Seeking our neighbour’s glory
Even within communities of faith, our differences have become amplified. How do we navigate these relationship minefields?
Collectively as Canadians we have felt the sting of betrayal from our closest neighbour. What was for decades a cooperative and mutually beneficial partnership is now fraught with fear and distrust.
Discussions have erupted on social media as to the meaning of Jesus’ command to love our neighbour. Jesus is all-inclusive in his definition of neighbour, as seen through the story of the Good Samaritan. The neighbour is the enemy, the despised and the one who believes differently. The Vice President of the United States tried to make this teaching more palatable by asserting that the requirement to love starts with those closest to us – family, friends, the person next door – and only eventually, maybe, including those further away geographically, socially and ideologically.
How do we understand Jesus’ teaching in these divisive times? Even within communities of faith, our differences have become amplified. How do we navigate these relationship minefields?
I think we are well aware of our tendency, as humans, to love ourselves best. We fashion our life around our own comfort and security. This is the message of our culture, which, according to Dr. Dan Siegel, “emphasizes separation rather than connection, independence rather than interdependence, individuality rather than a shared identity.” It is ever more difficult to live with love of neighbour forefront in our minds and way of life. It requires us to swim upstream.
During the pandemic, we were forced apart. We were wise to follow the public health measures put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. Many of us found isolation easier in some ways. It became clear that some of my friends had completely different views on the disease and levels of adherence to regulations. It became easy to label those who had opposing views as ignorant or unloving, or just conspiracy nuts instead of my neighbours whom I am instructed to love. In one study, 89% of American respondents said their relationships were negatively affected by the pandemic, and another study said “COVID denial” within a family unit can be one of the hardest relationship challenges to overcome. Unfortunately, we all know someone who is no longer speaking to parents, siblings or children over this issue. Division and disagreement have become larger than love.
What about the truckers?
Even though the threat from COVID is diminished, we have not moved on: relationships seem riskier now, the conversations strained. We have now categorized people, maybe even written them off. We think of ourselves as possessing more knowledge and discernment: we “other” the other. We would rather avoid our neighbour or family member than do the demanding work of love.
Our call to love is not only for those we find easy to love, of course – those who share our theological positions or political persuasions – but for those who drive us crazy and hurt us deeply. I am required to love the person who would prefer my child go back into the closet, the one who would call a person I love an abomination. This is the place love becomes the most difficult and demanding.
Can we see the image of God in the ones who drive our streets with flags flying – a holdover from the January 6 insurrection in America or the trucker convoy in Canada? Can we honour the divine image in the one who protests the things we value? Can I love the one who believes in Trump as Savior? Or believes the way forward is to take rights away from citizens? These are the everyday scenarios which test our ability to love.
Love that enlarges borders
George MacDonald, in his Unspoken Sermons, stated that, “The love that enlarges not its borders, that is not ever spreading and including, and deepening, will contract shrivel, decay, die.” This kind of ever-expanding love is possible only insofar as we believe that the divine image is built into every human.
Even though we were formed from dust, we each bear the weight of glory – the promise of immortality, resurrection and glorified bodies. I bear this weight and so does my neighbour. There are no deplorables, no mere mortals, for, as C.S. Lewis asserts, “next to the blessed sacrament your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.” All of us, whether we are king or subject, famous or living on the street, have eternity within us alongside our mortality. Again, Lewis reminds us, “the load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it.”
Perhaps this is why we need the reminders that the traditions and practices of our faith offer us. Ash Wednesday repeats to us that we are dust, fragile, limited. Confession offers us a way to recognize our wanderings and the ways we fail on the regular, individually and as a community. The Eucharist reminds us that mercy is a gift. When we kneel for prayer, we get close to the earth from which we were formed. All of these practices can form in us the virtue of humility, if we practice them not from rote, but with honesty of heart.
Your neighbour is beloved dust
The word humility derives from the Latin humus (earth) and literally means “on the ground”. Humility helps us to recognize our origins and our finiteness and, at the same time, our belovedness. When we see ourselves as dust animated by the breath of God, we take note of the brevity of our days, and our affinity to one another. What if we believed we had nothing to lose and everything to gain in seeing our neighbour as one dearly loved by God? What if we let go of the desire to convince others of our rightness and instead seek to convince them of their belovedness?
Humility will cause us to act in scandalous ways. We will cross the divide that stands between us and our neighbour.
Humility will cause us to act in scandalous ways. We will cross the divide that stands between us and our neighbour. We will not be shackled by the fear of what others might think, nor threatened by someone who holds different views. Humility dismantles our hierarchies, prevents power struggles and reminds us of our true place in the world. We come, finally, to see all people as precious and beautiful creations, each one desiring of and deserving of love.
Love on the streets
Our love of our neighbour will show itself not only in sentiment but in action. To love another will mean that I be committed to their flourishing. This requires action. As 1 John 3:16-18 reminds us, “let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” for this is the proof that we love God. Love may ask us to share our resources so the hungry family down the street has food on their table tonight. Our love might be demonstrated as we march for the full rights of our Black neighbours. We can love not by shutting out or ignoring someone who disagrees with us, but through compassionate listening and watching for the spark of the divine within them. When Jesus declares what we do for those around us we do to him, he is declaring his union with each human we encounter. His image is tucked into those we find most difficult to love.
We each stand in need of the mercy of God. This mercy is expansive enough to cover all my mistakes and missteps as well as those of my neighbour. I wonder if we can dismantle our camps and come together in the wilderness, where the wind of the Spirit is free to flow and usher us one step closer to the dream God has for humanity.
Re: “It became easy to label those who had opposing views as ignorant or unloving, or just conspiracy nuts instead of my neighbours whom I am instructed to love.” I don’t label my anti-vaxx friends ‘unloving’; that would be itself a crime. But “Ignorant” literally means “without information”. Bad idea to call someone an ignoramus, but all of us are ignorant about many things. If we don’t listen to those who have the knowledge, however, then it is more difficult to make wise choices. If we choose to follow people who have not studied or investigated things, it makes being loving more difficult.
Thank you for your comment. I adhere that we must be careful who we listen to and follow. There are many that still choose not to learn and investigate things and there are many that have been misinformed. It makes it so difficult to navigate relationships.