Where did Jesus say that we are to like our neighbor?

Fortunately, I have neighbors I like and who, presumably, like me,
but in Christian terms, that’s all beside the point.

What really counts is loving the neighbors you don’t like and, yes,
I have some of those, too.

And who’s a neighbor? People in the neighborhood? Within geographical
proximity? How about two neighborhoods over? How about in the next county,
state, nation? Jesus broke down the dividing wall of hostility, so, in
that sense, the world is my neighborhood.

The caveat is that it is actually, pretty easy to get along with people
at a distance, because we don’t have to deal with their idiosyncrasies
often or at all. They are distant neighbors and I am naively free to
idealize how much I would get along with them and how much I would care
for them and how much I would be willing to help them if the need arose.

The real rub is the couple across the street, down the road, up the avenue who…
well, I won’t go into details.

So, what do I have to do in relation to them? Like them and their behavior? No.
Get along as far as it depends on me, I suppose, but actually love them, not
in some, schlocky, sentimental way, which, by the way, isn’t love. It’s schlocky
sentimentality.

I’m supposed to love them as in an action verb, do what I can for them,
help them, care for them in an agape way — a self-sacrificial way as
the need may present itself, put their concerns and needs ahead of mine.
Not imposing myself, of course. There is nothing worse than the imposition of
care. For instance, after my late wife died, there was one person who
needed desperately to reach out and express concern for me, not for me,
but for herself and her image of herself as a compassionate caregiver.
It was really irritating, but I just let it happen (in part because I
just didn’t have the energy to object) and eventually the communication
came to an end.

Perhaps, the best way to love the people we don’t like is simply to leave
them alone until a need arises that requires action on our part to help
them in their need whatever that need may be.

I’ll give you one example as a hypothetical: there are two people
in the neighborhood who don’t get along. One needed a bone marrow
transplant. The other offered his marrow. He was tested, there was a
match and the procedure, a less than pleasant one, and, in fact,
a potentially dangerous one for the donor, was performed. The procedure
was a success and the patient lived. Afterward, they still may
not like each other very much, although, I can’t believe there
wouldn’t be some kind of affection or at least appreciation developed,
but that, too, is beside the point.

The donor loved his neighbor and, in the end, that’s what counts.

Now, let’s take that beyond one to one to a systemic level —
political level, societal level, cultural level, economic level.
How do we treat all within our country? Do our laws defend all?
Do our economic policies aid all, lift all, prosper all?

As a country, how do we view other countries, societies, cultures?
How do we love others? How do we show compassion? Perhaps
living a philosophy of enlightened self-interest is the most
we can muster most of the time and that’s pretty good, but
what about when more than that is called for? Can we act
in ways that reveal to others that we genuinely care and are
willing to act in sacrificial ways for them. Does our foreign
aid go to the neediest countries, for instance?

What about care and compassion for the very creation, the
earth? Are we loving the environment? Are we restraining
ourselves and our wants and our lifestyle for the sake of
preserving nature? Do our policies exploit or enhance creation?

There are those who say that Christian compassion is limited
to personal, one-on-one relationships but is not applicable or
practical beyond that. I’m not advocating indoctrination,
rather, common humanitarian compassion evidencing itself in
international relations. Living out of genuine concern for the
welfare of others rather than out of fear of the other.

I’m not advocating naiveté regarding political realities,
but acting in ways toward others as we would like to be
treated, caring for those in need as we would want to be
cared for in our need.

Jimmy Carter, thirty-nine years ago, delivered a wake-up
call to the nation (https://www.salon.com/2018/07/15/jimmy-carter-reflects-on-a-lifetime-under-trump-the-government-is-worse-than-it-has-been-before/).
He spoke of how our values are being eroded in selfishness, greed
and consumption. Today, he says it is worse than it was when
he delivered that truthful assessment on our culture. Jimmy Carter
lives out his Christian compassion on a personal
level, but he advocates for systems which reflect
the values of compassion, selflessness and care.

We don’t have to like everybody, but, for those of
us who seek to follow Jesus, we do have to love
everyone.

*idea from a Frederick Buechner meditation on love

An older man once told him when he was
only twelve that a woman’s vagina was a

dirty place. He didn’t know what to make
of that except that it didn’t sound right

coming from that older man. When he was
a young man, he heard another man, a

famous actor whose name he can’t recall,
say, in an interview, that women’s vaginas

are like a shark’s mouth with teeth point-
ing backwards waiting to shred flesh. That

sounded just awful. He recoiled upon hearing
that. Recently, another man, a married man

with grown children, told him he thought
women’s vaginas were ugly. Upon hearing

that he wondered if that man were a closeted
gay. The only thing he has ever experienced

as a man is the warm, moist, beautiful love
of his love’s vagina, a safe, sacred place.

Jesus hung broken on the cross;
We hang broken together;
The Ancient Mariner had the Albatross
To Christ we have our tether.

