Wednesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s readings are a beautiful follow-on to this past Sunday’s scriptures from Deuteronomy 6 and Mark 12. We get to hear St Paul’s voice echoing Christ’s in his exhortation to love our neighbor as our self. Paul incorporates an interesting metaphor into the mix – that of indebtedness. What do we owe in our spiritual lives, and to whom do we owe it? That’s a great question for our prayer and pondering today.
Have you ever thought about owing a debt of love to another person? Paul is clear in his admonition, “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Earlier,(Romans 6:23), Paul says, “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” He argues that what we are owed, what we deserve, what we are due on account of our sins is death! Conversely, one might expect the follow up to that statement to be something like, “and the wages of righteousness is eternal life.” But hallelujah, that is NOT the case! We cannot earn or merit our salvation. God does not owe us anything for any righteous deed or act of obedience that we might perform. Our sin tarnishes anything good that we might attempt. Eternal life is God’s free gift to us through Christ’s work on the Cross and his Resurrection and Ascension. God pours out extravagant, unconditional love to each of us through the Paschal Mystery, through the Sacraments, through the working of the Holy Spirit. So, in our sinfulness, the only thing we are owed outside of Christ is death. The Mosaic Law was enacted, partly to show humanity how futile it was to try to overcome our sinfulness on our own. We owed a debt we could not pay. Now that we have received salvation through Christ, and enjoy the freedom that He earned for us, what is our response to one another?
As individual baptized believers, we are God’s beloved, Christ’s brothers and sisters. But we don’t stand alone, we stand always in community with one another. As I look at any other human being, I behold another, just like me, who owed a debt they couldn’t pay and who has received God’s unconditional love, mercy, grace, and acceptance. What do they owe me? What do I owe them? In daily life, we behave as if others owe us plenty, don’t we? In our false sense of entitlement, we expect and even demand much from other people. And yet, Paul tells us, “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” God gives us this obligation to love every other human on the planet without exception. I think this responsibility becomes easier when we learn to look upon every human as the beloved of God.
God tells us, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” When I fail to love my neighbor, whoever that might be, I imagine that God might whisper to me, ‘but Elizabeth, I love that person sooooo very much.’ In God’s command to love my neighbor, I understand that prepositional phrase “as yourself” to mean ‘as an extension of yourself.’ Because of the oneness of all humanity, because of our unity in the Body of Christ, every human is connected and interconnected. I cannot understand myself to be an individual, but rather as one with my fellow humanity. Within this oneness, “as yourself” can only be understood in the context of this interconnectedness. To love my neighbor as myself is to love him or her as if they were truly part of me.
This debt of love that we owe one another calls for radical loving. Today, let us ask God to open our eyes to the reality of our oneness with the global family. Let us invite the Holy Spirit to give us the graces we need to offer every human being what we owe them, to make good on our responsibility to love them freely. Today, let us thank God for the extravagant love that makes our love even possible. Our psalm response sings, “Blessed the man who is gracious and lends to those in need.” Today, let us lend our love. Amen!
Elizabeth Wourms