And the king will answer them, “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” —Matthew 25:40
On my podcast Love Period, I recently reflected on how we are called to love imperfect people imperfectly. My friends at the Center for Action and Contemplation — led by Father Richard Rohr — produce that podcast. Here is a redaction of what I shared.
There is a kind of love Rabbi Jesus was talking about. If our neighbor is in prison, if they’re hungry, if they’re naked, if they’re lonely, if they’re a stranger, a widow, a child, if they’re an outsider, if they’re last, they become first. In our holy imagination, this kind of love is radical; it’s fierce. It takes us beyond borders, beyond race/ethnicity, beyond religion, beyond gender, beyond sexuality, beyond have and have-not, beyond blue and red. It’s a call to love your neighbor across these social categories and belief systems. It’s love that insists on justice as proof of love.
Even as I smart from the presidential election, and struggle not to feel betrayed by those who put Trump in office and even as I worry about the vulnerable people who will be most deeply impacted by what happens in these next four years, I’m also wondering what love means now. Who is your neighbor, who is my neighbor and how do we love them? Can we see and feel their humanity? Sense their connectedness to you, the way you’re alike, even though you’re different? The way their blood is red, no matter what color their skin is? The way their heart beats, no matter who they love or how they love them? Can you sense your neighbor’s kinship with you and therefore be imagining that their self-interest and your self-interest are intertwined? Can you feel the ubuntu connection, that we are only human through other humans?
What will love have us do? What is a starting place to look at the world through someone else’s eyes and have empathy for them? Who’s the one person you want to understand better and want to learn from and perhaps also teach? Pick a person to start with. I’m not saying go to a person who will make you feel in danger or in harm, but somebody who can be a conversation partner about what love needs to be now for all of us. Will you consider that one person and then maybe another who can increase your tribe, help you to see things differently and help you to love more profoundly? A neighbor, not exactly like you, but a neighbor, nonetheless.
I believe these are going to be difficult times. We might drown in the difficulty. But, if we try to love our neighbor, even the strangest one of all, I wonder if we can learn to swim in the turbulence. I wonder if love is a life-raft. I wonder if fierce, just, revolutionary love might be what saves us — each of our imperfect selves seeking each other, curious, candid, leaning-in to the ties that bind us. What if we tried love, tried a little tenderness? I’m not saying to rush to the sites of terror, but rather finding another with whom to begin a gentle exploration of their humanity. Can we try that?
Reference: Adapted from Jacqui Lewis, “Love Thy Neighbor,” Love Period with Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis season 4, episode 1 (Center for Action and Contemplation, 2024), podcast.
Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is senior minister and public theologian at Middle Church in New York. Celebrated internationally for her dynamic preaching and commitment to building a just society with fierce love, Dr. Lewis champions racial, economic, and gender/sexuality justice. The author of several books, including “Fierce Love” and the “Just Love Story Bible,” her work has been featured on NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, NPR and in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Ebony and Essence magazines.