37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Or, love God, and love other people. These are not complicated laws, but they can be extremely hard to follow. Especially that second one, about love other people. People, as a rule, are unlovable, at least part of the time. The commandment does not make any qualifications or exceptions, though. Love they neighbor as thyself. Love the neighbor whose dog uses your lawn as a latrine. Love the neighbor who steals your newspaper. Love the woman who cuts you off in traffic. Love the man who takes the last box of Cheerios off the shelf just as you were reaching for it. Love the Muslim on the bus. Love the kid with so many tattoos and piercings you wonder if his own mother would recognize him. Love your own child who has made serious mistakes. Love the two men holding hands in the theater. Love the ragged, dirty person asking you for a dollar. Love the cashier who wishes you happy holidays instead of merry Christmas, or the opposite. Love the face looking back at you from the mirror. Love the young mother whose kids are creating havoc in Walmart. Love the people from Iraq, Japan, Australia, Mexico, and India.
Love them all. Don't just love them in theory. Love them in practice. Help them. Offer substance and succor. Freely give time and money to these and other neighbors. Make eye contact. Smile. Share your sandwich. Jesus lived on earth among these very same people, and he loved them all. He touched them, healed them, gave them time and attention, knew them for the people they were and loved them anyway.
I believe the commandment, in it's smallest form, can be safely interpreted as, "Don't be a jerk." Be nice to people. All people. Don't be a jerk.
Love the ones who don't love you. Love the ones that have been unkind to you. Love the ones that are openly malicious toward you (don't necessarily give them your time, though). Love the ones that accuse you of terrible crimes, of which you are innocent.
ReplyDeleteJesus encountered these people and situations, too. He loved those people, too. Incredibly, he still saw them as people of intrinsic worth, independent of their words and actions.
There will be some people that are not easy to love. It is not always a case of just overcoming prejudice or natural aversion. In some cases, it is they who are being the jerk.
Love the jerks, too.
Exactly, Todd. Matthew 5:44
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