Jesus said, “Love…”

 

Things are heating up all around us. There is generalized and heightened anxiety because of the high stakes and power grabs within the government. We are concerned: with the election process and outcome; the future of our democracy; our self-image as a country that embraces others and sees Christian charity as essential; life and death with the spikes of Covid 19 cases here; European country shutdowns with spikes there; continued and increased economic consequences; continued or increased isolation; raging consequences of global warming. All are pressing at this time. How do we keep our Center as our guide?

Mark 22:37-39 shows us the way: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him [a lawyer], ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22: 36-40, Luke 10:27-28, Mark 12:29-31, John 13:34-35)

The Jewish Bible has multiples of the first part of this commandment so Jesus’ response was one that the Pharisees and Sadducees knew well. It is second part that Christ brought forth, to love your neighbor, that is the problem and the solution. How do we love those of us with a different world view? Those of us who are xenophobic? Those of us who see the glass always as half-empty? Those of us whose fear for their very existence is the motivator for violence and death with little cause or provocation?

Short story: As mother of the groom this weekend, I offered brunch the morning after the wedding. On my way home, I

realized that I had mistakenly brought the two remaining Monkey Cakes home with me. Ugh!

At home, considering my extra cake, I remembered my new neighbors of a few months with five children across the street. They have a different world view than I, mocking my mask the day I introduced myself to them and possessing and lighting fireworks past midnight on July 4^th. (I try not to stereotype.)

I brought them a Monkey cake. They were very cautious as husband and wife and little one answered the door. They forgot I was their neighbor. Again, they mocked my mask. However, they acted very surprised that I brought them something. Leave it to the children, the little one took the big box in his small hands and was delighted! I explained about the wedding and they seemed genuinely happy about a family wedding and the cake. They thanked me and I left. As I was walking away along the sidewalk, the husband came out beyond his own front yard to genuinely thank me. The look on his face was that of genuine gratitude, almost incredulous that I would bring them this. As Fr. Teri says, “Kindness matters.”

My prayer is that this little kindness, this ‘love your neighbor,’ helps me know and accept my neighbor in a better way, that I may love my neighbor when I see him and her at the polling booth, believing that we are voting differently, that I forgive their mocking of my acceptance of a pandemic, that I, we, can rise above politics in an experience of God and fear less.