Loving our Neighbor

     We’ve just gone through a terribly complex storm that created much turmoil in the eastern part of our country.  There were floods in many cities, snow covered West Virginia and winds destroyed trees and homes in many places.  Some people called this thing the “Frankenstorm” to emphasize the horror of it.

What always intrigues me in this kind of situation is how those of us who are moderately or not at all inconvenienced respond to it.  Presently there are volunteers heading for the distressed areas and FEMA is providing aid that is very much needed and there are shelters being created to take care of those who have lost their homes.  What is wonderful about all of this is that there isn’t very much notice taken of who is being helped and who is not.  The question is simply what is the need, nothing else.   This is, for me a model of how we ought to behave in non-crisis times.  We seem to mobilize when the need presents itself, but otherwise, we continue on our way that segregates need from justice.

This political season seems to conjure up differences among us that sometimes either don’t exist, or are irrelevant.  The “47 percent” that were talked about as being moochers is only one example.  I think if I hear one more candidate tick off the five points of his plan, or describe himself as a “job creator,” I will consider throwing my television set out of my window.  We spend a lot of time dividing ourselves into communities that seem to be opposite one another in terms of need.

The storm throws all of that aside and lets us deal with each other in terms of human need.  The lesson that we need to learn from this is that we need to do this all of the time, not just in times of crisis.

In Mark’s Gospel, one of the scribes asked Jesus “which commandment is first of all?”  Jesus replied citing the great statement from Deuteronomy: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. And then he added the familiar,  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  In our worship, we call this simple statement, “The summary of the Law”.  It is an easy description of how we need to treat each other from day to day, regardless of whatever crisis may threaten us.

Loving our neighbor as a person like ourselves is a creed that can be adopted by all of us.  I think that the time of crisis brings this out in us, but what a wonderful thing it would be if we simply learned to do this day to day.