Matthew 22:34-46
Now that the Sadducees have failed to trick Jesus it's the turn of the Pharisees. There must be something which is eating at them. They could be in fear of Rome coming down hard on them because Jesus' talk is not non-political. It is about doing things the Roman government did not condone. This could be because of the crowds which are following Jesus. They aren't feeling the love anymore from their own people and they are upset someone has come and taken their limelight. Their spot as leader. They want their spot back, why? Love of self, usually ones who love the limelight don't have a healthy love of self.
This is what makes Jesus command the hardest. I think we might all say its loving our neighbor right now. First though, we have to love ourselves as much as we would our neighbor. Loving our self is not an easy thing to do. Most of us need this little boost of ego, we all feel as though we lack in some way. When you divide people you accentuate this lack, so making someone else wrong and you right boosts the ways you feel about you and your beliefs. This is only temporary though and it keeps us in the cycle of of seeing the other as not only wrong, but as evil. Then we are conquerors of evil. Right?
This is not the way of love. The way we are given by Jesus, where love led to silence, not mocking or coming up with the right answer, and the cross. Jesus never said I'm right and you will see it. No, he told his disciples the crushing truth, love God, love your neighbor as you love you. We so concentrate on the loving neighbor part we forget we have to love ourselves. When we are at our best we are in connection with this love of our self. A healthy, honest non ego filled self. One in which we know our faults and are acting at the best of us that we are.
The way of love leads us to difficult places and spaces. Ones we would rather forget and ones we didn't want to ever return to again, yet it is in the visiting we remember why God loves us and we can love God back. I'm reading a book right now called Shackles and in it the main character is reading Psalm 139, do you know this Psalm at all? It's a beautiful Psalm about how God has searched us out and knows us, how in the womb we are fearfully and wonderfully made and how wonder filled God is. This is when the Psalmist is working powerfully within the framework of loving God, self and then can reflect this to all of us, the neighbor. It's a powerful reminder of what the good we can do looks like when we are attuned to our love of God and God's love for us.
Loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself is not an easy task. It is a life-long task though. It bears fruits of beauty like in the Psalmist. Fruits of loving kindness when people shake hands or are even still best friends even though they are voting for the enemy. Fruits of gratitude when we reach out a hand to someone else who we might ignore or walk by. Fruits of love, what are those fruits? Paul tells us they are love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, and self control. All of these are connected to the love which we have been shown from God and the one we reflect back to God.
In C. S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader an awful little boy named Eustus does terrible things to his cousins Edmund and Lucy. They can't stand him. He always wants to show them up once they make it to Narnia and they say they were a king and queen. In the story there comes a time when he has to face all the things bad he has done. He has turned into a dragon and is so miserable and sorry. He repents for all the bad things and once he does this the scales begin to fall of, but not without a lot of pain. In the end Aslan, the lion (who is Jesus) tears off the last remaining scales and Eustus is a changed boy and his cousins forgive and take him back. Every so often the old Eustus shows, but by and large he is forever transformed.
This is what love of God, love of neighbor as self does. It transforms us, it transforms the politic because no one is fully evil. It transforms the neighborhood because hate is uncomfortable with staying in the place because it can't get a foothold. It transforms us to realize we are beloved and as beloved people of God we can make a difference to others. Love God, love your neighbor as you love yourself is a mirror we get the honor to take into the world. Let's choose the way of love.
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