The second part of Jesus’ definition of the greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. For years I have maintained that one of our biggest problems as human beings is that we aren’t great at loving ourselves. Love of self is a balance – too much, and we are egotistical; too little, and we are self-loathing. Religion should help us to keep that balance, but too often it teaches us lessons that make us spiritually unhealthy. We have been so focused on the extremes that we are out of whack. We teach high self-esteem, creating self-absorbed narcissists, or we teach that we are lowly worms, unfit to be loved. Jesus gave us the answer – love yourself, then love others in the same way with the same energy. Why is that so hard to do?
For years, I think, we focused on behavior as an indicator of how much we loved ourselves and others. The person who lived and loved differently than the majority became the danger. Addiction was seen as a moral failure rather than the illness it truly is, and we persecuted people who needed help, not punishment. Meanwhile, human bigotry continues to destroy us, festering like an infection that just won’t die. We categorize and judge others, putting most of our efforts into attacking people in the minority. Even now, we see our own government focused on the domination, control, and even the destruction of non-English speakers, LGBTQ people, and women. We point at those we seek to diminish, yelling “danger!” while the real danger is us. I know a lot of people who are under attack, and all they want is what I want for myself – they just want to live their lives. Self-hatred leads to abuse of others, and it doesn’t just hurt the object of that abuse – it destroys the soul of the one doing the attacking.
This is the real sin against self. Too often, it seems to me, people attack that which they hate or don’t understand about themselves. They legislate out of fear, putting up a smokescreen to hide their own self-loathing. When we mistreat others, we mistreat ourselves. When we demonize the behavior of others, we lose touch with our own fears and frailties. Think of how many anti-LGBTQ bigots turn out to be part of those groups themselves. Think about the many elected leaders who legislate against things that, later, they admit to indulging in. Jesus told His disciples that anger – not the “you took my parking spot” kind of anger, but the kind of anger that leads to hatred and violence – is just as bad as murdering someone. When we wield power to destroy others, we destroy ourselves – we sin against ourselves. And the cycle of destruction continues. We need to learn how to love ourselves, for real, so we can love others.
Prayer – Holy God, we need to love ourselves so that we can love others. Open our hearts to that kind of love. Amen.
Today’s art is “Passionate Love’ by Jan Tetsutani.