“You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus called this the second core of the Law: Love God with all your being, and your neighbor as yourself.
This commandment can tempt us to to start asking, “Then who is my neighbor?” Another lawyer of Jesus’ day asked him just that question. Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan, one conclusion of which is that the neighbor who cares for us can be someone we don’t like or trust very much. Our neighbor can be anyone, and is everyone.
Today I'm less interested in that question than In the second part of the verse – “as yourself.” Jesus (and the compilers of the law codes in Leviticus) links love for self and love for other in a way that merits deeper exploration. What does it mean to love my neighbor as I love myself? Since we don’t always love ourselves very well, we don’t always love our neighbors well either. If we are very critical of ourselves, we’ll extend that tendency to other people. That is one way of loving our neighbors as ourselves – but not very life-giving.
How else do we love ourselves? Most of us are protective of our safety – maybe loving our neighbors as ourselves means we’re equally concerned about theirs. And most of us are wired to be sure we have enough to eat and a sheltered place to live… a godly love for neighbor would include wanting the same for them. Yikes - this is a lot! Is it just too much to love our neighbors as ourselves? Too hard?
God doesn't call us to anything his Spirit can’t equip us to handle. We just have to let the Spirit rewire the faulty coding we get from this world, the message that says put yourself and your own kind first, don’t trust the Other. But can we ever love our neighbor enough to feed everybody in the world? Well, we know there is enough food; it’s just not distributed very equitably. So maybe loving our neighbor as ourselves motivates us to work on that challenge, or on housing, or security. Maybe we keep less for ourselves so our neighbor has more.
Ultimately, this neighbor-loving business grows one at a time. When we go global in our thinking, we can end up paralyzed or discouraged. But one neighbor today? Maybe one you hadn’t planned on loving? Maybe start simply by praying for that person to be blessed? That we can do…
In prayer today think first of yourself. Try to imagine for a moment how God sees you. Love what you see, or at least trust in God’s love for you.
And then imagine someone who is your neighbor. If you’re feeling adventurous, ask God, “Who is the neighbor you want me to love today?” Who knows whose face is going to come up in your mind’s eye! Sit with the image. Ask how you’re being called to love that person.
In a world where we often assume scarcity, neighbors are one thing we’ll never run out of. And learning to love them is a challenge for our whole lifetime. We may as well get good at it, because I have a feeling that is exactly what we’re going to be doing for all of eternity.
10-24-17 - Loving God
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” So reads what Jesus calls the first and greatest commandment. We might call this the goal of the life of faith, to love God fully, without reservation, with all of our being.
This kicks up all kinds of questions in me: Do I love anyone or anything with all of my heart? Do you?
In an age when our attentions are ever more fragmented, what would it feel like to focus all our heart, all our spirit, even all our mind on one thing, one person, one God?
Do I even love God at all? Loving God presupposes a relationship. I consider this the richest promise of the Christian life, that Jesus has enabled true relationship with the Living God. In Ephesians we read that through Christ we “have access to the Father in one Spirit.” (Eph 2:18) So I ask, am I fully engaged in that relationship, or looking on from the sidelines? How about you?
I am not a Hebrew scholar and don’t know the nuances of the word translated here as “love.” The English language has a limited vocabulary for love – we use one word to cover an array of different kinds. The Greeks used at least four. I suspect this word contains shades of reverence and awe, even fear, and not simply “love” the way we think of loving our parents or children or lovers or friends. How do we name the love of a creature for its creator, of an estranged child for her reconciling parent, of a broken one for his healer? It would seem that to fully love God we must first fully recognize our need for God's unconditional love for us.
How do we begin? How about with these three components, heart, soul and mind. In prayer today, we can come into a quiet, centered place, and speak simply and honestly to God about where we are with loving God. Good relationships are based on honesty and authenticity. We don’t have to pretend to feel more than we do, or less.
Assuming we want to love God more fully, let’s offer our heart – and spend a little time on what’s in your heart. When I think about mine, I envision a mixed landscape of joy and desolation.
This kicks up all kinds of questions in me: Do I love anyone or anything with all of my heart? Do you?
