It's as Simple as That

Scripture: 2 John 5 – “But now, dear lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing you a new commandment but one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another.” (NRSVUE)

There is something to be said for simplicity. After all, I think most of us have heard of the principle of KISS: keep it simple, stupid! This week I want to look at that Second Letter of John, the second shortest book in the entire Bible. As you might expect, this short book has a very simple message, which can be summarized in one word: love.

The letter was written to an unknown church leader known as the “elect lady”. The author, who is not identified either, reminds her of the most important commandment, the first one she ever heard, “let us love one another.” The author was afraid that she and her church had forgotten why this was important.

Apparently, there were a group of “deceivers” or “antichrists” who had been preaching that Jesus had not come in the flesh. These were likely an early form of Gnostics. Many Gnostics, so called because they believed that knowledge of divine truths was what brought salvation, thought that flesh was inherently evil and spirit the only good. For Jesus to be perfect, therefore, he could not have been a human but only seemed to be.

I agree with the author of the letter for two reasons. The first is that in denying that Jesus had come in the flesh, the deceivers deny that Jesus came to show solidarity with human suffering. It is one thing to be told that God is an omnipotent force of love and mercy, but it is another to experience that God was willing to suffer along with us to remind us that we are never alone. Jesus is our Immanuel: God with us.

The second reason is that these deceivers were making the message of Jesus confusing. They had to invent all sorts of systems to explain what was holy and what wasn’t and why you needed to understand this complicated and arcane idea to be saved. Nonsense, says the letter. All you need is love, to follow that simple commandment. The more complicated a theology is, the easier it is to find loopholes that can allow you to hate those who don’t fit. But if you see your faith through the lens of “love one another”, a lot of those hateful teachings fall away.

This week don’t overthink things when it comes to faith. Don’t make excuses or dig up random verses that give you permission to ignore the cries of the suffering. Our Immanuel didn’t. Remember the simple faith you learned from the beginning, the lesson of love. Walk in the commandment, and you will find not only Jesus but others will walk beside you until all know the love of God.

Prayer: God, let me obey your simplest and sometimes hardest commandment and be a force of love in the world. Amen.