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November 13, 2023I have been doing a lot of pondering since the events in Lewiston brought the reality of excessive violence closer to home. I cannot help but wonder how to make us all safer at church, if there is anything that I, as a priest, should be doing, and what we should do as a community to stem the tide of violence. The more I think about this reality the harder it is for me not to long for simpler times. It is hard to not let frustration and rage color my world view. It is hard to avoid the political finger pointing, blaming, and shouting that ignores the real cost of violence to our communities.
I have no intention of wading into the gun control issue. I do think that we need to find a better way, a more compassionate way, a more responsible way to care for those in our community who are living with mental illness. It is near impossible to find a competent counselor and once one is found, it is months before they can be seen. There remains a stigma around mental illness that effectively keeps people from seeking treatment. We need to begin seeing mental illness in the same light we see other serious illness and treat it with the same level of intensity.
In my homily last weekend, I made mention that the result of living the great commandment to love God and our neighbor, the visible sign of following the example of Jesus is peace. Not simply the absence of violence, not simply coexisting, and not just tolerance. When we live the commandment to love God and neighbor great things happen. When we live the Great Commandment, we do our little part to reveal the Kingdom of God already, but not yet fully, present in our world.
Every time I mention that love is what is going to change our world, I feel as though the smart people of the world just shake their heads and lament the naivete of religion. I sense that those whose job it is to negotiate peace among nations are laughing when they hear someone suggest that perhaps love should be part of their negotiations. So many in our world, in our community, in our own families believe that peace is the result of power and strength. Too many think that tolerating evil is a way to keep the peace; and still others think that allowing everyone to have their own truth will allow peace to flourish.
But the fact of the matter is that the more innovative we get in our search for peace, the more we look to our own devices for peace, the more we see peace as going along to get along the less peace we seem to have. The more we value our own truth over the truth, the more we need to be right, the more we seek comfort in the things of this world, the more we seem to fight. This is true in our families and in our world.
So, what are we to do? While I would never claim to think I know what Jesus is thinking, I am willing to bet if he were here today, if he were asked what the greatest commandment is, if he was asked what one must do to inherit eternal life, he would command us to love God and love our neighbor. Jesus would tell us to stop valuing ideas or things over people. He would say that love begins with preserving and protecting the dignity of life at all stages. He would say stop making those offensive jokes or stereotyping people because of their skin color or their ethnicity. Jesus would remind us to ask ourselves if what we are doing is loving and therefore bringing peace to a difficult time or situation. Jesus would ask if we have done all that we can to bring love and light to lonely people and dark situations.
I know that Jesus would say all these things, and many more, because he has already said them. The things he said when he traveled to Jerusalem and beyond were not just ideas of how to live well in a particular time or place. Instead, the lessons that Jesus taught are truth that is as relevant, as right, as just, and as important today as they were when he first uttered them.
The commandment to change the world into paradise through true and holy love, through the willing and working for the good of one another, is not some quaint, naïve, or simple idea. We need only look through human history to see all the other ways to peace that have been tried and have failed. It is time for a revival of the commandment to love. It is time that each one of us who calls ourselves a Christian commits ourselves to living the radical love that Jesus displays for each of us. It is time that we, without delay, without condition, without limit, create a pandemic of peace by loving God and our neighbor.
