Put the Cap on the Marker: Erasing the Lines Between Us and Our Neighbors

Guest Post by Candace Cofer

It’s easy to nod along when we hear commands like “Love your neighbor” (Mark 12:31). We agree it’s the positive way to live, but we have a tendency to change this command to fit the situations before us. We take it at face value when it’s someone who loves and likes us; that’s easy, requires no faith. So natural, in fact, we wouldn’t need a command from God to do it. So I’m thinking, there must be more to it than this.

When the person is different than us – in the way they talk, think, dress, eat, act, vote, or believe – suddenly loving another is not so natural. It requires some effort, and we know we’re told to love others so we muster up some energy in the form of public politeness. But, this mustering up in our own strength still doesn’t require any faith, rather it’s our own doing. When it’s our own doing and not God working through us, it’s not loving another but tolerating another.

And, we’ll even talk ourselves up in our minds for being “kind,” dare we say “loving” towards them. Their choices annoy us, and instead of writing them off, we “kindly” reduce our exposure to them. Though we may not be able to avoid them completely, we can stay over here and they over there, for it’s easier to tolerate someone in small doses.

And then, of course, there are those who are not just different or annoying, but behave or speak in unacceptable ways toward us, ways that feel not just annoying but hurtful and unloving. They don’t feel neighborly, so we use our invisible markers and draw a line between us and them.

These markers, oh we love them. Maybe I’m just admitting things about myself. Then again, maybe you’ve done the same. We’ve had these markers for as long as we can remember, and there’s no shortage of ink. If we were to zoom out and see all of our relationships and acquaintances mapped out, then one by one add the transparent layers of marker lines we’ve drawn between us and them, it would look like a page full of scribbles – nothing short of chaos.

And chaos is our reality without God. From the very beginning, in Genesis, when God created the world, He hovered over the chaos and spoke order into the chaos. This command is one of the ways God spoke order into the chaos of our relationships.

He knew we would face chaotic relationships – both the annoying and the unacceptable kinds. And, He knew we would be tempted to justify tolerating others and drawing lines between us and them. When the religious leaders asked Jesus, out of the 613 laws, which was the greatest, he answered:

“‘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.” – Matthew 22:37-40

The first – Love the Lord your God with all you have – is even more familiar to them than the Golden Rule is to us. They referred to this command as the Shema, and they quoted it daily. And, like the things we do daily – like brushing our teeth, it becomes so familiar, it’s significance is sometimes lost in the repetition. Jesus was saying, “Hmm, which command is most important? You know that one you say everyday? Live it. Don’t let it just be words only, but actually let it seep down into your heart and dictate all of your choices. Everything else flows from your devotion to God.”

But, he doesn’t stop there, even though they only asked for one. He continued, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We attribute this to Jesus in the New Testament, but Jesus was quoting the law in Leviticus 19 which outlines how to treat others, saying “Love your neighbor as yourself” in verse 18. You see, this was God’s command from the beginning.

Interestingly, he says, “the second is like it.” All of your life, every choice you make, flows out of your heart. Let love rule in your heart. Let God rule in your heart. Then, and only then, can you overcome the tangled temptation for sin – like that temptation to tolerate or the temptation to take the cap off that marker and draw some lines between us and them.

I believe God’s heart in giving this command was something like this:

“I know you’re going to feel tempted to do this, but trust Me, that only ever ends in death. There’s no good which comes of this for you or for them. Love is the only way to experience the abundance of life. And, if you knew what I knew – if you knew the tangled up places of fear and hurt and insecurity in their heart which is causing their behavior to feel prickly towards you, you would have compassion towards them. Trust Me to handle the heart issues; your focus is loving them and forgiving them because you have freely received love and forgiveness from Me.”

Love them as you love yourself. I believe this means we have to first start with connection to God – loving God with all we have. Then, as we learn and grow in our knowledge and love of God, we learn about ourselves – who we are – so desperately in need of God’s grace and at the same time so completely loved as a child of God. We must come to understand those places in our hearts that are tangled and need the light of God’s love. And, the only way we can connect deeply with who we really are – to really love who we are and who we are becoming is to connect intimately with our Creator – to receive His unconditional love for us and respond in love for God – with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. Out of this well of connection and being rooted in this love can we live out the second command – to love our neighbor as ourself. It is from this connection, connecting with God and then with ourselves, that we then connect with others in a meaningful and selfless way.

Here’s the thing: God loves them as much as He loves us. We don’t always understand it but I also can’t say I understand why Someone would willingly die on a cross either when He had the power to not, so I’ll forever be taking in every opportunity to be strengthened with the Holy Spirit to leave the cap on the marker and “come and see” this narrow way.

Our strength to love others the way Christ has loved us comes as we spend time in God’s Word and open our hearts to the love He has for each of us. Our joy grows not as our circumstances get easier or our relationships less prickly but as we ask God to help us see others the way He sees them. Our peace grows as we follow Christ’s example, choosing this narrow way to rich relationships. We experience the rest Christ has for us as we cherish the gift of togetherness and trust, though it is not always natural, it is worth our surrender, for it is God’s design for abundant life from the beginning.

The good life, well it starts with a good day. Then another. Then another. Let’s choose to live #TheGoodDay one day at a time.