Week 5: Love Your Neighbor
Weekly Reading:
Exodus 39 - Leviticus 20
Opening Prayer
Father God,
Your love for everyone teaches us to choose the right path and love our neighbors. You sent Your Son to teach us to love unconditionally despite who and what we are in You. Father, give us the courage to love as You love.
Amen
Study
As we move into February and Black History Month, I think to myself, why did we need to create a month to celebrate all that Black Americans bring to our society? Why can't we do this every day? And then, I realized that we must create a month to celebrate others because we do not honor or respect others every day. Loving our neighbors carries conditions as a society. I love my neighbor if they are this or that: but the minute we find differences, we begin to question or fear because we are not familiar with who they are. As a result, we discount what we do not know.
Valentine's Day, why can't we love our significant other every day? Why must we choose one day to celebrate others instead of all year long?
The same with Veterans Day. ShouldN’T we continually be grateful to those who protect and serve our country? Hispanic American Heritage Month, Native American Heritage Month, Asian and Pacific American Month, the list continues of those we now celebrate.
Why do we only select one day or one month when we should love our neighbors all year long?
Leviticus 19:18, God tells us to love our neighbors as we do ourselves. Leviticus 19:18 is one of the first places we see the command to love our neighbors, and the New Testament repeats the same in a multitude of verses. There are many rules repeated in all of Exodus, procedures for gifts and offerings; specifically, the process for atonement, what is clean, and what is unclean. In Leviticus 19, God goes into the conduct expected of his people (Leviticus 19:9 -19). All of God's decrees are concerning loving each other, our neighbors.
Leviticus 19:15 says not to show partiality but treat everyone the same. Similarly, if we were treating everyone the same, would we need to call out certain groups at particular times of the year? God says to be fair. And God does not put a time limit on these actions, meaning we should be fair every day, not just on certain days. We should not spread slanderous gossip (Leviticus 19:16) nor do anything that endangers a neighbor's life. Every day of every year we must be good to each other.
If God tells us to love each other every day and be good to each other, why do we need Veterans Day? Or a Hispanic American Heritage Month? The answer is that we are not following God's word. We are not celebrating our brothers and sisters every day, so we must be reminded that all people matter, and marginalizing others is not who God called us to be. Those who have been put aside or marginalized may need celebration or recognition more publicly, as we now do with our brothers and sisters who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian and Pacific American, Veterans, and the list could likely go on.
So, why can't our hearts be filled with love every day for everybody according to the commands of God in the early Israelite community?
We are not alone in this, whether that is comforting or otherwise. God saw that His people struggled with loving one another and brought His Son to help soften the hearts of his people so that they could learn to love one another.
As we further move into February, let's make good use of the available resources to learn more about our neighbors and celebrate what makes them unique; go into a community not your own and talk to others, love on one another. Seek out those communities unlike yours and make a difference in their world every day. Find a book from an author that talks about the struggles of minorities, unlike yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18).
Closing Prayer
Father God,
I know that we struggle with anything new. We are comfortable in what we know and find it challenging to branch out of what is comfortable, but we must do this to love as you love. To be the Samaritan in the world, as taught by Jesus, we must love and accept all people and celebrate what makes them unique. Help us learn from our brothers and sisters instead of assuming our culture on others. You have taught us how deep and wide is Your love; let us remember and create infinite chasms of love for everyone in our communities.
Amen
Homework
What can you learn from others?
Everyone has their own story; what is your story, and how is it similar to others?
How can you show love to everyone you meet? Is it a smile in the grocery store? Is it going out into a community different than yours? Is it gaining a greater understanding of another culture by reading books?