In an age when our attentions are ever more fragmented, what would it feel like to focus all our heart, all our spirit, even all our mind on one thing, one person, one God?
Do I even love God at all? Loving God presupposes a relationship. I consider this the richest promise of the Christian life, that Jesus has enabled true relationship with the Living God. In Ephesians we read that through Christ we “have access to the Father in one Spirit.” (Eph 2:18) So I ask, am I fully engaged in that relationship, or looking on from the sidelines? How about you?
I am not a Hebrew scholar and don’t know the nuances of the word translated here as “love.” The English language has a limited vocabulary for love – we use one word to cover an array of different kinds. The Greeks used at least four. I suspect this word contains shades of reverence and awe, even fear, and not simply “love” the way we think of loving our parents or children or lovers or friends. How do we name the love of a creature for its creator, of an estranged child for her reconciling parent, of a broken one for his healer? It would seem that to fully love God we must first fully recognize our need for God's unconditional love for us.
How do we begin? How about with these three components, heart, soul and mind. In prayer today, we can come into a quiet, centered place, and speak simply and honestly to God about where we are with loving God. Good relationships are based on honesty and authenticity. We don’t have to pretend to feel more than we do, or less.
Assuming we want to love God more fully, let’s offer our heart – and spend a little time on what’s in your heart. When I think about mine, I envision a mixed landscape of joy and desolation.
What do you see? Can you offer it to God in love, no matter what it looks like?
Then let’s offer our soul, perhaps asking the Holy Spirit to give us an image of our soul. What do you see or discern? Can you offer your spirit to be infused with the Holy Spirit?
Then let’s offer our minds… perhaps even more cluttered than our hearts. What would it feel like to focus your mind on loving God, even for a few moments?
What might it feel like to love with all the fullness of our being, no separation, no shadow? I confess it scarcely seems possible in this world. But I do know that the more we love God this way, the better we will be able to love ourselves – and others.
Then let’s offer our soul, perhaps asking the Holy Spirit to give us an image of our soul. What do you see or discern? Can you offer your spirit to be infused with the Holy Spirit?
Then let’s offer our minds… perhaps even more cluttered than our hearts. What would it feel like to focus your mind on loving God, even for a few moments?
What might it feel like to love with all the fullness of our being, no separation, no shadow? I confess it scarcely seems possible in this world. But I do know that the more we love God this way, the better we will be able to love ourselves – and others.
10-23-17 - Love and Law
Another week, another test. For the past few Sundays our appointed Gospel passages have chronicled one long game of “gotcha” between Jesus and the religious leaders, them trying to catch him saying the wrong thing, and him neatly sidestepping their loaded questions. In last week’s test, he prevailed yet again – but it turns out that was only against one set of examiners, the Sadducees. This week we see the Pharisees get back in the game – and since they were legal specialists, they asked Jesus a question about the Law. Any religious teacher worth his salt should know his Torah.
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Easy A. Jesus answers with the best known of all commandments:
He said to him, “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.”
No surprises here. This is indeed the most basic command, where Israel’s relationship with God begins. Jesus might have checked the box and moved on – but he wasn’t finished. He went on to cite a much less known commandment and put it on a par with the first:
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Easy A. Jesus answers with the best known of all commandments:
He said to him, “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.”
No surprises here. This is indeed the most basic command, where Israel’s relationship with God begins. Jesus might have checked the box and moved on – but he wasn’t finished. He went on to cite a much less known commandment and put it on a par with the first:
“And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
What’s this? An obscure half-verse from Leviticus is up there with loving God? Yes, Jesus says - “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
He isn’t making this up – he is quoting the Law as given by Moses. Nonetheless, in combining these two commandments Jesus presents a radical new way of seeing God and justice. It’s not enough to love God – we have to live that love by the way we love our neighbors and even ourselves.
We’ll unpack these different kinds of love throughout this week. Today let’s explore this linkage Jesus makes.
Do you associate loving yourself with loving God? Do you connect God and neighbor?
