Who is my neighbor?

So the past several months have been very hard on many of us - they have forced us to really examine what we believe and worse than that, they have opened our eyes to what those around us believe. Yep...this is another one of those posts. Vaguely political but actually mostly it is for my fellow Christian friends and family. It is not intended as a judgment but it is what I have been thinking about and I feel like I need to share.

Fair warning, it might make some of you angry. Many of you will not agree...and though for the life of me I cannot figure out why or how...that is okay. A lot of people these days are saying things like 'let's just stop talking about it and all get along again'. Ha. As if you could. I know I cannot anyway. I have been forced to realize that some people I have always thought to be very like minded are actually very...different than me. But that is actually in a way what this post is about. Because the thing is that even if this makes you angry and/or you disagree with me, I will still love you. You will have to decide if you still love me or not, but I am saying now - before it even begins. I will still love you. I just need to share what has been weighing on my heart.

So one thing that I think everyone generally agrees on is that Christianity is based on Christ (you can sort of see it even in the name...). So one of the things I generally always thought was true, even before I went to school to study the Bible (and oh  yeah I slipped that in there so you know I am not just spouting hot air. I have actually studied this stuff...I have TWO degrees in theology just as an aside if that makes any difference) but even before that I always held to the idea that we believe that Jesus changed things. So the easy way to say that is that the OT is no longer really valid b/c he made things new.

Now the academic in me insists I write a short paragraph explaining that it IS much more complicated than that. There is MUCH to be learned from the Old Testament. I love the Old Testament. In fact I preferred classes on the OT in school so please do not take my comment above too literally. I am merely saying that we do not follow the prescriptions of the OT and do things such as sacrifice animals (or people) to have relationship with God. The story of the entire Bible tells us that God saw humanity was growing away from Him and so he became part of them (Jesus) to show them how to have relationship with Him.

Okay that was a very quick/messy theology lesson right? Not my point but I am saying that I THINK everyone pretty much agrees to this narrative. I don't mean by that if you take it apart word by word I said it right, I mean it is the basic story of God/Jesus that we as Christians accept.

So the reason I started there is to say that I HATE when people use particular parts of the Bible to support whatever argument they are making. While I do wholeheartedly believe the Bible is our story of our relationship with God, I do not believe we can or should simply take verses and use them to our advantage. For example it says in one place women can not talk in the church, however we think that is antiquated so we just ignore that one; but in other places it says homosexuality is a sin and since many Christians are uncomfortable with that one, we cling to it. For me...that is not what the Bible is for. It cannot, and should not, be read in that manner. One of the reasons I can say that is....because as I stated above - Jesus changed everything.

So though I am going to now use some Bible verses to back myself up, they are all words of Jesus. The foundation of the church. Granted they are words that were recorded by men so they might be incorrect but generally speaking they are accepted to be the ACTUAL words of God.

Jesus was asked what is THE MOST IMPORTANT commandment. He answered:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind

AND THEN HE CONTINUED....
The second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself

So...the two most important things about being a Christian are loving God with your ENTIRE self and then loving your neighbor the same way that you love your...self. Wow.

Okay well just to be SUPER clear Jesus then also told us who our neighbor is. We all know the story - yep it's the good Samaritan.
So the story is a man was left on the side of the road, robbed and beaten - half dead. The people who should have stopped, didn't. The people who everything thought would take care of him, didn't. But the man who was TOTALLY different from him - he stopped. He took care of him. He spent his own money on him, he took him with him, he spent MORE money to be sure he would be cared for in the future, and he came back to check on him. Now the incredible parts of this story don't come through unless you do some study but I am sure we have all heard the sermons and know the history. Samaritans and Jews did not deal with one another. They did not trust one another, they definitely did not help one another. In fact the reason they hated one another was because of their religions. Jewish people considered Samaritans pagans, they were everything that they were taught not to be. They were completely OTHER than them.
Yet Jesus says, THAT man was his neighbor.

I am baffled....when faced with this story - that we love to tell in Sunday School and in church - how we can be at such a place of discord within the Christian church right now. JESUS Himself says that THE MOST important thing we can do is to love God AND to love our neighbor, who is particularly the other.

Do you know who your "others" are? Or as Jesus would call them...your neighbors?

They are people of a different skin color
They are people of a different economic class
They are people of a different sexual preference
They are people from a different country
They are people who believe a different religion
They are people who disagree with you politically
(they might be me after you read this...remember I still love you!)

Your neighbor is not fellow American white Christians. Of course you love them. Your neighbor is not the people that make you feel safe in your homes. Of course it is easy to accept them. Jesus didn't say anything about the Samaritan feeling safe. That Jew could have woken up and spit on him. That is basically how Jews treated Samaritans, but he didn't care...he helped him anyway.

How can we say we are loving God with our whole heart, soul and mind if we are not even following his second command?

How can we even pretend to say we are loving our neighbor if we are not fighting for refugees who are fleeing from homes where they are in danger of being killed every moment?

How can we claim to love our transgender neighbor if we do not even support their right to go to the bathroom in a safe and comfortable way? (and before you start talking about your rights please see my comments above about the rights/safety of the Samaritan. Jesus does not mention them even once).

It makes my heart heavy to think that Jesus Christ came to earth to make it AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE to us how to treat one another. He gave us explicit instructions and still we are not doing everything in our power to love our neighbors.

If I am not loving EVERY single neighbor that comes into knowledge of reality in the way that Christ told me to then I cannot think that I am loving Him with my whole heart, soul and mind.

Just food for thought.