Week 3 | The Great Communion | Pre-Conference Devotionals
Do you know those token passages in Scripture that nearly every person can cite by heart? “God so loved the world...”, “do unto others... ”, “love your neighbor...”–they appear to lose their profundity with each passing reference. We know what comes next, and we know how they’ve sometimes been weaponized; John 3:16 is no casual recitation of the Gospel, but part of a harrowing, late-night conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. And maybe we don’t traverse rush-hour traffic with Matthew 7:12 as our guiding ethic, but we hold to the premise with some fidelity.
Loving our neighbors? Well, what do we mean by “love”, and are passive-aggressive notes for our loud hall-mates safely within love’s categorical bounds?
Yeah, I’m missing the point.
It’s that last idea–loving my neighbor–that isn’t hard to understand. Where I struggle is the back end of the sentence: “... as yourself.” It seems simple, really. When we treat one another with the grace we wish was afforded to us, the world seems a bit gentler, kinder, and more compassionate. It certainly isn’t as easy to lend grace as it is to receive, but when we make the effort, life feels considerably more manageable.
I’ve been married to my husband for just over a year, and it is through our years as a couple that I’ve come to understand our distinct, fundamental qualities that shape and inform everything we do. I am the child of a small farming community in mid-Michigan. I’ve never traveled outside of the United States, this despite living an hour from the Canadian border, and I’ve never traveled west of Denver. My husband, on the other hand, is the child of missionaries, born in San Diego, and raised in Eastern Europe.
More so than might be common in marriages, we’ve had to confront the fundamental differences in our experiences of the world. I am the product of an individualistic culture and a conservative, rural, Midwestern environment. His lived experiences are inherently different than mine, and he has spent much of his life navigating the differences between the disparate contexts in which he has lived.
While I make no pretense of understanding interpersonal relationships from just one year of marriage, I’ve found a new guiding principle: Make the effort. Make the effort to understand, to listen, to communicate, to transcend differences, to disagree kindly, to love unconditionally, and to grow compassionately.
Borrowing from the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Father Richard Rohr characterizes our true selves as the “Immortal Diamond”, the very core of our being wherein the ego has been disassembled and abdicated. In a strange subversion of my own expectations, I’ve found it easier to see the good in my neighbor than it is to see the good in myself. It’s easier to find the beauty in my husband than it is to know the beauty I carry within. I know “me” better than anyone, even him, and based on that working model of what I project as my core essence, I’m far more inclined to see the good in you, to celebrate your best intentions, your greatest achievements, and the success of just being you.
Your “immortal diamond” is beautiful. Why do I struggle to feel that way about mine?
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In I Corinthians 13:12, Paul reminds his audience that humanity’s perspective on reality is as through a mirror, “dimly” lit, but that the time is coming when we will “see face to face”. This passage follows his sermonic meditation on love, contrasting the unending nature of love with the vapidity of knowledge, prophecy, and other such spiritual gifts. True maturation, true seeing, in Paul’s view, is our participation in the “completion” (or perfection) of all things through Love, this eternal expression of God’s nature embedded in the cosmos. Love needn’t come at the expense of these gifts, but it will always outlast them.
When we love ourselves, when we let go of our egoic nature in exchange for the truest expression of God’s image in us, we allow that “immortal diamond” to refract an eternal Light. As I learn to look in the mirror every day and cultivate the Love of God in myself, choosing to see the diamond instead of the ego’s projection, I invite greater empathy for my neighbor. I then allow myself to see more clearly the goodness of my friends, the beauty of my family, and the image of God in every person with whom I share a table or an office or a bar. This bond we all share enables us to transcend disagreement in the name of compassion, provides the space for empathy when it isn’t easy, and models for the rest of the world what it looks like to follow in the way of Christ.
When I love myself, the mirror becomes a little less dim, and the Light gets a little clearer. May we love ourselves, and in the process, love our neighbors.
Which is easier for you: To love your neighbor or yourself? Why do you think that is?
List some words that you feel positively describe the who you are as a beloved child of God and a bearer of God’s image.
In what ways do you think loving your neighbor is an extension of loving yourself?
