The Bible insists that we love our neighbors and also commands that we love our enemies. Paradoxically, they are often the same people; and annoyingly and ruthlessly, the Good Book further commands that we love the unlovable. A pilgrim’s progress is, indeed, crooked and steep.
Love, as Jesus teaches in 1 Corinthians 13:13, is the greatest of Commandments, or laws. However, all Great and Big Laws are soon accompanied by lots of little laws. That’s why God’s pack mule, Religion, and Religion’s factotum Denominations, vigorously assure that no stone is unturned in the matter of defining what Love “is.”
Bill Clinton, drawing on his Baptist roots, shed some light on the meaning of “is” when describing whether or not he engaged in sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” Clinton said. “If ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not – that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”
The President’s helpful clarification may have obscured a few who what and where details, but it certified that “is” is a pretty action oriented nonstandard reduplicative copula and Boy Howdy you don’t want that on your permanent record. So, what “is” Love, say, in the case of a lazy bum, a case where you “Love the bum, but hate the laziness?”
Application of the Big Law “is” lunch for the bum, referral to a job, and a smile, albeit tired. Application of the Big Law’s little laws “is” telling him he’s lazy, that laziness is an abomination, that he’ll burn in hell forever unless he goes to work, and that it “is” his responsibility to get off his lazy rump and find a job.
And so, another riddle for Christians to muddle through: can little laws have any authority, or even exist, outside the “is” of the Big Laws?