Loving thy Neighbors

And, so we quote this greatest commandment quite a lot ...

"you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

I hear these words very often, and they seem to be at the root of much of our Christian Ethics, as I guess they should be. Loving our neighbors as we love our selves.

Well, it gets tricky here ... ours is a culture that lifts up the self, we have magazine racks and self-help sections of bookstores full of advice for our "selves," and we hear the advice that we should be "Getting the Love we Deserve," and that we should be proactive, stand up for ourselves, advocate for our best position - salary and all that ... In the church, we hear these terms of "self care" which, to me, is a good thing - clergy, and everyone, should take care of our selves - however, the tricky thing is that when we privilege self-care, we forget that what Jesus called us to do is to not only love our selves, but love our neighbors as our selves. LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS, as we love our selves. Here is where the bookstores are of little help, there are no sections on "How to care for your neighbor," "How to offer hospitality to the stranger," "How to do small things for others," "How to transform your self-orientation to an 'other-orientation.' "

Actually, there is a book that outlines some of these practices, and it is a very old book, telling the Old Old Story of God's hospitality to the Israelites in the Desert, God's gift of a covenant, God's gift of the Law, God's gift of making a People, rather than individuals. It is a story of God's love that so overflowed that God sent his Son as a gift to the world. And, this son perhaps practiced some self-care in going to the desert to commune with his Abba (father), but Jesus spent far more time doing "other-care" than "self-care," ... and far more time hanging out with a group of loyal (mostly) but clueless (mostly) followers, and hanging out with those in society that were no one's neighbors.

As I look at this passage, I wonder if churches could take a whole season - perhaps Advent (when too much focus can be on commercialism), and just preach, discuss, and act on this saying - love the Lord, Love the Neighbor, Love the self (in that order).

Naaah, I am talking crazy ... ( Jesus must have been talking metaphorically. ;))