11

Love is in the Air, and All Humans Breathe.

As a people who believe in one God, we necessarily hold that all the universe is wired by this one Love. By this one Compassion. Nothing that exists is apart from the hand of the One described, in essence, this way.

So it stands to reason that as beautiful as compassion is, it’s not special. It’s just how things are. When we become more aware of our own desire to be loved, the general and specific ways we’d like for that love to happen happen, as being the tools for loving others, it feels right. As in, it feels like things are as they should be. No matter how cynical I become, every act of selfish evil I see on the news is met with a sense of “what the blank is wrong with people?” That question, and its confidence, betray that Love and Kindness are the underlying standard. Everything else is special.

In the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, we’re told of an exchange Jesus had with someone well acquainted with the scriptures and the traditions that both shaped and grew out of them.

A scribe arrived and heard Jesus and some religious leaders debating. When the scribe saw how well Jesus handled himself in the exchange, he pitched a question many rabbis got asked.

“Which commandment is the most important of all?”

Jesus answered him. “The most important is tucked into the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy: ‘Listen, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. And you shall 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 scribe was already nodding.

“And the second one is like it, you’ll find it in Leviticus 19:” Jesus continued. “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ These are the most important.”

The scribe believed his endorsement was important, and so he offered it. “You are right, Rabbi. You spoke correctly that God is One, and there are no others. That to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, as well as to love one’s neighbor as oneself, completely trumps the entire ritualistic and sacrificial system.”

And to the man’s wise and congruent assessment, Jesus put it something like this. “Unlike your associates who delight in the member’s only club, you are not far from the kingdom of God.”

But Jesus wasn’t saying anything new. Nothing special. In his response to the scribe he quoted from work written as much as nearly a millennia before, and as a young Jewish boy would have undoubtedly heard other rabbis, most notably Rabbi Hillel, saying the same thing.

“…thou shalt love your neighbor like you do yourself.”

“What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.”

“And what you hate, do not do to any one.”

Christian theologians throughout time have arrived at a conclusion that can be catalogued generally under the term “Prevenient Grace”. This is the idea that the biggest truths about God, about what it means to be a human living in harmony with God, aren’t taught. TA Grace that leaches outward throughout all humanity from our One God, tapping all humanity on the shoulder, whispering the most important things in our ears, inviting us to respond before we ever hear it on the lips of an evangelist or in the text of a sermon. The Compassion that made the universe is bubbling through the cracks everywhere. This I found surprising only when I thought God was mine. I am coming to see, as Christ said, that no one is far from the Kingdom of a God who holds it all in a Mother’s womb.

“Ascribe not to any soul that which you would not have ascribed to yourself, and say not that which you won’t do…Blessed is he who prefers his brother before himself.”

“This is the sum of your sacred duty: Do nothing to others which would cause you pain if it were done to you”.

“…a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?”

“Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”

“Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you”

“Tse-kung asked, ‘Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?’ Confucius replied, ‘It is the word ’shu’ — reciprocity. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.'”

“Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence.”

“None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”

“Whoever wishes to be delivered from the fire and to enter Paradise…should treat the people as he wishes to be treated.”

“In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.”

“A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.”

“Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

“To those who are good to me, I am good; to those who are not good to me, I am also good. Thus all get to be good.”

“That nature alone is good which refrains from doing to another whatsoever is not good for itself.”

“Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others.”

“All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.”

“Do not wrong or hate your neighbor. For it is not he who you wrong, but yourself.”

“The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves.”

All the world, all that’s been made, is being called back to what it is. This is the heart of what repentance means. To return, rather than merely “stop it, I’m getting angry!” We’re returning not to become special or even better than anyone. We’re simply being called back to what we actually are. Love made in the image of Love. Compassion, taking after the nature of our Parent.

Christ comes to us, tapping on us all on our shoulders, saying, follow me back to what you are.

When we are compassionate today, when we love the other as we have grown aware we’d liked to be loved ourselves, we are being no less than ahava, because that is what you and I are. You can expect the souls of a human to respond to your application of the Golden Rule. The rule is for all humans, from the all humanity’s Fount.