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coronavirus, injustice, Jesus, love, love your neighbor as yourself, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
Today’s gospel reading from Matthew (5:43-48) is one that many of us could probably recite from memory, do a cursory survey of all the people in our lives and come at the end to a conclusion of our innocence. But what if we expand the search for enemies to people we don’t know personally but of whom we have heard through the media or in some other way? Jesus is clear in his directive about relationship. It’s all about love. Have you guessed the text I’m considering?
Jesus said to his disciples, “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your Heavenly Father, for he makes the sun rise on the bad and the good and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. If you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?…“
These are difficult days in our country and around the world. Protests of racial injustice are continuing everywhere and police brutality seems to increase daily. Republicans accuse democrats of all manner of collusion with the enemy and the democrats vilify republicans for their unwillingness to compromise on any of the Congressional agenda. Good people are swept up in crowds of looters and fights break out over the refusal of some to wear a mask to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
I have read this gospel many times and although I get to a place of sadness for all the dissension and enmity in the world, I never end up thinking that I lack a degree of love for everyone, abstract as it may be. Today I know that to be the point of what Jesus is saying. Love is never an abstraction. It’s the ability to dig deep down and consider why people act as they do. What are their life circumstances? (Were they abused as children? Are they starving for food? For love?…) Who has loved them in their lives?
Until we have faced our own lack of love for even one person, we are not “perfect” in God’s eyes. It isn’t about being perfect in our work or our talents. It’s about perfection in our willingness to love even the most unlovable. The good news is, I believe, that God does love all of those striving toward that love. We may never reach perfection in it. Quite frankly, I doubt that we ever will, perfectly. But it’s our effort toward the goal that seems to count the most. And right now, we need to put more effort into that goal than ever before and look to ourselves rather than to our enemies as we live into each day. (But don’t forget to pray for those whom you call “enemy.”)
From the mouth of Moses to the gospel of Mark the Scriptures repeat the same message about how we are to live. We hear it today, not in a long diatribe but rather a brief directive about love. When asked what is the first and greatest commandment, we can all likely reply – at least with the short form of “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” The deep impact of what that effort calls out from us, however, is in the almost staccato list of capacities that follows. We are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength. In other words: Give it all you’ve got!
One of the interesting facets for me of this blogging activity is the ability to track not only numbers of “hits” but also where readers come from. The numbers range usually somewhere between 20 and 40 readers in a day and generally the majority are residents of the United States. Last fall there was a period where – for a few weeks – numbers were consistently between 60 and 80 each day before they settled again into the 40 – 50 range. It all seems random to me but interesting nonetheless.
Today’s gospel (MK 1:29-39) finds Jesus very busy. The text recounts his ministry in this manner: he goes to synagogue (likely to preach) with some of his disciples, then to the house of Simon Peter whose mother-in-law lies ill. He heals her, eats a meal, maybe has a little respite and then spends what appears to be a very long time healing all those who came to him with various maladies. Hoping for a little time to himself and God, he gets up before dawn the next day and goes to a deserted place to pray where, hopefully he got a brief chance to recharge. Nevertheless, he was interrupted by his friends who found him and said, “Everyone is looking for you.” His response sounds immediate and affirmative. “Let us go on to nearby villages,” he said, “that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.”
Our first real frost today has its effect on arthritic limbs even for those of us who feel it only in tiny places (one finger perhaps). It seems an appropriate metaphor for our state of heart after seeing the 26 faces of those killed in church on Sunday in a small town in Texas, victims from 17 months to 77 years old. “Frozen with shock,” disbelief and overwhelming sadness at this latest outrageous act, I read again today from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Whatever other commandments there may be are summed up, Paul says, in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law. (ROM 13:10)
My first thought after reading the lectionary texts for today was that the fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel is worth a whole life of reflection. It isn’t only the part that we know as the Beatitudes that teaches us how to live; the whole chapter is full of deeply meaningful concepts. It is clear from this preaching of Jesus that he did, indeed, come not to destroy the Mosaic Law but to fulfill it. When we read, “You have heard it said…” it’s clear that Jesus is specifying what was right action in earlier times and that he was urging his listeners to more, to go beyond what was an earlier norm to a deeper way of living. The example is clear today.