Loving Your [Difficult] Neighbor

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. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28–31 NIV)

I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot recently. Love your neighbor as yourself. It’s easy to love the people who agree with me. It’s easy to love the people I consider friends and love spending time with, the people I work with side by side to bring social justice and change to the world. It’s easy to love the people who love me.

But what about the people who aren’t easy to love? What about those who don’t agree with me, those with whom I have fundamental differences? What about those who have made life choices that I look down on or those I just don’t get, who seem to be angry or want to argue all the time, who seem to work against my values? What about those who are just plain different from me, those people I don’t understand—not their way of life or their priorities?

Jesus wants me to love the people who fall into this easy category, but he also wants me to love those who don’t fit neatly into my manicured world. That’s what has kept my mind busy. How am I supposed to love someone I not only disagree with but who makes my blood boil?

In his book The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, Scot McKnight explores the lesson Jesus taught and how to live out those commandments. His first bit of advice when moving forward into loving others is this: “To love another person in this world means you are committed to being with that person and to being for that person, and you are committed to growing with them to become the person God made you to be.”

Being committed to someone or for someone with whom I’m in opposition, or someone I can’t stand, seems like a tall order. It’s much easier to point out their faults and their mistakes and criticize them (either publicly or in my heart) than it is to come alongside them and be an encourager or cheerleader.

Let’s be clear: being for someone and loving someone as yourself is not the same as excusing or condoning hurtful or destructive behavior. But loving someone as Jesus commands us may mean setting aside our anger and simply imagining them as an equal in God’s love. Loving someone as myself means accepting that God loves them just as much as God loves me.

Since the death of Billy Graham, many of his words have been brought back into public light, as often happens when a beloved figure passes away. One such statement of his seems to help me follow Jesus’s commandment to love my neighbor as myself: “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge and my job to love.”

I don’t think this is permission to adopt a hate the sin, love the sinner theology. Rather, it’s an instruction to look past the sin and see the person God made and loves. It’s permission to ask ourselves, if God loves the person I’m struggling with, then why not love that person too?

Even when we know God and the Holy Spirit have it all under control, it can still be a challenge to love the difficult people in our lives. That’s when it’s important to focus on the first of the two commandments: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” If we’re focused on loving God with all we have, we don’t leave a lot of room to hold grudges, to be angry with or hold in contempt those with whom we disagree.

Loving others the way Christ loves us is a tall order. It can take a lifetime to figure out, and even then, we probably won’t get it right all the time. However, there is something fundamental about wanting the same benefits and blessings I want for myself for someone else as well.

Do I want a safe place to live for me and my family? Yes, and why shouldn’t I want the same for my neighbor, even for those with whom I don’t understand or agree? Do I want access to medical care when I’m sick, and do I want my family and friends to be healthy and to be treated when they are ill? Of course! Then why shouldn’t I want the same for those who aren’t close to me?

Just because we don’t naturally love someone with our whole hearts doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same joy in life we do, that they don’t deserve to have their needs met the same as you and me.

Thankfully, Jesus is easy to love because he first loved us. With his help, we can love our neighbors—even when it’s hard.

Stephanie Clinton is a writer and blogger but more importantly, a wife and mother to two little boys. In her free time (if there is any) she can be found wiping snotty noses and volunteering in her community and school. Learn more about Stephanie along with her passion to encourage women and lighten their load at www.hugskissesandsnot.com.

Photograph © Dani Vivanco, used with permission