Worship - 25 October 2026

Summary Of This Week's Theme

There are not many permanent springs of water in Menorca, and fewer now that climate change has brought months and years of drought. But where springs remain, they illustrate something important.

The water rises cold and clear, spilling over and running down channels into the surrounding ground. The ground doesn’t have to beg for water. It stays moist because the source keeps providing.

A spring helps us understand Jesus’ first and greatest commandment: love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus doesn’t ask us to manufacture love out of thin air. He points us towards its source. Love God deeply, and that love begins to overflow into the kitchen, the hospital bedside, or the conversation after a difficult meeting.

Notice that the spring doesn’t hold back its water to protect itself. Yet we often guard our time and generosity, afraid of being drained. Perhaps, when loving our neighbours feels exhausting, we need to check the spring first. Prayer, Scripture and the life of the Spirit can refresh us, enabling God’s love to flow through us.

Interestingly, the Greek word Matthew uses for both kinds of love is agape. The two commandments cannot be separated. Any supposed love of God that despises or neglects our neighbour contradicts the very love it claims to profess. Jesus had already extended the meaning of neighbour to include even our enemies.

And loving our neighbour as ourselves is no invitation to self-neglect. Jesus calls us to neither self-indulgence nor self-abuse, but to recognise the dignity of ourselves and others alike. In the world of Jesus, love was demonstrated through action: treating people with respect and showing compassion, rather than merely talking about it.

That challenge extends beyond individual acts of kindness. We have helped create a world in which the odds are stacked against the poor. Loving God with all we have means bringing our voices, our resources and our political influence to bear in seeking justice and reconciliation.

Augustine of Hippo famously wrote, “Love, and do what you will.” He wasn’t suggesting that anything goes. He meant that when our hearts are rooted in genuine love, our actions will seek the good of others. Whether we speak, correct, forgive or remain silent, love must be our motive.

Jesus doesn’t offer us a checklist to obey while our hearts remain cold. He invites us to draw deeply from the spring of God’s love, until that love overflows into the lives of others.

The question is not simply whether we love God, but whether the world around us is being watered by that divine love, channelled through us.