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What do 10th-century BC Afghanistan, 6th-century BC China, and 1st-century BC Judea have in common? They were all undergoing significant social and cultural upheaval. And what each of these civilizations independently came to understand was that in order to live together in harmony, they needed to consider the needs of their neighbor.
And so, Zoroaster wrote: “The nature of good is that which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for you.” Confucius wrote: “Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself.” Rabbi Hillel wrote: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” Anything here sound familiar?
When I was in high school my hometown had its own kind of social and cultural upheaval. There was a large influx of Cambodian families relocated by the U.S. government to Rochester, Minnesota. I remember encountering these new kids in school. They were smaller than the hulking Minnesota kids. They didn’t speak English, and they carried all their books in heavy backpacks, never taking off the bulky jackets that had been donated to them.
And boy, did they work hard. I’ll never forget sitting in history class and glancing over at one of these student’s textbooks. Every single word was painstakingly translated from English into Cambodian. Not only did they have to study like everyone else, but they had to do twice the work just to reach the place where I had started. And this was on top of the work they did outside of school. I’d see them behind the counter at Taco John’s and Burger King.
There was a bully in my school. His name was Troy. He hung out with what we called the “burnouts.” He was a tough kid. There was probably a reason for that, but I didn’t think about that much at the time.
Needless to say, we ran around in different social circles and our paths rarely crossed. But, they did one day in the hall when I encountered him picking on a Cambodian student. I stepped in and told him to cut it out, to quit being a jerk.
In that moment I stepped into the lineage of my forebears Zoroaster, Confucius, and Hillel. Quit being a jerk was the high school equivalent to imposing harmony in a time of social and cultural upheaval by enforcing the injunction “do not do what is hateful to your neighbor.” Troy backed off…until, I’m sure, he encountered that Cambodian kid again when I wasn’t around…because the injunction by our forebears to care for our neighbor, while right, wasn’t quite enough.
History makes the point. The moral imperative to not be a jerk is built upon a power posture defined by the negative we hear in these injunctions: “not good,” “do not,” “hateful.” These are directives underwritten by the social hierarchy. Zoroaster, Confucius, and Hillel sat atop their social and cultural systems.
It was the hierarchy, not the rightness of doing good, that stopped Troy, AND kept him from punching me out. But the second the hierarchy flips, the injunction to care for one’s neighbor crumbles. History shows us what the consequences look like: Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution; France under the Reign of Terror; China in the Great Leap Forward; even England under Cromwell. No question on that day Troy would have sent me to the guillotine, were it an option.
History teaches us that for the injunction to care for one’s neighbor to work, the system needs to be bigger than the human hierarchy upon which it sits. Jesus makes that point in the Gospel today. He hitches two ideas together from the ancient wisdom of Judaism. He binds Deuteronomy 6:4 which says: “Hear, O’ Israel: the Lord is God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” To Leviticus 19:18: ”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In doing this, Jesus sets God at the center of the injunction to care for neighbor, and then binds it to the nature of God…which is love. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Why love your neighbor as yourself? Because God is. Because it matters to God. Because that is how God designed the system…The connective tissue is God. The connective tissue is love. God is love.
Sometimes this simple idea gets confused in the minds of men. Recently, a politician who claims Catholic orientation, sought to define neighbor by citing an ancient Roman Catholic doctrine titled ordo amoris which sets a hierarchy of neighborly care based on concentric circles of relationships starting with nuclear family, then nearby neighbors, then city, then state, then country, and then anyone else.
Pope Francis, himself Roman Catholic, quickly provided a corrective, citing the story of the Good Samaritan as the defining framework for our neighbor. And who is my neighbor? The one in greatest need. That included the Cambodian kid in the hallway, but it also, and this is the point I missed, it also included Troy. His plight. His pain. His dignity.
In times of upheaval, it is critically important that we seek to see the world through the Jesus lens. The Jesus lens would have included Troy, because no one is outside the love of God.
If we find ourselves in an age when upheaval seems to have flipped the hierarchy and retribution rears its ugly head, we must remember: there is a God; that we must stand up for those in need; and that Troy is also suffering. There are plenty of smart, insightful people who, of late, have pointed to the problems of social and cultural upheaval.They have cited the epidemic of loneliness, the polarization in politics, and, quite rightly, the inequality of opportunity.
We have smart people today just as there were smart people in 10th century Afghanistan, 6th century China, and 1st century Judea. We have people in our community today building organizations to confront these problems right here in Seattle. Some orient on teaching civics; others seek to welcome people more fully into the city; some facilitate conversations across political divides.
And these are good, but they will fail over time, without love at the center — and not any love, but the love Jesus is talking about. Agape love. The love of God, the love that is God. A love that cannot exist without the existence of God.
If we have no God, then the center can’t hold, as Lex reminded us in his sermon two Sundays back. It didn’t hold in Afghanistan. It didn’t hold in China. It didn’t hold in Judea.
The love of God is the point, the purpose and the process: We must make the point. We must share the purpose. We must live the process. We must love our neighbor as ourselves, because there is a God.
Many years ago, there were two people in that hallway, but I only cared for one of them, and God was not part of my consideration. It was all about my personal power, and the capacity to leverage my social status.
But, as Mother Teresa reminds us: “It is love, only love, that will save the world.” Resurrection punctuates the point. Resurrection is God rejecting human rejection without denying human freedom, because God is love and there is no love if there is no freedom to be a jerk. Which was the freedom Troy was exercising, and it was the freedom I was exercising as well. I’m pretty sure that under his breath Troy called me a jerk.
There is a better way. Love is a stronger force. And while it may require we turn the other cheek, it also means we never leave the hallway when someone is in need. That is why Jesus came, after all…the need for humanity to know we are loved – and he never left the room.
He was dragged from the garden of Gethsemane and beaten in the basement of the high priest house. He was ridiculed at the feet of a petty tyrant, then forced to carry his own cross, but he never ran. He could have, but he never did. He never capitulated, he was never afraid, because he understood love.
Love is the courage to engage in the mess of upheaval. Jesus lived his catchphrase: “Do not be afraid,” and then he showed us why… Resurrection! Resurrection is the victory of love. It is the promise of love. It is the reality that love always wins, even over the apparent inevitability of death. Love is knowing that the bad thing as never being the last thing. We know this, because we are people of the Resurrection. We are Jesus people.
Here at Epiphany, we practice Resurrection love. This is the perfect venue for doing so, because here we gather with everyone in the entire world, because here everyone is included, everyone is welcome, because if you are, if you are alive, then you are a beloved child of God.
Everyone is our neighbor equally, our spouse, our child, our next door neighbor, the complete stranger, and the bully from high school. I could have met Troy as a brother, and appealed to the goodness God created within him. I could have met him beyond the hierarchy of the culture as a sibling in the Kingdom of God; where God is the center, knowing that the only way resolution will hold is through love, agape love, the love of God, the love exercised by the Good Samaritan.
Who is my neighbor? Whoever I meet in the hallway.
So, if you want the world to be a better place, if you want to push back against what you may perceive as social and cultural upheaval, then tell someone about the God you believe in. Do not be afraid. Do not shrink back even if you think the Christian brand has been sullied or is toxic, because God has no brand, because God does not need a new marketing strategy. God is way bigger than that.
God is love, and it is a love made known by Jesus, a love articulated when he said: “You should love your neighbor as yourself” because the Lord is God, the Lord alone. God is the center. God is love. It is love and love alone that will return the world to the fullness of its design. It is love that will save the world.