Friday, February 14, 2020

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

   (From Mark 22:28-34:  "Which is the first of all the commandments?  Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

     The second commandment can sound like an impossible one to obey and live by.  How can we love terrorists and those who would destroy us?  How can we love those who disagree with us in today's rancid political atmosphere?  How can we love anyone who would harm us or our society in any way?

     I suggest that the answer to these questions lies in the meaning of "love."  We usually think of love as the beautiful, sentimental affection for someone one.  We want to be with those we love.

      Love can be love of friendship, or sexual love, or love for the sake of the other.  This last kind of love is agape.  Another word for agape is charity, i.e., love that goes beyond affection to the point of our freely sacrificing something of ourselves for the other.  This, for example, is the love of husband and wife, of parents for their children, and even of soldiers in battle who risk and sometimes love their lives for one another.  It is the love of Jesus on the Cross.

      Christianity is not naive.  We don't have to like someone in order to love them.  We can hardly be expected to like those who would harm or even destroy us.  Agape is not naivety, it is spiritual maturity.  It extends to all those who would harm or destroy us and moves us to work to get through to such people so that they can live at peace with themselves and with us.  We must of course protect ourselves against those who would harm us.  That may even call for defensive military action after all peaceful means have been exhausted.  

      It is normal and healthy to get angry at the injuries and injustices being inflicted upon us by the leaders of our society, be they political, educational, corporate, etc.  Such harm to all of us definitely calls for political action.  Likewise it calls for well informed action when our school do not educate our children properly.  And it calls for social action when our culture is attacked and made more crude and even violent. 

      In all cases, it calls for action that is informed and inspired by the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of creative, healing and world-transforming love.  It is not enough to say what is wrong.  In Christ we must learn and proclaim what is right and then use all the peaceful and just means available to us as citizens and voters to change what is wrong into what is right in the service of the common good.




  

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