What’s this? An obscure half-verse from Leviticus is up there with loving God? Yes, Jesus says - “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
He isn’t making this up – he is quoting the Law as given by Moses. Nonetheless, in combining these two commandments Jesus presents a radical new way of seeing God and justice. It’s not enough to love God – we have to live that love by the way we love our neighbors and even ourselves.
We’ll unpack these different kinds of love throughout this week. Today let’s explore this linkage Jesus makes.
Do you associate loving yourself with loving God? Do you connect God and neighbor?
Do you feel the most love for God, for your neighbor, or for yourself?
How might the way we love our neighbor increase our love for ourselves?
How might the way we love our neighbor increase our love for ourselves?
How might the way we love ourselves – or not – connect to our ability to love God?
Sit with these questions in prayer today, as a kind of diagnostic on your "love life." Talk to God about it, notice where your energy increases.
It’s good to know where we excel in love and where we can grow, for in the realm of God, love is all and all is Love.
Sit with these questions in prayer today, as a kind of diagnostic on your "love life." Talk to God about it, notice where your energy increases.
It’s good to know where we excel in love and where we can grow, for in the realm of God, love is all and all is Love.
10-20-17 - Patriot's Day
Every once in a while, Patriot’s Day – a New England holiday falling on the third Monday of April – coincides with Tax Day. One year when that happened I thought, "Wow - New Englanders really have it right, honoring the day we file our taxes as the most patriotic day of the year." Turns out it marks some military victories, but for my money, I call April 15th the day on which all Americans are invited to celebrate their patriotism. There is nothing more patriotic than investing your resources (mandated or not…) in the future you desire for your country.
When did we allow the national conversation about taxes to become so negative? Public service and tax-paying used to be marks of a good citizen. Taxes are the way a healthy society funds the services, infrastructure and systems of justice that allow its citizens to thrive. Though they can be an instrument of oppression, under fair laws in an open society, taxes are a shared good; it can feel good to participate.
In Jesus’ time perhaps paying taxes to Caesar, the head of the often brutal Roman Empire, might not have been such a happy thing. But for us, who have a great deal of control over our destinies, despite some chaos and corruption, paying taxes can be something to celebrate. I hate paying speeding tickets, but sometimes I remind myself they’ll fund some county program that is needed, and get over it.
What does this have to do with our spiritual lives, which after all is why we read Water Daily? Opening up our view of taxes is yet another way to help us release our grip on the money we think is ours. If we can see taxes as an investment in the future of the wider community, perhaps we can more freely share our resources in the community of faith, to fund the ministries through which God is working transformation. Can we loosen our grip and pledge big this season?
Yesterday we spoke about having dual citizenship In this life. We are residents of this world with all the responsibilities and joys of being members of societies. And we are citizens of the heavenly realm, that already/not yet space of inbreaking power amidst our heart-breaking powerlessness. As long as we’re here, we are invited to invest the gifts God has given us – money, time, privilege and talent – in both realms.
We can love our country and invest in its people and future, AND love our God and look forward to our eternal future. When we open our hands to give, it’s amazing how quickly they are filled.
When did we allow the national conversation about taxes to become so negative? Public service and tax-paying used to be marks of a good citizen. Taxes are the way a healthy society funds the services, infrastructure and systems of justice that allow its citizens to thrive. Though they can be an instrument of oppression, under fair laws in an open society, taxes are a shared good; it can feel good to participate.
In Jesus’ time perhaps paying taxes to Caesar, the head of the often brutal Roman Empire, might not have been such a happy thing. But for us, who have a great deal of control over our destinies, despite some chaos and corruption, paying taxes can be something to celebrate. I hate paying speeding tickets, but sometimes I remind myself they’ll fund some county program that is needed, and get over it.
What does this have to do with our spiritual lives, which after all is why we read Water Daily? Opening up our view of taxes is yet another way to help us release our grip on the money we think is ours. If we can see taxes as an investment in the future of the wider community, perhaps we can more freely share our resources in the community of faith, to fund the ministries through which God is working transformation. Can we loosen our grip and pledge big this season?
