Is Love of Neighbour Optional?

Mark 12:26-31

26.  Now about the dead rising - have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him,  'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob'?

27.  He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.  You are badly mistaken!"  

28.  One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.  Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

29.  "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this:  Hear, O Isreal:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

30.  Love the Lord our God with all your heart and with all your soul [heart] and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

31.  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.” 

Therefore, in God's eyes, there is no them and us, as would be quite apparent if we have truly experienced the love of God.  Thereby, understand the application of the commandment from God of love of neighbour.

First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out;
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out;
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews /Muslims, and I did not speak out;
Because I was not a Jew/Muslim.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.  Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the above quotation.  In 1963, in a West German television interview, there is some belief that Niemöller acknowledges and made a statement of regret about his own antisemitism.  Nonetheless, Martin Niemöller was one of the earliest Germans to talk publicly about the broader complicities of the Holocaust and guilt for what had happened to the Jews.  In his book Über die Deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung (published in English as Of Guilt and Hope) - which appeared in January 1946 -Niemöller wrote: "Thus, whenever I chance to meet a Jew known to me before, then, as a Christian, I cannot but tell him: 'Dear Friend, I stand in front of you, but we can not get together, for there is guilt between us.  I have sinned and my people has sinned against thy people and against thyself.'"

Those who sincerely desire to be taught their duty, Christ will guide in judgment, and teach his way.  He tells the scribe that the great commandment, which indeed includes all, is, that of loving God with all our hearts.  Wherever this is the ruling principle in the soul, there is a disposition to every other duty. Loving God with all our heart will engage us to every thing by which he will be pleased.  The sacrifices only represented the atonements for men's transgressions of the moral law; they were of no power except as they expressed repentance and faith in the promised Saviour, and as they led to moral obedience.  And because we have not thus loved God and man, but the very reverse, therefore we have condemned sinners; we need repentance, and we need mercy.  Christ approved what the scribe said, and encouraged him. He stood fair for further advance; for this knowledge of the law leads to a conviction of sin, to repentance, to a discovery of our need of mercy, and understanding the way of justification by Christ.  

A commandment is a rule to be observed as strictly as one of the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:1-17

1. And God spoke all these words, saying,
2. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery
3. “You shall have no other gods before me.
4. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 
5. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 
6. but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7. “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
9. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, 
10. but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 
11. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12. “Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
13. “You shall not murder.
14. “You shall not commit adultery.
15. “You shall not steal.
16. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.
17. “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house.  You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”