And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. -- Matthew 22:37-39
Why didn’t Jesus tell us to love God as we love
ourselves? Our love toward God is based
on God’s goodness. We love God in
obedience. We love God in adulation and
adoration. We love God based on
knowledge, i.e., with all the mind, through revelation, with all of the
soul. God is deserving of love. Apart from God, humanity would have no love,
only protective instincts, something that evolved to preserve the species and propagate our selfish genes.
Why then did the Lord say we are to love our neighbors as we
love ourselves? I don’t love myself
because I deserve love. I don’t love
myself because I am good, not even because I am better than other people. I know my faults. I may think I’m smarter than some other
people, smarter even than some Nobel Laureates and graduates of Harvard and
Yale. But I know a lot of other people
who are smarter than I am, so I don’t love myself because of my intelligence,
my athletic ability, my rugged good looks, the size of my biceps, or any of my
many and varied skills.
I love myself “in spite of”.
I can’t really help it. Sure,
there are times when I screw up so monumentally that I say I hate myself, but I
say that because I love myself and I am deeply disappointed in how I hosed
things. If I really hated myself I would
rejoice in my own failures – and I have had plenty of opportunities. That’s not the same as wallowing in
self-pity, which some of us are prone to do.
That’s what Jesus means.
You love your neighbors in spite of their imperfections, in spite of the
fact that they sometimes hurt you or offend you or mistreat you. You love your neighbors when they persecute
you and reject you, when they strip you naked, beat you, and hang you on a
cross to die, suffocated by your paralyzed chest muscles. You love your neighbor whether his boots are
plastic or full-quill ostrich. You love
your neighbor when his clothes are second-hand and his hygiene is bad and when
his wife carries a Coach bag that cost more than your car.
One of the great lessons I learned was from my friend,
Eddie. Eddie had money, and he loved
good cars. He drove the most expensive
Cadillac available, paid cash for it. Nothing
wrong with foreign cars if you’re a foreigner, that was his view. But somebody could drive up in a new car of
any kind, and he was just as happy and excited for that person as he would have
been for himself. “I love to see my brothers
and sisters driving nice cars,” he would say.
He loved his neighbor as he loved himself.
Jesus wants us to use His Golden Rule as the starting
point. Treat others the way you want
them to treat you. That is a good
beginning in the natural realm. When we
step into the spiritual realm, when we begin to “rejoice with those who rejoice”
even as we “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:5), we begin to see that there is no distance or
distinction in Christ because the very same Holy Spirit, the very same Person,
the very same God dwells in and gives life to each and every one of us.
Thus we come to understand what John says in his first epistle: If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
5 comments:
When we step into the spiritual realm, when we begin to “rejoice with those who rejoice” even as we “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:5), we begin to see that there is no distance or distinction in Christ because the very same Holy Spirit, the very same Person, the very same God dwells in and gives life to each and every one of us.
I'm reminded of the process of empathetic mirroring, the natural process whereby we react in accord with another person. In a sense, it is a process of taking the other into ourselves, sharing in joys and sorrows. If we can't do it on the most minimal level (as many seem unable to do; thinking of some of the tortures mentioned that were "normal" in the past), how can we ever stand to meet God face to face?
I think it even goes to animals. Proverbs 12:10 says, "Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel."
I have no use for the Humane Society because they are always sticking their nose into business that isn't theirs, and they have no respect for property rights. But it makes me sick to see animals suffer needlessly.
I don't think animals suffer in the same way or to the same degree that a human does. I can kill an animal for food or other reasons; nevertheless, I always feel bad when I do it, and I try my best to make it as quick and painless as possible.
Excellent post, Dwaine. You and Julie made good wisecracks.
Empathy can be a tricky thing. We must empathize The way God instructs us rather than corrupt empathy that enable victim hood and shared envy.
I can never understand why some people enjoy hurting other people or animals.
Patti felt the same way. And that's a good thing, not being able to understand that kind of darkness.
That's not to sat I haven't hurt people myself, but I never did it intentionally, except in self defense or to stop people from hurting others.
I don't believe Jesus wants is to turn the other cheek when it comes to defending the weak, or relatively weak from cruelty.
I dunno, maybe I'm wrong but I'm hard wired that way. I Have a sheepdog mentality.
I haven't saved lots of people like Chris Kyle did but that's not for want of trying.
That doesn't mKe me hero, far from it. It's just a big part of who I am.
Thankfully, there's lots of sheepdogs out there or we wouldn't have any liberty to enjoy,
Not only those in the military, cops or firemen, but others who weren't called to do those jobs.
That is, IMO empathy done right because it's justified.
Of course that includes praying, crying, laughing and just bein there for our sisters And brothers.
And that's just as important.
At least that's what I strive to do...
That’s what Jesus means. You love your neighbors in spite of their imperfections, in spite of the fact that they sometimes hurt you or offend you or mistreat you.
That was insightful. Sure, I always forgive myself. I should do the same for others.
There is the rare exception when your neighbor is an existential threat but for 99.99% of your life that is simply not the case.
I do definitely fail on this commandment though. I hate the "other" too easily. I think I enjoy it too much. But then this probably is based on fear that the "other" will get those goodies that are entitled to me. So, part of it stems from a lack of faith that God will give me my daily bread.
/ramble off
Neighbor from hell. I've probably been called that a few times.
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