The Mariner shot the bird from the sky;
It fell broken to the sea;
It had given the ship wind to fly.
But then the wind did flee.

The bird was loved by the Lord;
In Him, all things be bright and beautiful;
Was it the bird who drove all aboard
When there was no wind to bellow?

The Mariner lived to tell the tale
And all went to the wedding;
With the Lord we all will sail;
Toward peace and justice heading.

All brokenness shall be healed;
All sorrow and sadness gone;
With Christ as our eternal shield,
Like a risen Albatross we shall fly on.

It’s a game he plays while sitting in an
airport terminal waiting for his flight.

The game is called “Why Are You Here?” the
answers to which are ever and only known
to the people about whom he guesses. He
doesn’t ask.

There is a fresh-faced couple in their
mid-forties waiting for a flight to Florida
mid-winter: a much-needed and anticipated
getaway.

There is the fifty-something, hunched-over
man with what looks like tortoise-shell
armor on his back protecting him from his
grief at the death of his wife whose body
he is taking home.

There is the white-haired, seventy-two-year-
old woman sitting reading a mystery novel
on her way to a grandchild’s college graduation.

There are four military-uniformed, pimply-
faced boys joking with each other on their
way to Ft. Knox, Kentucky for final training
before being shipped off to the middle-east.

There is the thirty-something man in brand
name casual wear doing crossword puzzles.
It is June and he is on his twenty-first
flight of the year for business.

There are the two guys in the bar
discreetly holding hands on their
way to one of their homes to talk
to parents about marriage.

He doesn’t know if any of those people
are in the terminal for the reasons he
conjectures but there are people who are
somewhere, some terminal somewhere, for
those reasons and countless others
because he has been there for many of
those same reasons.

Then there is the call for his flight.
He knows where he is going but he will
leave the conjecturing up to others
who might be playing the game.

I sit wounded on a Sunday morning,
Body healing,
Spirit healing,
Soul healing.
She mentioned someone
being terminal;
We are all terminal;
Healing is not necessarily
Curing.
I will die;
I will not be cured of death;
I will be healed.
I sit wounded on a Sunday morning,
Body healing,
Spirit healing,
Soul healing.

I am broken;
My bones have been broken;
My heart has been broken;
My spirit has been broken;
Relationships have been broken;
I am here broken;
Everyone is broken;
Bones have been broken;
Hearts have been broken;
Spirits have been broken;
Relationships have been broken;
They are there broken;
We are there broken;
Together, we are here broken;
“No one righteous will have bones broken”;
To fulfill scripture, Jesus’ bones were not broken;
That is metaphor for enduring being broken;
The righteous have been broken;
Jesus has been broken;
We don’t claim to be just, just broken;
We don’t claim to be Jesus, just broken;
The righteous are here broken;
Jesus is here broken;
We are all here broken;
Together, we are healing.

*idea from a meditation by Henri Nouwen

The female commentator on the Sunday
morning news program ruminated,
“What is that old phrase, ‘If a man is
discriminated against, it is a tragedy;
if a woman is discriminated against,
it’s tradition’?” And in that statement
more than a question the female
commentator summed up exactly
what is tradition in our nation’s capital,
in our state legislatures, in our local
politics, in corporate America and,
perhaps, in most bedrooms — trad-
itional discrimination.

“I refuse to become the wormwood for
his parlance,” is the eloquent integrity

of the commentator and one can just
see the worm worming its way through

the soon to be mush of language with
consequences for what the language

represents like a free press and
beyond that the First Amendment of

the Constitution of the United States
of America. The commentator refuses

to use words such as “fake news” which
would unintentionally give credence

to the false soundbites which, accord-
ing to Nazi propaganda, is the way to

worm away to mush the strong, structural
wood of democracy.

In the interview he said that
on the Mexican side of the wall
there are “mariachi bands, graffiti,
ice cream vendors, paintings,
dancing, laughter.” On the U.S.
side of the wall — “steel, trucks,
dogs, helicopters, guns.” The
U.S. side is what East Berlin
was when Michael Jackson did
a concert on the west side
of that wall. And then the
poet asked, “Who is free
and who is in prison?”

*paraphrase of conversation
between Luis Alberto Urrea
and Krista Tippet,  On Being

The parishioners rebuked the priest
for gospel talk and politics in his
homily. He said, “It is all about

politics. Not partisan but ‘polis’
— people. Life is all about the
people, you and me and that

means political systems in which
we live. Those systems go haywire
because of sin, our sin, yours and

mine, people’s sin, greed, avarice
and that’s where the gospel comes
in, right? We people live in systems

and those systems should be just
for all people, right? And that is
where the gospel comes in — in

the first place. If we start with
mysticism, contemplation, centering
in God, going with Jesus, if we

journey inward with the Spirit and
then outward to the systems in
justice, mercy, peace , we will be

living the Realm of God, individually,
corporately, communally, systematically,
wholly, completely, inclusively,

heavenly, right?” Still, they voted
unanimously to cut his salary and
called the diocese to complain.