Loving My Neighbor

 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” (Mark 10:36-37)

The one who had mercy - that's the definition of loving our neighbor. It is a love that is active. Practical. Inclusive. It is a love that gives up something of value for the sake of the other. It will consume our time. It will require that we show respect and compassion. It requires looking beyond, and putting aside, differences and instead looking squarely to the humanity, the imago dei, of the other.

Woof. This was a Word for me this morning.

I want "loving my neighbor" to be an abstract, woowoo kind of love that doesn't require much of me other than to "pray for them" -- to talk about them in quiet, concerned tones in my circle of friends at church or in Bible studies or around coffee shop tables -- with folks that are mostly like me. THAT is not love, according to Jesus. 

I want "loving my neighbor" to be spouting "the truth" on social media about them. THAT is not love, according to Jesus.

I want "loving my neighbor" to somehow include laws that dictate and leveraging power that pushes those I disagree with to the margins - or out all together. THAT is not love, according to Jesus.

I want "loving my neighbor" to leave space for casting dispersions, for judgement, for accusation. THAT is not love, according to Jesus.

I've heard my whole life, in bits and pieces, about the age old animosity between Jews and Samaritans and how Jesus was disrupting the status quo by making a Samaritan the hero of the story -- but the edges are always softened when we start looking for ways to make it practical today. It. Was. Radical. To many of His listeners, it was heretical. There was nothing soft-edged or even safe about the way Jesus crafted and told this story.

Who is my Samaritan? Who is your Samaritan? Who is almost beyond redemption in your mind? Whose sin, in my mind (in yours) does Jesus hate the most? THAT'S our neighbor.

Active. Practical. Inclusive. Respectful. Compassionate. Disruptive. Time consuming. Resource consuming. 

THAT is loving our neighbor, according to Jesus.

Learning From Job

I've been reading Job of late. In the past, this has been a tough book for me, but in the last few years, I've grown to appreciate it. As I've read this time, I've spent a little more time sitting with Job in his grief. I suppose just the act of staying alive for enough years will help us to acknowledge the reality of grief and the ways it wrecks us -- and eventually comes for us all. Job did not try to get through this with a lot of positive thinking. He did not look for silver linings. He did not ask for "good vibes only". He did not consider angels getting their wings. He wept. He mourned. He screamed at the heavens. He demanded (though he did not get) answers from God. He walked unimaginable grief out and through with honesty and transparency. And he did not take any crap from his "well-meaning" friends.

I've also spent time listening to what his friends had to say, once they decided that simply being present with Job in his grief was not enough (Spoiler alert: it was enough). They are just packed full of wisdom, aren't they? (*still needing that sarcasm font*). I think one of the things that has always bothered me about this book is just how much of what his friends spout sounds eerily similar to things Christians still spout today when confronted with the trauma and tragedy of others. It is so easy for us to "speak the truth" without stopping to consider that we just might be wrong this time - without stopping to consider that our words are ripping open fresh wounds again and again - without stopping to consider that we are. not. God. 

"Speak the truth in love." -- I cannot even count the number of times I've heard this verse quoted only to be followed by words that do not, in fact, speak or show any love, but are rather an excuse to shut down a conversation or put someone "in their place". I'm quite certain I have been among the numbered guilty. When our words alienate, when they kill conversations and relationships, when they are where curiosity and imagination go to die, when they isolate others rather than bringing them in, we've become "friends of Job" and are truly no friends at all.

I'll stop with words I read today from the lips of Job: If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom. Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.

If only.