Love God, Love Your Neighbor

Love God, Love Your Neighbor 

Many Christians are aware that Jesus did not “invent” the Great Commandment, “love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and mind, and love you neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22: 37-40)  They understand that the teaching is from a combination of Leviticus 19:18, “you shall love your neighbor,” and Deuteronomy 6:5, “you shall love the Lord your  God. . . .”  Jesus did know the interconnection of these two commandments.  That we cannot have one without the other, “that if we love God we must love our neighbor,” or as the Letter of James states, “we are liars.”  They became the core of his teaching and his mission.

I want to look at Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 and reflect on what it might mean to love our neighbor today.

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. 

I believe loving our neighbor might just have something to do with being holy as God as Holy; with walking in Love as Christ loves us and gave himself as an offering and sacrifice to God, of truly loving both God and neighbor 

According to Leviticus 19, loving our neighbor means not showing preference to either poor or rich.  That might entail welcoming all into our churches as well as encouraging fair business practices, including a fair salary for a fair day’s work. 

Loving our neighbor will include “not hurting our kin,” and since all of God’s children are kin, we are called not to hurt one another; to work for justice, freedom and peace.  We are also called not to slander, not to build ourselves up by putting others down, and not to gossip about others.  The letter of James also deals with the dangers of a loose tongue as well.  Loving our neighbor might even involve some restraint in how we talk about politicians with whom we disagree.  Hopefully this includes not putting rash and often inaccurate “sound bites” on social media. 

Loving our neighbor means not profiting by their blood, whether that be unfair labor practices or literal rape, murder or other physical harm.  If we love our neighbor, we will encourage “right relationships, while at the same time realizing that we cannot fix all people and all problems.  We will, in fact, “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and will respect the dignity of every human being.” (The Baptismal Covenant, Book of Common Prayer, pp. 304-305)

 

Sometimes it just takes a good Hebrew prophet to help is see Jesus’ teaching in a new light.