I developed an "itch" over something in last Sunday's Gospel reading, and I need to scratch it. Matthew 22:37-40 may be the most familiar of all Gospel texts, and may be (rightly or wrongly) seen as central to Christian morality.
The one word in the text that lit a spark for me was "like": as in "... and the second is LIKE it." I've been learning the value of going deep on the ideas in Scripture that stand out. The more obvious in this whole passage would be the word "love". The Greek word that Matthew uses is 'agapao', which we, of course, recognize as unconditional love, moral love, or Godly love.
So I went deep on "like". The Greek word there is 'homoios', meaning similar in appearance or character. I'm wondering if the similarity that Jesus is pointing out in these two pieces of the Law is more than we give Him credit for. What might it mean to us if this similarity were thought of as "nearly identical" instead of "seems sort of alike"?
If we see our love of God and our love of our neighbor/self as nearly identical loves, and if we form our lives around that, we may be experiencing the creation in the way God intended, as described in Genesis 1:31 - "... it was very good".
