Last Friday I wrote “When Your Baseline is Hate”, looking at the danger of lives focused on bigotry, cruelty, and greed. As we enter Holy Week, I want to consider what one’s life might look like if the focus is love. I think of Jesus in this way; everything He taught focused on love of God and neighbor. This doesn’t mean that He was always nice; consider His words to His hometown that were so offensive to them that they tried to throw Him off a cliff. Think about how He got so angry at people selling things on the steps of the Temple that He made a whip and drove them and their animals away. These were not Him being nice – these were acts of love towards God and inclusion of the other. Being nice can sometimes be fake, but being loving always has integrity.
When your baseline is love, you consider the welfare of others while you consider your own wants and needs. You vote for the good of all people, not just yourself and people like you. You respect people, regardless of the way they live (as long as they aren’t hurting others) and the God they do or don’t believe in. When love is your baseline, you stand up for people who are being injured or bullied. You make sure people are safe. You work towards a just society. Loving God, self, and others is central to almost every religious doctrine; and yet, if that were actually lived, I believe life would be much different.
Loving people because they are made in God’s image doesn’t mean we have to always agree with them. It doesn’t mean we have to live the way they do, nor do they have to be like us. Living as if love is our baseline means that we do for others in the same way we hope they will do for us, which doesn’t mean we legislate their lives to conform to ours. We also don’t allow them to control our lives. Love is not a state of perfection – it is often in a state of learning. Love is not a set of rules – it is a way to see the holy in others. Love is always better than hate, so speak up when you see hate becoming the status quo. For love to win, it has to be protected.
Prayer – Holy God, we aren’t always as loving as we might be, and too often, we project that on to You. May our lives be as loving as possible, and when they aren’t, help us to find the path again. Amen.
Today’s art is “Celebration 2” by Rita Lloyd.