August 23, 2021

Here’s the skeptic Ivan’s astute observation from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamozov.

“’I must make you one confession,’ Ivan began, ‘I could never understand how one can love one’s neighbours. It’s just one’s neighbours, to my mind, that one can’t love, though one might love those at a distance.” Ivan’s right; it is easier to love the abstract person than it is to love the particular person. Especially when the particular person is annoying, ultra-needy, or destructive.

The bible clearly tells us that love does not rise unaided from the human heart. But love of neighbor (and even enemy!) does happen in life. How? “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10)

The love our neighbor is always a response to God’s love for us.

“O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.” (Proper 19 – BCP p. 233)