In his New York Times column last week Nicholas Kristof (@nytimeskristof) asked the question in his title "Would You Let This Girl Drown?".
It's a good piece that deserves reading. Ultimately though it brought me back to a little something I read somewhere.
‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
We have so very far to go.
It also comes down to who you consider a neighbour. The people you chat in the driveway with everyday, have over for cocktails before Chirstmas and have walk your dog; or is it everyone you cross paths with (co-worker to panhandler)?
As Christ taught us, we must also learn to love our enemies (or at least begin by loving those in need who we don't know). Even the evil of the world will love their own, and it is much harder to love those who we do not know or who have hurt us.
Pardon the paraphrasing - I remember the lesson, but not the exact wording.
Posted by: Robert LeBlanc | July 16, 2009 at 04:52 PM
At the risk of coming across as way too linear, try this on for size:
Love your neighbour.
Love your enemy.
Your enemy is to be treated the same as your neighbour.
Love them all--neighbours, enemies, and everyone in between.
To me that makes everyone on the planet my neighbour. (This is helpful because it takes all the subjectivity out of it.)
In my eyes, this is the mandate of the church.
Posted by: Mike | July 16, 2009 at 08:43 PM
Couldn't agree more.
The difficulty for most (myself included) is making this a way of life. Which returns to a previous discussion on being able to "Do something" as opposed to simply "Talking about doing something."
We tend to forget that the Christian faith is intended to be universal, all encompassing. It is not up to us who is included in the universe, God has already taken care of this for us.
As we are reminded weekly, we are to "Go out and love and serve the Lord and one another."
Posted by: Robert LeBlanc | July 17, 2009 at 05:37 AM