Let no debt remaind outstanding: loving your neighbor

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law….Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love does no harm to its neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”   Romans 13:  8, 9b, 10

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another….

      …according to the holiness of God’s Ten Commandments….

          …according to your vocation and calling in life…

               …according to your gifts and talents…

                    …according to your neighbor’s need…

                          …according to your neighbor’s sin and weakness.

When I evaluate my life and the call to love my neighbor, I have learned to look at the call to love in this way.  Many thanks to Pastor Wolfmueller for this outline.  It is a very helpful way of ordering my thoughts about my call to love my neighbor.  Modern liberal definitions and discussions of love would run roughshod over all boundaries to love.  It is not that God is Love, but that Love is god; and in that way, love is used to justify all kinds of human behavior:  licentiousness and corruption, as well as simple carelessness and inconsiderateness.  When we can apply the boundary lines as described above, we are able to more clearly and respectfully love our neighbor in a way that pleases God is truly good for others.  And by neighbor, I mean anyone placed in my sphere of influence who may have a need that it is in my power to meet. 

The first boundaries are those cast by the Ten Commandments.  Not like the ceremonial laws or purity laws of the Old Testament, which were part of God’s covenantal relationship with Israel as He kept His people apart for His plan; rather, the Ten Commandments are an enduring expression of God’s character and His holiness, as well as an outline of how human relationships function according to His design.  How do I love my neighbor in accordance with the Ten Commandments?  Primarily, I love according to the second table of the Commandments.  There is a shape to my love for my parents – one of respect, consideration, and honor; similarly, this kind of love is owed to all authority which God places over me – government, law enforcement, teachers, supervisors, employers etc.  There is a shape to my love for neighbor as it respects my neighbors health and safety, the physical wellbeing of his or her body; such that reckless driving, failing to wear a face covering during COVID19, violence, abuse or neglect, is a violation of this command.  There is a shape to my love for my spouse, one of fidelity and respect and compassion as well as one which includes the privilege and expectation of joyful, life-giving, unifying sexuality; and the inverse of this love is a refraining from sexual expression with anyone outside of marriage. There is a shape to my love for my neighbor which does not seek to increase my wealth at the expense of the wealth of my neighbor, which respects my neighbor’s property and protects it from damage, loss or theft.  There is a shape of love for my neighbor which protects his or her good name and reputation, by speaking in love and gentleness and rejecting gossip, slander, libel, the betrayal of trust, or assuming the worst motives.  There is a shape of love for my neighbor that guards my own contentment and peace of mind by not comparing myself to my neighbor, and not longing for what my neighbor has that I do not; not coveting my neighbor’s personal circumstances, family situation and relationship, wealth or property, or his or her personal characteristics.  The Ten Commandments so applied become the good fences that make good neighbors.  On the one side, demanding that I maintain good and healthy relationships with all; on the other side, that I refrain from anything which would cause harm to my neighbor. 

Relatedly, but more personal, is my calling and vocation.  I have many.  I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a military officer, commander and supervisor, a member of a congregation, a member of a neighborhood.  When an act is neutral in accordance with the Ten Commandments, I can ask myself if it is appropriate according to my vocation.  There is an expression “It takes a village to raise a child”, which rings true in some ways but false in others.  In my vocation as neighbor, I may raise a voice of warning to a child in my neighborhood to keep her or him from darting out into the busy street; but it is not my calling to physically discipline that child, as that falls in the vocation as parent.  In my role as commander to care for my airmen, I may feel similar emotions to my vocation as parent, and may even call on similar skills or experiences; but it isn’t my place to kiss the forehead of one of my subordinates, as it would be within my vocation as parent.   Someone might say “I can tell you as your friend…but as your lawyer…” and their advice would differ.  Or a police officer who is known to you must set aside their role as friend to act in their vocation as law enforcement, if you were speeding through the neighborhood; and to ask them to do otherwise would violate your command to respect authority according to the fourth commandment.  

More specifically still is the nitty-gritty of individual gifts, talents, abilities and resources.  How can I serve my neighbor with what God has given me?  Very often, our minds jump to money:  giving to charity or to a homeless person on the street, tithing to the church or paying rather more than a product or service is worth in the name of a scholarship fund.  But money is often a simplification or even a safeguard against actually putting some skin in the game, where we might donate time to serve at a soup kitchen or to tutor underprivileged children because we have both time and the ability to read.  Even honoring my husband’s request to sew the button back on his work pants is a way of serving my neighbor with my talents; he’s not necessarily asking that of me in my vocation as wife – although that may be part of it – but it is because I’m more skilled at this than him.  Not all of us have the same gifts or talents; offering to cook a meal for a family with a newborn is really only a service if one is at least a passable cook!  But as Proverbs 3: 27 says “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.” While “deserve” conveys a sense of debt or due, boiling love down to a transactional quid pro quo, we should instead remember Paul’s words to the Romans that we all owe a debt of love to others.  

We must also consider the need of our neighbor, the most famous discussion of this being in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10.  The question is posed to Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”, and the answer by way of this parable is most certainly “any person who needs something from you.”  While this may seem very similar to the statement that we meet our neighbor’s needs according to our gifts and talents, it should also force us to go beyond this.  If your neighbor is hungry, it no longer matters if you are a good cook!  If your neighbor is naked, sharing even shabby clothing is better than nothing at all if that is all that you have.  If your neighbor is injured, you must work to help them even if you are not a medical professional nor have any abilities in medicine.  

A corollary to this is that we also serve our neighbor according to their weakness and even their sin.  Paul says in Galatians 6: 1 – 5, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.  Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  Each one should test his own actions.  Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.” When I carry my neighbor’s burden, I help him or her to resist temptation and I do not mock the weakness of others.  Knowingly offering alcohol to a recovering alcoholic may be failing to love my neighbor in her weakness.  Discussions of modesty fall into this domain as well – if immodest clothing causes lustful thoughts in others, the neighbor is harmed in his weakness.  Whole industries exist to prey upon the sins and weaknesses of others – pornography, gambling, prostitution, even indiscriminate sales of alcohol or recreational drugs.  When an action falls through the sieve created by the Commandments, vocation, gifts and need, it may still be caught by this demand and called sin and failure.

Love is complicated.  There are good and appropriate ways of demonstrating love in diverse situations to diverse people; there are also actions which may have the appearance of love but do not actually desire what is best for the neighbor.  Love is further complicated by our natural sinfulness, our tendency to selfishness and our simple weaknesses as human beings.  We rest on the forgiveness we have in Christ Jesus, with His blood covering all of our sins.  Even as He has redeemed us from sin, death and the power of the devil; even as He has redeemed us from eternal damnation; He can redeem all of our failures, working all things to His glory and our good as we are called into His service.  My well-intentioned failures as a parent, my neglect and forgetfulness as a supervisor, my outright selfishness and my deep-seated sin as a human being:  all of this is forgiven in Christ.  And I am confident that because He has ordered this life and ordained our vocations, and He has presented us with opportunities to serve, He will also redeem our failures for the good of His kingdom and to bless our neighbor despite our weakness.