"Which commandment is the first of all?" 29 Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' 31 The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
Committing ourselves to what Jesus called the Greatest Commandments -- loving God and neighbor -- is at the center of what it means to be a progressive Christian -- a center that is not de-centered by Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, or Einstein.
Pragmatism
In response to the reality of pluralism and the existence of progressive Christianity, I am increasingly coming to believe that what we need is not more people who believe something about Jesus competing against people that believe other things about the Qur'an or the Buddha or Science. Instead, we need more people acting like Jesus by embodying a passionate commitment to God's way of love and mercy, justice and grace in this time and place. Accordingly, my third and final theme ofpragmatism centers on actual, historical examples of people and communities who have made God's dreams a reality, if only locally, regionally, or provisionally.
As some have joked, Christianity is not about "20 impossible things to believe before breakfast." Instead, Christianity is a set of practices that cultivate habits of loving God and neighbor. These practices help form a community of faith called the church that is centered on God's ways of love and mercy, justice and grace.
The traditional Christian way of loving God is contemplative prayer: setting aside time and space each day to spend in God's loving presence. Jesus often withdrew from the crowds to spend time alone with God. The traditional Christian way of loving others are the works of mercy as named by Jesus in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned. The "Great Commandment" practices of loving God and neighbor are how Christians have sought to live as citizens of the kingdom of God. Indeed, it is not until the eleventh chapter of the book of Acts -- after Jesus' Ascension -- that the "disciples were first called 'Christians.'" Until then, the disciples of Jesus were simply called "followers of the Way" -- that is, people who tried to practice ways of loving God and neighbor the same way that Jesus did.
One of the earliest examples is the church at Jerusalem, which is described at the end of the second chapter of the book of Acts. In response to the example of Jesus' life and their first-hand experience with God at Pentecost,
44 [they] were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts.
We see similar examples from the 4th century with the desert Mothers and Fathers and the early monastic communities; in the Middle Ages with Waldensians, the Beguines, and the Franciscans; and today with the New Monastic Communities like the Simple Way in Philadelphia, Church of the Sojourners in San Francisco, Rutba House in Durham, North Carolina, and The Open Door in Atlanta -- as well as the L'Arche Communities founded by Jean Vanier, the Catholic Worker Houses founded by Dorothy Day, and the Christian Peacemaker Teams from the Mennonite Tradition. Each of these communities, both historical and contemporary, demonstrate that kingdom of God is not just a dream; it is a practical, pragmatic way of transforming your life in this world through relationship with God and neighbor.
The hope demonstrated by Jesus, and these individuals and groups - who incarnated the way of Jesus in their own time and place -- is that we do not have to respond to de-centerings with nihilism, apathy, or despair. Instead, our invitation every moment of every day is, again and again, to reaffirm our person and communal commitment to God's way of love and justice, mercy and grace as revealed in the life of Jesus. What, then, is your answer at this moment -- in this life -- to Jesus' call to "follow me"?
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