In the season of Lent, we engage in penance as a means of being reconciled with God. But as Christ tells us in Matthew’s gospel, before bringing our gifts to the altar, we should “go first and be reconciled with your brother” (Mt 5:24). And so our Lenten penance includes not only prayer and fasting, but also works of charity.
Jesus is consistent on this point. When He teaches us to ask God to forgive our debts, He adds in the same breath, “as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:12). When asked which commandment is the greatest, Jesus offers the expected answer of “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and then immediately adds “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39). It is clear that love of God and love of neighbor are inextricably linked in the mind of Christ.
But why should this be? Why isn’t it enough to ask God for forgiveness? Why must I forgive others? Why isn’t it enough to love God? Why must I love my neighbor? Why isn’t it enough to serve God? Why must I also serve the poor? These are fair questions. I can think of at least four reasons (although I’m certain there are others).
The first reason is fairly straightforward. If you love someone, it is only natural that you love what they love. When preparing couples for marriage, I often advise them to take an interest in those things which are important to their spouse. This shows that what is important to your beloved is important to you, as well. If this is true of small things, it is even more true of great things. Christ loves us each with an infinite love. When we struggle to reconcile with someone, it is good to remember that Jesus died for that person. How can I claim to love Christ yet refuse to love someone for whom He gave His life?
The second reason is also easy to understand. Every human person is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:27). If we love God, we should also love that which resembles Him, and there is nothing in all of creation that resembles God more than you and me. That’s mind blowing, but true. How can we claim to love God if we do not love what is most like God on this earth?
The third reason I can think of that God unites love of Him with love of neighbor is because it allows our love for God to be incarnational and sacramental. By “incarnational” I mean that loving our neighbor allows our love of God to become enfleshed. By “sacramental” I mean that loving our neighbor makes visible our invisible love of God. This is for our benefit. I cannot see God and I struggle at times to know what God asks of me. But I can see my neighbor. I can ask my neighbor, “How can I serve you today?” Jesus so identifies with us that He counts the love we show to one another as love shown to Him. This is especially true of those in need, as Jesus makes clear in His revelation about the final judgment: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25:40).
I believe this is also why God commands us specifically to love our neighbor instead of simply telling us to love everyone. We are, of course, called to love everyone in the sense that no one is excluded from the demands of love. The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us this (Lk 10:25-37). But there is a reason why Jesus uses the word “neighbor.”
Loving everyone requires very little of me. “Everyone” is too generic. I have no relationship with “everyone.” But my neighbor has a name. My neighbor has a face. My neighbor has specific needs and is in a position to make real demands of me. It is easy to love everyone. Loving one’s neighbor can be quite difficult. The rich man in the parable wasn’t condemned because he failed to help “the poor.” He was condemned because he didn’t help Lazarus, who died at his doorstep (Lk 16:19-31).
By accepting the love we offer one another as love offered to Him, God gives us concrete ways to serve Him. Each of our many and varied relationships, every encounter we have with someone in need, is an opportunity to love God. This is true even – and especially – of the people whom we find most difficult to love. This, I believe, is why God particularly identifies with the poor, the diseased, the imprisoned and the oppressed. There are lessons of love that can only be learned by loving those who seem unlovable.
This brings me to the fourth reason I suggest Jesus identifies love of neighbor with love of God. By learning to love even those who seem unlovable, we become like God. In one of the most challenging passages in all of scripture, Jesus tells us, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you... For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? ... Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:43-48).
God’s love is pure, perfect, selfless and disinterested. He offers everything to us, yet Himself gains nothing. Christ shows the strength of God’s love by giving His life for us even while we were His enemies (Rom 5:8), praying for the very people driving nails into His flesh (Lk 23:34). This is the divine love we are called to participate in as members of Christ’s Body, the Church. By commanding us to love God and love neighbor, Jesus only reiterates what was previously taught by the law and the prophets. But the new commandment He gives us is even more demanding: “love one another, as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34).
Deacon Matthew Newsome is the Catholic campus minister at Western Carolina University and the regional faith formation coordinator for the Smoky Mountain Vicariate.