A Very Good Thing

Love your neighbour.

Sounds like a very good thing. Imagine how the world would be if we all loved our neighbour, from next door to towns to cities and countries. Wouldn’t that be better than fear your neighbour, ignore your neighbour, control your neighbour or hate your neighbour? Those all seem to be a lot of worry and work anyway, wouldn’t “love your neighbour” be worth a try?

Love’s a lot of work though, too, isn’t it. And we seem to be pretty good at those other things and we also seem to be more comfortable with them sometimes, even if we don’t like them. But those others focus on “me” and love is about “us.” And we are one. 

Here’s some thoughts about it that I get from Jesus. 

When Jesus talks about love, I think he means all kinds of love - as appropriate in the moment. Love makes us whole. The stories of Jesus feature love that’s empathetic, curious and understanding, compassionate, nurturing, full of grace, kindness and care, but I don’t think that means that romance and physical love is excluded. What’s important is that it’s true and authentic and not simply self-serving. Love’s bigger than that.

It’s this big: when asked what’s the greatest commandment, Jesus says love God with all that you are. And there’s another that’s just as important, love your neighbour as you love yourself. Everything hangs on that. (Jesus didn’t come up with this, by the way, he just put two things together. He’s quoting Hebrew scripture, from the law: the first is from Deuteronomy and the second is from Leviticus.)

God is the divine spirit of life that’s in all things, so loving God is loving your neighbour and yourself, loving yourself is loving God and your neighbour, loving your neighbour is loving yourself and God - it’s a trinity. We need all three. Everything does hang on that.

Each of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell a story of Jesus answering this question and each offers a piece of how we should love.

Mark offers the wisdom that we should live this love into the world with all that we are, sincerely and truly. Living love is more important than rituals and acts of worship.

Luke’s account follows up with answering the question “who is my neighbour?” Yes, there are two characters from different backgrounds who are meant to hate each other and one helps the other. So everyone is our neighbour, even (especially) those we might struggle to love. But it’s not just that, it’s that being a good neighbour means offering love - that’s what makes the Samaritan “good” in the story.

Matthew has Jesus remind us that offering love and being a good neighbour means seeing equity in the divine spirit that’s in all of us. We struggle to love others because that’s how we see them, as “other.” They are “them.” They are hard to love because they are different, they are hard to understand, we don’t know them, we come to fear, or even hate, them. It’s them. But it’s not just them. It’s me. Love your neighbour as yourself. We are all of God, we are all worthy of love, we are all deserving of love, just as we are. 

Sounds like a very good thing.