Yesterday we spoke about having dual citizenship In this life. We are residents of this world with all the responsibilities and joys of being members of societies. And we are citizens of the heavenly realm, that already/not yet space of inbreaking power amidst our heart-breaking powerlessness. As long as we’re here, we are invited to invest the gifts God has given us – money, time, privilege and talent – in both realms.
We can love our country and invest in its people and future, AND love our God and look forward to our eternal future. When we open our hands to give, it’s amazing how quickly they are filled.
10-19-17 - Church and State
Can institutional religion and institutional government co-exist in harmony when their aims are often so divergent? The Pharisees, in their sly interrogation of Jesus, implied that support for the state (admittedly, in this case a brutal occupying force…) was incompatible with support for God.
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’
Jesus refused to indulge that duality – he seemed profoundly disinterested in engaging the question. After all, from the point of view of eternity, support for both the civil state and the church are temporal. Jesus is interested not so much in where we give our money as in how we give our hearts.
As human beings, we are both political and spiritual. So our societies necessarily contain both such structures, with different goals and ways of operating. Religious and civic life exist in essential, overlapping, but basically distinct realms. When those realms live in creative tension, somewhat equally balanced in power and influence, human societies do alright. We go off the rails when either becomes too dominant - especially, I'm sorry to say, when it's religion that tries to run the show. (Such is the power of Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” enjoying new life as an award-winning television series, warning a new era about the incompatibility of theocracy and democracy.)
This week we are exploring how best to live in the tension of our dual citizenship, how to reflect the values of heaven on earth, and hold up the needs of earth before the power of heaven. How do you feel called to live that dual citizenship, bringing your spiritual self into the public square?
Jesus refused to indulge that duality – he seemed profoundly disinterested in engaging the question. After all, from the point of view of eternity, support for both the civil state and the church are temporal. Jesus is interested not so much in where we give our money as in how we give our hearts.
As human beings, we are both political and spiritual. So our societies necessarily contain both such structures, with different goals and ways of operating. Religious and civic life exist in essential, overlapping, but basically distinct realms. When those realms live in creative tension, somewhat equally balanced in power and influence, human societies do alright. We go off the rails when either becomes too dominant - especially, I'm sorry to say, when it's religion that tries to run the show. (Such is the power of Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” enjoying new life as an award-winning television series, warning a new era about the incompatibility of theocracy and democracy.)
This week we are exploring how best to live in the tension of our dual citizenship, how to reflect the values of heaven on earth, and hold up the needs of earth before the power of heaven. How do you feel called to live that dual citizenship, bringing your spiritual self into the public square?
When do we challenge secular values with gospel values?
How and when might we invite the power of the Holy Spirit to work through us for secular goods?
It's easy to get disgusted with government. We can instead wield the spiritual power we've been given as well as our civic freedoms, being engaged citizens and prayer warriors.
The healthiest way for church and state to mingle might just be in us.
It's easy to get disgusted with government. We can instead wield the spiritual power we've been given as well as our civic freedoms, being engaged citizens and prayer warriors.
The healthiest way for church and state to mingle might just be in us.
10-18-17 - God and Government
Did God ordain governments? Some see governments as purveyors of chaos and corruption, when their very purpose is to prevent those things, to secure a safe and equitable society in which all citizens might thrive. We know too many cases where government works against the values we hold, though it is also society’s chief agent of justice.
There are passages in scripture that read as though God very much works through political systems and leaders, even ones outside the people of Israel (read up on the Cyrus passages in Isaiah…). St. Paul, writing in Romans 13, seems to feel that no ruler on earth can exercise power without God’s authority – which makes me wonder what he thinks about all the corrupt and oppressive rulers, of which his day saw as many as ours. Jesus, in the passage we are exploring this week, seems to take governments as a given, not saying where they fit in God’s plan. As he tells Pilate under interrogation, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
I believe that government is a natural human phenomenon, as is institutional religion. Human beings have to organize around power, supplies and spirituality, and organizations soon take on a life and culture of their own. Like the human beings of which they are comprised, they exist on a spectrum between good and evil, helpful and self-serving, visionary and banal. Government, in a functioning democracy, is us, and we are it. We don’t get to call it a “them.”
