Love As God Loves

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Deuteronomy 30: 10-14; Colossians 1: 15-20; 

Luke 10: 25-37

In today's gospel, a scholar of the law begins to question Jesus. The lawyer asks, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Rather than answering, Jesus asks him “What is written in the law?” The lawyer answers correctly, just as most of us could.

God's law is not mysterious or remote. We don't have to search for it up in the sky or across the sea – it is already spoken with our lips – it is already written in our hearts: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10: 27) The law is straightforward and easy to understand in theory. It is in trying to live by these rules, however, that we encounter our difficulties.

We all want to obey the law. We want to love God. We want to help each other – to care for each other – to do the right thing. Often though, we find it is much easier to mind our own business and not get involved in the affairs of others. And so we make excuses for ourselves. Do any of these sound familiar?

• If I help this one, they will all expect help
• I'm too busy
• Nobody ever helps me
• I might get sued

And so we look for a loophole in the law that will justify our inaction – this one is not my neighbor. We find reasons to exclude others from our neighborhood:

• They are a different race or a different nationality
• They worship differently or maybe they do not worship at all
• They voted for the wrong person
• They are poor, unemployed, or living off of the government
• They lead a lifestyle that some would consider an abomination

These others do not conform to our ideal of a good neighbor, and so we exclude them. The real problem that we face is this – it is easier to hate or ignore than it is to love. Loving takes work and effort. We have to really want it. We have to choose to love in order to make it happen.

We are human beings – imperfect – and incapable of loving except in a flawed and imperfect way. This includes both friends and family. Even those closest to us are unable to grasp this perfect love. That is why we have so many divorces and estrangements in the world. We need to find a way to love each other more fully – more perfectly. We need to learn to love as God loves.

God loves without condition. God loves indiscriminately, wildly, with abandon, abundantly, without consideration of merit. For God, everyone is neighbor – every race, every color, every persuasion, Samaritans and Jews, Democrats and Republicans, heterosexual and homosexual, blue collar, white collar, no collar; God's love cannot be limited by precise legal or religious definitions.

This is what we should all be seeking – to love as God loves. But we are human. How can we learn to love this way?

It is only possible with the help of Jesus Christ.

We cannot love as God does by our own power. It simply will not work. We need the assistance of Jesus. If we want to love as God does, we must seek out Christ every day of our lives. We must ask for his help in the morning. He must be our pillow at night. We must reflect on his life. We must be nourished by him. We need his strength and his wisdom and his compassion if we are to succeed.

Loving God and neighbor is our highest law – Jesus said so. The only way to accomplish that is to seek Christ daily in the faces of those we encounter. With Jesus' help, we can all learn to love as God loves.

Deacon Darryl Diemer

15th Sunday In Ordinary Time

July 14, 2013

Painting: van Gogh, The Good Samaritan, 1890