That’s how our pastor ended the sermon yesterday. After talking about serving like Jesus served, he said, “It’s not complicated. It’s not easy, but it’s not complicated.”

I confess. While everyone else was standing for the closing prayer, I kept writing so I would remember that.

In the class I teach on Sunday mornings and in the small group we’re part of on Saturday nights, we spent time this weekend talking about the command that Jesus repeats from the Old Testament. A teacher says, “So, rabbi, what’s the greatest command?”

(This is a repost from October 11, 2010. Thanks to Joel for this response to my request for most memorable posts of 2010.)

It’s a good question, I think. If you want to keep one, it makes sense to know what the biggest one is. If you want to start somewhere in doing what God says to do, it makes sense to know what the biggest one is.

So anyway, the teacher asks.

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

It is very possible to take what Jesus says, what he in fact quotes from a couple places in the Old Testament, and to make it very complicated. We can break it down into a study of what the heart is and what the soul is and what the mind is and what the strength is. We can talk about what might count for each of those. We can analyze what Jesus is saying about how the self is divided (or not).

But I’m pretty sure he wasn’t trying for complicated. “Throw yourself completely into loving God. “

It’s hard, not complicated.