Do I Really Love My Neighbor?

Christian Perspectives Article – Saturday, March 17th, 2007

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

One month ago the body of four-year-old Ariana Payne was discovered in a storage locker in Arizona. She had been dead for at least six months and no one knew. Her five-year-old brother, Tyler, has been missing at least that long and is feared dead, but no one has missed him either. It is possible that these kids have been missing for almost a year but it didn’t bother anyone until they found little Ariana.

On the same day Ariana was found, police entered a Long Island apartment and found the body of 70-year-old blind, diabetic Vincenzo Riccardi, sitting in front of a TV that was still on. No one had seen Vincenzo for more than a year. No one had missed him. His neighbors thought he had been hospitalized or moved to a nursing home so they didn’t check on him.

Two cases, a country apart. Two souls, a generation apart.

What breaks down in a society, or in a nation, that allows the most vulnerable to disappear without notice? Why is that two individuals, who should be receiving the most watch-care, can be missing for a year and no one knows? No one cares.

It is the second great commandment that is broken; Love your neighbor as yourself. It is community that has disintegrated. How can we love our neighbors when we don’t even recognize that they are missing?

I am convinced that most Americans are so busy with the busy-ness of life, so focused on our own needs, so consumed with consumer-ism, that we have left the “community” and not even recognized it. Do you know your neighbors? Could your neighbor be missing for more than a year and you not know about it, or care about it?

There are neighbors within one-hundred-yards of my house that I am ashamed to say could have been missing for a year and I wouldn’t know.

Sometimes we get tied up in do’s and don’ts, trying to live up to the standard we think God has set for our lives. Or we reach for the “brass ring” of success by climbing the next rung on the corporate ladder. We strive for athletic, academic, or artistic success and sacrifice time and relationships to attain it. Even in the church sometimes there is more busy-ness than effectiveness.

But Jesus said only two things are required; Love God and love your neighbor. If you do these things, the rest of the law of God will take care of itself. But how can you love God if you don’t invest any energy in getting to know Him? And how can you love your neighbor, if you don’t even know that they are missing?

John, Jesus’ closest friend during His earthly ministry, goes even farther. “Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” John ties the two together. If we don’t love our neighbor, how can we claim to love God? If we truly love God, we must also love our neighbor.

Who do you know that needs extra watch-care? Who are the ones in your neighborhood that need “checking in on?” Who’s watching out for you? Who should have been watching our for Ariana and Vincenzo?

I was stunned by the recent re-publication of pictures of the destruction in the wake of the 1917 New Castle Tornado. Whole neighborhoods were destroyed. 22 people lost their lives, and hundreds were injured. If we were hit by another tornado in 2007, would you know who to look for in the piles of rubble? Would you know if your neighbor was missing? Would you care?

During this season as we prepare for an Easter celebration, let’s build community on all levels. Get to know your neighbors and what their needs are. Only then will you be able to love them. And get to know God and what He desires. Only then will you be able to love Him.