So where does that leave us as people of faith? Perhaps it leaves us with a call to be agents of healthier government and a more life-bringing body politic. In the months since our last election rhetoric has grown more and more polarized and shrill, though the urgency of justice often seems to call for turning up the volume. Many Christians have sought to find an appropriate place as promoters of equality and resisters of evil. What if Christ followers participated primarily as peacemakers, not trying to convince the irrational, but refraining from demonizing, holding up the values of justice and equity and freedom?
Sound like a pipe dream? We have at our hands the power that transforms world. Surely we can pray for our governments and those who claim a desire to lead us.
I don’t know if God ordains governments. I do believe God will work through anyone who asks. Let’s ask.
There are passages in scripture that read as though God very much works through political systems and leaders, even ones outside the people of Israel (read up on the Cyrus passages in Isaiah…). St. Paul, writing in Romans 13, seems to feel that no ruler on earth can exercise power without God’s authority – which makes me wonder what he thinks about all the corrupt and oppressive rulers, of which his day saw as many as ours. Jesus, in the passage we are exploring this week, seems to take governments as a given, not saying where they fit in God’s plan. As he tells Pilate under interrogation, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
I believe that government is a natural human phenomenon, as is institutional religion. Human beings have to organize around power, supplies and spirituality, and organizations soon take on a life and culture of their own. Like the human beings of which they are comprised, they exist on a spectrum between good and evil, helpful and self-serving, visionary and banal. Government, in a functioning democracy, is us, and we are it. We don’t get to call it a “them.”
So where does that leave us as people of faith? Perhaps it leaves us with a call to be agents of healthier government and a more life-bringing body politic. In the months since our last election rhetoric has grown more and more polarized and shrill, though the urgency of justice often seems to call for turning up the volume. Many Christians have sought to find an appropriate place as promoters of equality and resisters of evil. What if Christ followers participated primarily as peacemakers, not trying to convince the irrational, but refraining from demonizing, holding up the values of justice and equity and freedom?
Sound like a pipe dream? We have at our hands the power that transforms world. Surely we can pray for our governments and those who claim a desire to lead us.
I don’t know if God ordains governments. I do believe God will work through anyone who asks. Let’s ask.
10-17-17 - Giving With God
Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’
Sounds simple, right? Give to God the things that are God’s. But what belongs to God? Doesn’t the emperor also belong to God? And if everything belongs to God – why does God need our gifts? Our pledges? Our offerings?
Maybe God doesn’t need anything from us. Maybe we need to give, because things get squirrely when we don’t, and because we are transformed when we do.
It is tempting to see the two kinds of “giving” that Jesus talks about here as similar, parallel tracks. We owe the government our taxes to pay for the goods and services we need governments to render. We owe God our “dues” to pay for… what? Clergy and church buildings? Charity?
Once we equate giving our money and resources for God’s mission to “taxes” or “dues,” it becomes an obligation, a contractual exchange. That is not what giving is intended to be for Christians. We are not called to give to God. We are called to give in relationship with God, to give because it is the best way we know to reciprocate in gratitude for all that we’ve received, to join into the celebration of blessing.
If our giving is stunted, it may be that we are not all that grateful, not feeling very blessed. We give because it sets us free, opens us up, changes our hearts. We give because we love seeing what happens for others when we do.
Where does giving bring you the most joy? Where do you feel the least willing?
Both answers offer ground for prayer – and action. Maybe we are being invited to give additionally in both categories. Maybe we want to strengthen our gratitude muscles.
We are to give as God has given us – and in Christ, God gave us everything. I was reminded recently that the great U2 song, “With or Without You” is not about a human relationship, but the struggle to exist in faith and intimacy with the God you cannot see. (The “she” in U2 songs often refers to the Holy Spirit or to grace…)
See the stone set in your eyes / See the thorn twist in your side. (A Pauline reference.)
I can’t live, with or without you,” Bono sings.
And then comes the repeated refrain which applies to both God, and to us in relationship with the God whose essential nature it is to give, a nature we gradually take on:
And you give, and you give, and you give yourself away.
And we never run out.
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