Loving our neighbor is easier than we think! Try it!

John the Evangelist, the probable author of the fourth gospel, spoke and wrote often about love. “God is love…and if anyone says that he loves God whom he does not see but does not love his brother or sister whom he does see, he is simply a liar.”

John was certain he was correct in preaching this. This is why John often sat hours with his young followers gathered around him. One day one of his young students suggested: “Teacher you never stop talking about love: God’s love for us, and especially our love for each other.” And then, looking sheepishly at John, finished with this appeal: “Why don’t you tell us something else?”

John, the disciple who once laid his head on Jesus’ shoulder at the Last Supper, replied: “Because there is nothing else as important. If we master love, we have grasped everything Jesus’ taught?”

“Love is the only pathway toward our human destiny, heaven! More importantly, love leads to the feet of God who is love,” he said. We cannot say “yes” to loving God without saying “yes” to loving our neighbor. Neither can we say “yes” without including everyone in our acts of love.

Jesus is perfectly clear about this. If we come to place our gift at the altar, and we remember we are harboring a grudge against even one neighbor, Jesus asks we leave our gift, go straightaway, and make peace with our neighbor.

This and this alone are the only way to offer our gift. God only wants our gift if first we can love and be settled away with that neighbor.

John writes the following telling us how important love is: “I [Jesus] have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. This then, is what I command you: love one another.”

What God is asking, clearly and simply is that we cannot have a relationship of love with God whom we cannot see, unless we first have a relationship of love with neighbors we can see. Jesus is very clear.

As a Christian, this may seem like an impossible goal. It may seem easier to love the God we don’t see, rather than the neighbor we do see. God knows what he is asking. If God can do it, he wants us to try too. Because Jesus told us, “Whatever you do to the least of God’s children you do to God, and whatever you don’t do to the least of his children you do to God.”

John ended his session with his followers by saying, “Everyday God awaits our response!”