God-Zylla’s Smile

Overcoming our anonymous atheism with love of neighbor

03/24/2017

Mark 12:28-34 One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,  with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these."

          When I was a young seminarian (with bright eyes and a bushy tail), I struggled with a theological question. I pondered the problem: should you love God first or should you love your neighbor first? Now, I know you should love God more than your neighbor (that wasn’t the question), but do you love God first, before you love your neighbor? So, I asked Fr. Robert Zylla (whom we seminarians admired deeply and whom we affectionately called “God-Zylla”) which of these two came first: God or neighbor? And he smiled (he always smiled) and answered my question with a question, asking: “What does it say in the Bible, what did Jesus say?” Luckily, I remembered today’s gospel where Jesus answers the scribe who asked our Lord the exact same question. To him Jesus had said: “The first is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.” Then Jesus goes on to add: “The second is this: You should love your neighbor as yourself.” Simple enough right?! But Fr. Zylla’s smile always made me wonder if he knew more than he was saying. His smile seemed to say the answer was not so simple.

          Now that I’m an old priest (with dim eyes and the tail often between my legs), I begin to understand what was behind God-Zylla’s smile. Yes, we must love God first, to be sure. But what if we have lost God? What if our scientific and technological minds believe God is a fable for naïve children and not for mature, sophisticated adults? What if we suspiciously think WE are God? Should we love that “God” first before we love our neighbor? And I think the answer is a resounding “No.” Why? Well, in order to love the true God – whom we’ve now lost – we have to begin by loving our neighbor. It says in 1 John 4:20: “For whoever does not love their brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” Love your neighbor first. St. Thomas Aquinas taught this in his Summa Theologica: “That which is first in the order of intention is last in the order of execution” (ST, I-IIae, Art. 1). That is, if you want to love the God whom you’ve lost (your intention), then begin by loving the neighbor in front of you (your execution). Sometimes you cannot love God until you love your neighbor first. I think that’s what was hiding behind God-Zylla’s smile: the answer is not so simple.

          My friends, I’m afraid this will sound like a very harsh judgment, but I believe our modern American culture has lost God; you and I don’t really believe in the Transcendent. I fear our culture tends to create “anonymous atheists” – people who say there is a God but don’t really believe it, and don’t really live like it. And I’m not only referring to those “professed atheists” or those who want to take the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms and classrooms. But I also believe we who are “professed Christians” have created our own “gods” (the Bible calls them “idols”) – the unholy trinity of money, sex and power – and subtly substituted them for the Holy Trinity. When we check into the hospital we say we’re “Catholic,” when we skip Sunday Mass to lie on the beach, we do not act very “Catholic.”  That’s what I mean by an “anonymous atheist.”  You’re acting like an atheist but you don’t know it.

          When you have lost the true God – and you may not even realize you have lost him – begin by loving your neighbor first, whom you have not lost. This is why Pope Francis insists on loving the poor and marginalized in society: the poor whom we see will help us to find again the true God whom we cannot see. That’s why we do our annual Honduras mission trip: not only to open our eyes to the plight of the poor, but also to open our eyes to the presence of God. How many men have “found religion” only after they have “found a beautiful girl” to marry? Now, that’s really loving your neighbor! Loving our neighbor must sometimes come first, before we can love the true God. Loving our neighbor helps us stop loving the false gods.

          Now, when people ask me seemingly simple questions, like which is the first commandment, I reply with a question: “What does it say in the Bible? What did Jesus say?” And then I smile.

          Praised be Jesus Christ!