“Owe no one anything, except to love one another,” Paul writes. The Ten Commandments and the whole of the first covenant’s law are fulfilled in this single commandment to love. Love your neighbor as yourself, and you will have manifested the will of God.
But the closer we get to November’s election, the harder this commandment seems. Loving our neighbor sounds plausible in a world where everyone sees eye to eye, agrees on what is right and wrong, and respects the same measures of fairness and equity. Loving our neighbor sounds possible when we share common values and rules of play, when we trust the neighbor’s good intentions, when we respect the same measures of justice.
It gets dicey when these presumptions are stripped away. When one neighbor prioritizes the freedom to bear arms as an inalienable right, and another neighbor cherishes the freedom to wed their same-sex partner, and neither understands the other; when one neighbor promotes individual responsibility to earn a living, and another neighbor advocates minimum wage and health care for all, and neither trusts the other. It is harder still when public leaders stoke the fires of distrust and contempt. What does it mean to love our neighbor in times like these?
