In them all God’s purposes from the beginning are accomplished. They live according to God’s will. They live in a state of friendship with God. In them God is well pleased, and with them he shares his glory.
Of course we all have to keep the 10 commandments, because breaking them clearly demonstrates that we do not love. Paul mentions that here, en passant, because some people, then and now, fail to grasp that elementary and obvious point. But we Christians don’t live merely according to rules and obligations, or according to whatever minimal standards we think we can get away with. We live according to the Spirit. And precisely because of that, we are free from the detailed ritual laws of the Old Testament. They are no longer necessary, because what they pointed towards, what of themselves they could not achieve, is now accomplished.
How do we live according to love? How do we love our neighbour, as we are obliged to do? Please don’t think this is simply a matter of being nice, and having a generally benevolent attitude. Far less is it a matter of indulging in pious sentimentality, and staying out of trouble. No: to love is to do what Jesus did. We can only do that if we have died with him, and risen with him; if we live his life, and possess his Spirit; if we walk always in him, and in his Spirit. To love our neighbour; that is to say, to fulfil the moral obligation that binds all of us Christians, we have to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We have to be his true disciples. We have to come to him, and learn from him, and receive from him. Doing that we will love everyone, even those who hate us and persecute us. We will love them as if naturally, spontaneously; driven as we are by the love of Jesus Christ our Lord, and by the power of his Holy Spirit; filled with gratitude for what he has done for us, and looking forward in joy to our heavenly reward.