You have likely heard that statement before.
‘To love thy neighbor as thyself’ was the other half of Jesus’ stunning response to the religious leaders of the day who were trying to test Him: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Mt 22:37-40).
One law summed up in two statements. On the subject of love? God IS love. He loved us first. He not only asks us to love Him back, He asks to be the first on the Must-Love list. And by loving God, the natural progression is to extend that love to others. But if we don’t have love inside ourselves to begin with, how can we love others? Or worse, what if we exclude those whom we do not want to love or to associate with?
When I was growing up, Mr. Danny was a long-time family friend and a regular fixture at my parents’ restaurant. He was often called upon by my dad for random odd jobs that required some heavy lifting or to share a fishing trip with.
I still remember fondly my childhood next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Green. They were an exceedingly nice couple who loved to chat with my parents over garden projects or the news of the day, quick with a wave or a hello even while busily mowing their lawn.
On the first day of high school English class, a shy girl named Heddie sat next to me and we instantly developed a friendship that would take us laughing and goofing off through much of our high school career.
What did people like Mr. Danny, the Greens and Heddie had in common? They represented people of every race, color, nationality, and religion who brought diversity and new cultural experiences into my world. They were my classmates, neighbors, colleagues, customers, friends, acquaintances, even the people who bagged my groceries. They also shared my joys, sorrows, and fears. In other words, we were connected by our humanity, not defined by our differences.
As Toni Morrison once said, “There is no such thing as race … There is just a human race — scientifically, anthropologically.”
Sadly, just as the coronavirus pandemic continued to significantly alter the way of life for much of the world, there was another kind of “virus” that was starting to rear its ugly head on our corner of the world: the sin of racism, discrimination, and indifference.
Before His death on the cross, Jesus told His followers: ‘I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34).
What God asks of us here is to love as He has loved us. He did not say, however, that this was going to be easy. What will it take to establish a kingdom of heaven here on earth, where all of God’s people can co-exist in peace and in brotherly love, to extend compassion and tolerance for each other?
Throughout His public ministry, Jesus repeatedly demonstrated what love for others looked like: He spent time in the company of sinners, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, raised the dead, fed the five thousand, and forgave those who ridiculed and persecuted Him even as He was being crucified as an innocent man on the cross for our sins. Jesus essentially went where no man wanted to go or wanted to be with.
The teaching of the Church is very clear when it comes to what is rightfully due to each individual person: … the “respect for the human person” means to “look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as ‘another self’” (CCC 1931). The call for neighborly love “and actively serving them becomes even more urgent when it involves the disadvantaged” (CCC 1932), the poor and the needy. We were created in the image of God “and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin” (CCC 1934). “The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it: every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights … must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God’s design” (CCC 1935). Our differences as people are part of God’s plan who desires us to need each other and to encourage charity towards one another (CCC 1937).
Jesus taught us to unite and be in communion with each other, to respond with love and compassion towards those who act or think differently than us, to be inclusive, to forgive offenses, and to respect the dignity of every person, regardless of the color of their skin.
Jesus’ commandment “to love one another” unconditionally and without reservation (agape love) is what He demands of us; it is both a command and a challenge. He invites us to see Him in every person we encounter, especially in the poor, the needy, and the forgotten, the people He most identified with.
In his homily on the first World Day of the Poor, Pope Francis said, “To love the poor means to combat all forms of poverty, spiritual and material. And it will also do us good. Drawing near to the poor in our midst will touch our lives. It will remind us of what really counts: to love God and our neighbor. Only this lasts forever, everything else passes away.”
My friends, as I ponder over all that Jesus asks of us here, it is His preaching of the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount that is front and center on my mind. These eight teachings, when accepted with faith, are not about what we should do, but what we should be: people of charity. The Catechism points these teachings of Jesus as “the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts” (CCC 1719).
Therefore, to truly live for God in today’s world, we must look out for our neighbor (whether friend or stranger), to put aside our past judgements and experiences, and to acknowledge our brothers and sisters for who they really are –- people of dignity and worthy of respect who were created in the image of God and in His love.
As members of the same Body of Christ, let us unite in our fellowship and our shared faith with the one true God. May we respond to the grace of an open heart and mind and to love and respect one another as Jesus implored. Let us willingly share God’s abundant love with all whom we encounter, regardless of our differences, culture, and the color of our skin.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash