Advent Devotions

Today’s author is Prince of Peace member Scott Tunseth.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind and with all your strength.’ And the second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mark 12:30-31)

Thus did Jesus respond to the scribe’s question about which commandment was greatest. The scribe knew this, of course, because Jesus was simply quoting the Hebrew Scriptures that the scribe had likely studied from a young age. See Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (love God) and Leviticus 19:18 (love your neighbor). If no other commandments existed, these would be enough. But the “how to love” leaves a lot of room for interpretation and action. We wonder, How am I supposed to love even those neighbors? You know, the arrogant, loud-mouthed, greedy, abusive, sneaky, spiteful, malicious neighbor who could care less about my well-being. And thinking more broadly or geopolitically, how do we love the country or people or governments who threaten us or wish us ill?

It’s complicated. It’s important to remember that Jesus and his own people were stuck in a challenging geopolitical vice themselves. The Roman government controlled the land of the Jews and its politics. I suppose the scribe could have asked Jesus a follow up question. Something like: “Do you (Jesus) consider the Romans our neighbors? Should we love even them?”

I think we know the answer. But how exactly do we love the neighbor who wishes us harm, and why even try?  Is there anything we face in this lifetime that is more downright difficult that loving that person or group that wishes the worst for us? Who does the worst to us? I don’t think so. But this commandment is the greatest for exactly that reason. It takes the most endurance, an endurance born of faith by grace. We cannot do this sort of loving apart from the love shown us in Christ’s own enduring love and forgiveness for all.

In a sermon he preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in November 1957, Martin Luther King Jr. said this: “[Hate] destroys the very center of your creative response to life and the universe; so love everybody. Hate at any point is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life and your existence. It is like eroding acid that eats away the best and the objective center of your life. So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.” For the whole sermon see https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

We’ve talked the last six weeks about how our connections with God and with one another are intended to bear fruit, to be like a fountain of overflowing faith in the world. The love of neighbor is a deep part of this flow. By the Spirit, ride . . . ride the wave.

Gracious God, I admit that I find it easier to hate, easier to put up walls, easier to turn away, easier to let hard feelings fester. I cannot by my own strength reach out in love to those neighbors who are in the wrong, who have wronged me. Help me to trust enough to see the good in others and to be an instrument of your reconciling love. Amen.