Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

This morning Bill and I were talking about politics and some what-ifs in light of all that is happening in both our country and our state at the moment.

The more we talked the more I thought about how we are supposed to live together as God would have us. Jesus said “love your neighbor as yourself.” You will remember when asked who one’s neighbor is, he told the story of the “Good Samaritan” – the Jews most hated neighbors. Paul repeats this admonition in several of his letters and James picks up the theme as well. Must be important!

Many folks in the United States like to call us a Christian Nation but I see very few living out this ever so simple, but ever so complex commandment of Christ’s.

I have naively thought that the current “hard times” might draw us closer together as neighbors, but it seems to have made people more self-centered than ever. I suppose that is the “natural” course of events with humankind – when our “stuff” is threatened, we tend to hug it closer and become more guarded and protective of what is ours.

But what if, what if we did our best to live as Christ said we must? What if we did our best to love our neighbor as we love ourselves?

There is both great value in being the “united states” that our country is, and great stress.

We only have to barely glance at Europe to realize that commerce, transportation, communication and a very long list of other things are so much easier when there are only state lines to cross rather than country borders. But anyone who might think that we are very much alike because we are “united” states is not looking very carefully. We are a great variety – hodge-podge, if you will – of different people with different ethnic backgrounds, different religions, different histories etc. We have a tendency to drift toward living with others more like ourselves than different and soon we become a bunch of areas with different agendas, different goals, different outlooks on what is right and wrong, good and not so good.

If, and I emphasize if, we were governed by wise heads, and if, again I emphasize if, we were to live and make laws according to Christ’s command, we would quickly see that some laws need to be federal laws to govern the whole of our united states for the greatest good for everyone. Some of these laws may not be as convenient for folks in Wisconsin and Minnesota, but they are what is best for the Gulf Coast states and in the long run, that is best for all of us as a whole. And vice versa.

There are other laws that are best made by individual states because they mostly affect only the people living in that geographic area. And, obviously, other laws are only needed for certain counties, or certain cities etc. because the “neighborhood” is all that needs to be regulated.

But back to living as “loving your neighbor”. It is certainly true in Wisconsin and I suspect in almost every other state, that there have been tremendous cut backs at the federal level, which means cut backs at the state level, which means cut backs at the city (etc) level.

In order to deal with some of these cutbacks, as fairly as possible, I suspect/hope, our city decided to reassess all property owners. The result has been a somewhat modest anticipated tax increase. I have been appalled at the outcry this has produced.

Our city has less resources to work with, but the demands on those resources has, if anything, increased. Seemingly without thinking, people want their quality of life to continue, or even improve, while the city has less to work with.

If I am to live as though I love my neighbor as myself, then I must accept, even embrace that I must pay a bit more so that the good of the whole can continue.

Further, I believe that the word “love” implies a certain attitude. I am not really loving my husband, my family, my friends if I am begrudging in the way I talk, behave, think. Love, implies not just acceptance, but a certain eagerness, a certain joyfulness, a moving toward the person I love, not a pulling away.

Love implies that I look to do the best, provide the best for the other person/persons. Love demands a balanced way of treating all those I claim to care about.

Loving my husband means, for me, providing the best meals I am capable of providing. It does NOT mean I only make desserts, it DOES mean that I look to provide the best possible nutrition in the tastiest way possible within the budget with which I have to work. It sometimes means cooking when I really don’t feel like cooking. It does mean making certain dishes that he loves but I really don’t care for all that much. It also means that when we sit down to a meal together I ENJOY that time we have together and I take a certain joy in participating in the provision of that meal.

Loving the neighborhood (in ever widening circles of what Christ meant by the term “neighbor”) means that I try to figure of what is the best good that I can provide for myself and those around me (in that ever widening circle).

Here are just a few things that I have thought of:

Loving the neighborhood means that I recycle as best I can, even when I am not at home. Sometimes when Bill and I are on vacation, and there is no recycling available where we are staying, we have brought “stuff” home to put in our recycling here.

Loving the neighborhood means that I give to the local food pantry, for us, just a bit more than we think we can afford. When we travel to Chicago we make sure we have a few singles to hand to those “panhandling” at several of the lights where we have to stop. I know this is controversial, but I would hope someone would do this for me, were the situation reversed.

Loving the neighborhood means changing my attitude and then working on keeping it in the right place, about those of a different ethnic background, a different cultural background, a different religion, etc. Remember the example was a Samaritan – the despised of Jesus’ day.

Loving doesn’t just mean being polite to them, it means reaching out toward them in so many different ways. And when we reach out our attitude can’t be with condescension, but with joy, looking for the good for them, for us.

This opens us up, as Christians, for a huge debate on issues like immigration, universal language, true freedom of religion, and on and on.

But, can you imagine what our world, our nation, even our city would be like if we governed ourselves after Christ’s command to “love our neighbor as ourselves”? It wouldn’t be easy, but can you imagine?