“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” If he is the way, where does it lead? To the Father, obviously. It cannot be a long way: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” To emerge from the metaphor: what is the way that he is? “To keep my commandments.” What are they? “My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” The Jewish law counted 613 commandments: to keep them all was essential; to keep them all was impossible. An imperative that is both essential and impossible generates the greatest possible degree of stress. What replaced them? “To love your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.” And: “To love your neighbour as yourself.” Simple. All he asks is everything. And yet, supposedly this is a light burden and an easy yoke. How can that be?
The first one is the biggie, even if we usually think only of the second one. And it bothers us. How, if you are not a saint, can you love God? Assuming, that is, that He exists. Can you love a Supreme Being who lets tsunamis drown thousands and who lets grown men and women torture 3-year-olds? Well, shall we for moment stop blaming him for what we, as humans, do? Think differently. “Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.” Think of the sunset’s afterglow on mountain tops in clear cold air. Think of the robin’s beady eye outside your winter window, waiting for breadcrumbs. Think of the surprising smile and kindness of an overworked hospital nurse. Think of the gaunt medic, always helping one more bomb victim with the last of his own strength. Hints, just hints. But hints of that glory that fills the earth as, we are told, it fills heaven. And if we learn to see them as the gifts they are, we may learn to love the giver. After a long life with a heart turned, and tuned, to heaven Josef Ratzinger’s last words were “Signore, ti amo”.
Loving your neighbour as yourself is only apparently easier. It may be your mother-in-law, your boss, your teenager, the guy across the street or the Head of State. First, remember that (s)he is only, for present purposes, your neighbour if s(he) actually enters your daily life. The story he told to illustrate the question is that of the traveller left robbed and bleeding by brigands by the side of the road. A priest came by, saw him, and muttered, “Sorry, but I’m late for Mass” and hurried on. A Levite came by, saw him, and thought, “Oh no, if I stop and help him with all that nasty blood I’ll have to spend a whole day or week re-purifying myself for the Temple service,” and hurried on. Then a foreign businessman came by and saw him. He stopped, got the first aid kit out of his car and did some careful disinfecting and bandaging. He put the man into the passenger seat and drove him to the nearest inn (this was before cell phones), and left him with the landlord, saying “Do what needs doing for him, I’ll pay for everything when I come back next week.” And, leaving a wedge of cash on account, he went off and continued his business trip.
Come to think of it, this is a startlingly unromantic story. The businessman did not go into floods of sympathetic tears; he did not get converted and start an NGO for helping battered travellers; he did the minimum and went on with is life. That teaches us something about that second commandment. It doesn’t ask for your heart and soul: it asks for you to DO something when you stumble upon a need that you can do something about. Perhaps that is what he meant when he talked about light yokes. When all is temporarily well with you, remember to be thankful. When you turn a corner and see a need, do what you can. That’s all; but that is also everything.
It’s part of the way. It’s part of the truth. It’s part of the life. Once you are on the way, you are in the truth, and you have the life. [And if you want the whole vast and cosmic giant echo to your little charcoal-burner’s day, you are on the way to the Father, you are in the truth of the Son, and you have the life of the Holy Spirit. Signore, ti amo.]
Image: Duccio di Buoninsegna (Siena, d. 1319), Jesus Teaching the Disciples
