One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[b] The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[c] There is no commandment greater than these.”

– Mark 12:28-31 New International Version (NIV)

Loving your neighbor is easier said than done. The easy part is saying that we should love our neighbors. Beyond that, it’s even easy to actually love your neighbor when things are going well. When you get along, when you agree, when there is no tension, it is easy to love your neighbor.

But things get a little more complicated when you suddenly disagree with your neighbor. When there is tension and conflict, it gets hard to remember that everyone is a beloved child of God. It gets hard to remember that we are supposed to love our neighbor.

When we are in conflict, it is our natural response to want to ‘win’, whatever that may look like. When it comes to our faith, we can get lost in the argument and defensive. We begin to think that God is on our side and that the other person is wrong. Suddenly, it is not about God’s will, but about our own will. We try to bend God’s will into our own. But that’s not what it really means to be a Christian. We are made in God’s image.  We are called to listen to God’s will, even when it may not mean ‘winning’. Loving God with all of our hearts means loving all of God’s creation. It means loving our neighbors even when we disagree or even admitting that we were wrong.

A week or a month for now, it will be easy to look back and talk about who we think was right or wrong. It will be easy to talk about the things that went in our favor and the things that didn’t. Suddenly, it will be easy to vilify our neighbors. But when we look back at the way we’ve conducted ourselves– the ways we’ve discussed issues, the ways we’ve treated people, the decisions we’ve made on behalf of other people’s lives, the decisions we made in God’s name–will we look back and be able to say that we have lived into our greatest commandment? Were we able to love our neighbor, even when our neighbors felt like our enemies?

Guide our hearts oh God so that we may be the living word. Show us how to be an example of your love and Grace for the world to see and be with us in this time of reflection and discernment.  Amen.

Caitlyn Anderson
Co-President, Young People’s Council (California-Pacific Conference)

Broghan Hunt
Seminarian, Claremont School of Theology