It’s easy—well, most of the time—to love friends and family. We chose to spend our lives with a select few. Shouldn’t loving them be enough?
But when Jesus tells us to love, he says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?!” “Love your enemies,” he goes on. “Pray for those who persecute you. Walk an extra mile with someone who forces you to walk one.”
Jesus not only commands this kind of love; he lives it. During a time when ‘untouchable’ categories were many, Jesus invited and spent time with those he (as a religious person) was meant to shun. Religious types complained about Jesus, that he spent time and enjoyed meals with “tax-collectors and sinners,” (those hated collaborators with the Roman government and women of ill-repute.) They grumbled that Jesus was a ‘glutton and a wine-bibber”— enjoying a good meal and a glass of wine with people of all stripes.
Jesus refused to “other” people. From the Samaritan woman (who was ‘living in sin’) to Zacchaeus (a well-known cheat and government agent)—Jesus looked beyond the label and the religious category to the person inside and called out their best–pretty much the definition of love.
The apostle Paul condemns “othering”— declaring that in the new community of Christ followers, the rigid distinctions of his era—Jew/ Gentile, Male/Female, Slave/Free—are dissolved. No wonder early Christ followers got a reputation— “Look how these Christians love each other!” And the faith was insulted as “the religion of slaves and women.”
Not “othering” but loving: for me, this is the biggest challenge of being a Christian.
You see, I really prefer to “other” people. That way I don’t have to try to understand, to empathize, wondering how they got to a place where they would want to, say, wave a confederate flag or tear down Black Lives Matter signs. Or why they try to look like a Barbie Doll. Or why they talk without listening. I can just dismiss them as ‘one of those,’ as ‘them.’
“Othering” makes life simple. I look at this person with this particular bumper sticker and think, “idiot.” Swept away in one simple word. I, of course, don’t want to be swept away like that. I want all my complexities of thought, background, and motives to be heard and understood in all their remarkable nuance.
“Othering” also makes me feel superior. I can assume this person is uneducated, un-enlightened theologically–compared to me. Jesus tells a parable about this, when the self-righteous supplicant prays next to an inferior: “I thank thee God that I am not like others, that I fast and pray and keep your rules…not like this second-rate being next to me…” Jesus concludes that it is the lesser one, who simply turns to God, who goes away with a heart full of joy and peace.
George Eliot is a favorite novelist of mine, partly because of her kindness toward her characters. In her (long) novels, she gives her characters– even the superficial, vain ones–redeeming moments. The character you have come to despise surprises you by a good, unnecessarily grace-filled act. For this, George Eliot has been called “inveterately magnanimous.”
I’d like to be “inveterately magnanimous”— willing to look for, and be surprised by the good in all.
But it’s so hard. Especially at this time in our country.
At one stage in his life, St. Augustine is renowned for praying: “Dear God, make me chaste, but not yet.”
Following in his footsteps, I pray: “Dear God, make me inveterately magnanimous.” I admit I’m tempted to add, “but not yet.” I’m trying; I’m daring, to ask, “Dear God, make me inveterately magnanimous. And I need that now.”
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
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